Proposal to Amend the US Constitution: The 28th Amendment.

“The federal government did not create the States. The States created the federal government.” – Ronald Reagan

“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.” – Alexis De Tocqueville

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The Congress shall not have power to lay and collect income taxes, excise taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, and capitation taxes within the borders of any State. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect a revenue-tax which shall be based solely on a State’s accrued revenue. Congress shall not grant tax exemptions, deductions, or credits to any State except in cases of relief assistance for catastrophe and strain.

All provisions of this Amendment shall enact after one year from its ratification.

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1) Each State government becomes the sole tax levier of all possible domestic tax revenue within its borders.

2) The Federal Government can now only gain its primary funding by taxing the revenues of State governments.

1) An adamant tax shield in the form of all the States’ governments is erected between the citizens and the Federal Government.

3) A revolutionary new tax system is born based on perpetual competition: the State governments collectively versus the Federal Government – where the voters referee.

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Currently, the Federal Government bypasses each and every State government to intrude directly into the personal wealth of the States’ citizens. This Amendment interposes all of the State governments between the Federal Government and the States’ citizens. By pitting State governments collectively against the Federal Government for competitive management of tax dollars: we get a new and desperately needed check & balance on government powers.

Fifty Governors backed by their State legislatures will consistently and emphatically argue directly to their citizens that the Federal Government is too big, is wasting too much money, and is charging way too much in taxes. Obviously these arguments are not new. But what is new is the political power structure that will compel all State governments to make these unending appeals to their voters.

But here is the master key of the proposed 28th Amendment: State governments will share a crucial interest with their citizens in that they will both want to keep Federal taxes low. They will both want to have their Federal Government limited in scope to only those programs and expenditures which are absolutely necessary. And for the first time in our Republic’s history, we will see government dedicated to the lowering of Federal taxes.

To fully understand the nature of this new political power structure, it is important to highlight some key and intractable realities that will underpin it. First, the only plausible way one will be able to get elected Governor (or to the State legislature) will be to ardently promise to keep a hawk’s eye on how the Federal Government spends the money it levies from the State. Office seekers will religiously promise that they will immediately take the Federal Government to task at the first sign of an excuse to raise taxes on the States. But note: these will not be the empty, halfhearted promises that politicians routinely make solely to win over voter sentiment. Rather, these promises are certainties because every ten million dollars that elected State officeholders must hand over to the Federal Government is ten million less dollars of State money that they themselves have the power to spend. Candidates for State office will absolutely mean it when they promise to watch Federal spending like a hawk and to stridently object to any suggestion of a tax raise. – Because these Federal Government actions will be genuine threats to their fiscal power as Governors and State legislators. (Never get between a politician and his bona fide power.) Therefore, all fifty State governments will be constantly watchful for extraneous Federal programs and wasted money. Every gross Federal inefficiency will be pounced on by every Governor and State legislature. “That’s money our State could have used! Teachers we could have paid; roads we could have repaired; sanitation plants we could have invested in…” The fifty State governments will be unanimous in their outrage and speak in unison in their condemnation.

So it is obvious that to secure their own financial interests, the States will meticulously hawk the Federal Government and thereby impose lucid transparency on its fiscal practices. Sunshine will illuminate Congressional budgets before funds are appropriated – because the States (reinforced by their mutually interested and focused voters) will demand it.

This permanent transparency leads to another key intractable reality: there will be ZERO PARTY LOYALTY regarding State fiscal accountability. Any sitting US Senator who votes to raise the States Tax Rate when it is not an absolute and obvious necessity will be publicly and repeatedly denounced by the Governor and State legislature. No voting citizen will be happy with a Senator’s spotlighted profligacy siphoning big money out of the State. Moreover, by pledging to hold the line on the States Tax Rate, an election challenger will earn a continuous stream of enthusiastic endorsements from influential State officeholders and power players culminating with the Governor. Anyone who hopes to serve in the Congress for more than one term will fulfill this pledge as a matter of political survival. When it comes to protecting the State’s financial wellbeing, party affiliation at the Federal level will be wholly irrelevant. Each US Senator and House Representative will be viewed as either helping the State’s finances or hurting the State’s finances. There will be no in between.

When State public opinion prevails that an increase in the States Tax Rate is unnecessary, as a Senator you had better be on record as voting against it. But when State public opinion suggests that an increase in the States Tax Rate is warranted to help sure up a well managed Federal program, then you had better triple check the budget projection to make sure it won’t blow up in your face three months later should a gross and inexcusable oversight come to light. After all, it might be hard to find one of the better jobs in your State after being reviled and subsequently voted out of office for budgetary incompetence that hurt your State’s financial interests.

Currently, when an incumbent is voted out of office, it is not usually based on genuine and lasting hard feelings. For the most part, the voting sentiment is far more generalized. Perhaps a Senator’s national party is perceived as taking the country in the wrong direction. Maybe he gaffed in an unscripted moment handing his opponent a marginal but decisive advantage at the polls. The challenger might simply be more likeable or have a significant campaign funding advantage. Rarely is a US Senator or House Representative tossed out of office because the voters angrily concluded that he had directly hurt their State’s financial interests. Those are hard feelings. And politicians will work extra hard and be extra careful to avoid instigating those hard feelings among the fellow citizens of his State. In the process of throwing away his cushy job in the nation’s Capitol, a House Representative could cause his future, private-sector prospects to be somewhat diminished. The scrutinizing mechanisms of the proposed 28th Amendment will especially incentivize elected Federal officeholders to heed their State’s voters.

Naturally there will be occasions when raising Federal taxes will be warranted. But the Congress will feel compelled to openly and coherently present its budget projections to the States well beforehand so that the necessity for an increase is clearly demonstrated. Merely as a matter of political survival, Congress will automatically give the States ample opportunity to review the Federal budget prior to the enactment of a tax increase. Additionally, the Congress will go out of its way to prove that there are no special-interest earmarks laden with pork-barrel waste hidden somewhere in the bill. Sunshine transparency will be the only way members of Congress will feel like they can give themselves political cover with their State’s voters. If it should happen that a fiscal projection turned out to be way off, maybe the voters will give Congressional members a pass this time since everyone (including the Governors) had carefully analyzed the same numbers and arrived at the same conclusions. Only if they and their budget are perceived as being upfront and transparent will they have a shot at political survival when the inevitable mistake is made.

This new political power structure will necessitate that: clarity, concision, honesty, and advance notice are automatic Federal budget prerequisites. – So as not to openly insult the States or harm their interests and thereby incur their ousting fury. Indeed it will be in the immediate financial interest of all State governments, as well as the citizens they represent, to insure that theirs is a transparently efficient and competent Federal Government. To this mutual interest, the fifty States will likely form a National Auditing Association (acronymically pronounced “nah”) dedicated solely to the constant and exacting audit of the Federal budget for telltale signs of waste and corruption.

Summation thus far: In that citizens and their State governments will share the mutual financial interest of keeping Federal taxes low, voter awareness will be sharply raised against every Congressional member who might vote for a wasteful or excessive budget. – Because such budgets will always directly harm every State’s financial interests. And this of course means that there will rarely be a Federal budget that is significantly wasteful and excessive. And as rare as such a profligate budge will be, its propagating members will be all the rarer as they become politically extinct in the next election cycle.

But now realize that the Federal Government will also pour over each of the fifty States’ budgets to verify their revenue collections & expenditures. The Fed is always going to make absolutely certain that it is getting its fair share. We will no longer need an IRS dedicated to the futile and harassing “service” of auditing hundreds of millions of working Americans. Instead, the Federal Government will focus its exacting auditing practices on each of the State’s budgets and revenue accruals. And where there are discrepancies, inefficiencies, waste, and fraud in a State’s budget: these will be glaringly exposed. US Senators will sustain long careers and launch Presidential bids based on aggressive committee investigations into State budgetary waste and malfeasance. Congressional Representatives will give their Congressional service real purpose and distinguish themselves in the media glow by naming names (even in their own party) of State officeholders who have irresponsibly squandered their State’s largesse on fat, sweetheart contracts for exorbitantly overpriced favors doubling as State projects.

So yes, the new political power structure of “government hawking after government” works for the American people in both directions. Transparency will go from bogus campaign rhetoric to competitive reality. The Federal and State governments will impose transparency and accountability on each other because exposing fraud, waste, and inefficiency in the other entity will be necessary to secure each of their own financial and political interests.

As it stands, Governors and State legislatures have no motivation to scrutinize and argue against the Federal budget. When the Federal Government reduces income taxes on US citizens at large, the Virginia State treasury does not gain spending power. And why would the Governor of Texas want to wade chest deep into relentlessly scrutinizing the Federal Government’s budget? He would make countless political enemies (even within his own party) which would preclude him from ever being able to run for President or the US Senate. Worse, he would provoke a reciprocal and aggressive Federal investigation into his State’s budget and into his Governorship. (It is not that some State Governors are never publicly critical of Federal waste in the most general sense. But it is that such rare public criticism is unexacting, without priority, and without the unanimously concerted effort of the fellow forty nine Governors.) Likewise the Federal Government does not bother inspecting the States’ budgets because it also does not want to provoke reciprocal scrutiny from the States. And not only does the Federal Government already have vastly superior fiscal power; but any waste it would discover in a State’s finances would not redound to more money in the Federal Treasury. So when it comes to matters of taxation, expenditures, and budgets: it is essentially in their mutual interests to stay out of each others' business. – Which is business as usual. However, under the 28th Amendment they will be forced to investigate and compete with each others’ business.

The proposed 28th Amendment necessarily establishes a salutary competition between the US Congress and the collective State governments such that they contest each other over marginal increases of access to citizen tax dollars. It creates a zero sum game such that when one side wins the argument in the form of elections, the other side loses power in the form of tax dollars. Obviously, regardless of which side wins, the tax dollars ultimately get spent on services for taxpaying citizens. The question will always be which side is most competent and trusted to spend the margin of tax dollars in question. As a result, their budgets will become increasingly concise and balanced.

Fear of each others’ scrutiny will generate a permanent state of transparency. And why shouldn’t the elected members of the US Congress have to fear the wrathful and influential condemnation of our State governments regarding how citizen tax dollars are spent? And why shouldn’t the elected members of State governments have to face intense Federal scrutiny regarding how they spend their resident citizens’ tax dollars? And why should citizens have to serve two tax masters? Why not just one?

Consider that at any given moment, a majority of US citizens have the general impression that their Federal Government is wasteful and inefficient. And yet only rarely does this general impression become so inflamed that it results in serious political change at the Federal level. – And then only temporarily and never sufficiently. Here is why. There are always ninety eight US Senators and four hundred and thirty four House Representatives that every single citizen in this country has no vote over. As individual citizens, we have absolutely no say over whether the vast majority of these wasteful lawmakers stay or go. The permanent political effect is that responsibility for federal legislation utterly disappears into anonymity. The Federal Government as an entity has a voter constituency so diffuse and unconnected that this constituency is fundamentally ineffective until well past too late. As an analogy, imagine that the only way the human body could detect pain was when its skin caught on fire. Our Republic’s voting citizenry is virtually numb to its Federal tax collection and expenditures system. The body politic does not detect the serious damage being done to it until it is engulfed in horrible fiscal crisis. Then the ‘solution’ is instinctive and without precision. The only lasting result is that deeper scar tissue forms and the body politic is more numb than ever.

Is it any wonder that the Federal Government passes laws that are thousands of pages in length and that include grossly excessive pork barrel earmarks wholly unrelated to the purpose of the bill and to the exclusive benefit of special interests? Is it any wonder they are thoughtlessly crushing our country with trillions of dollars of debt and deficit spending? Is it any wonder they have amassed one hundred and eight trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities? And we are only just starting to feel the heat.

These insane fiscal practices have been going on for nearly a century, and it has long since been obvious that they will never stop. It does not matter who we send to Congress. As a group they will always abuse their power because of the structure of the Federal tax and spend system. Generation after generation of college educated US Senators and House Representatives (the majority of whom have been accomplished and highly competent lawyers) have constantly wasted staggering amounts of money, run huge deficits, and thereby generated colossally unsustainable debt. – Specifically because it was not their money they were spending. Alexis De Tocqueville said, “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.” But they stopped bribing us with our money years ago. They are bribing us with our children's money!

Fellow Americans, we must Constitutionally change the structure of our Federal tax collection system (make it truly competitively representative) or the Federal Government will continue to crush us with malfeasant debt until our economy totally collapses. The concept contained in the proposed 28th Amendment will establish that very needed change and so preserve and advance our Republic. It does not favor a political party; it does not favor an ideology; it does not favor a social agenda. It favors fiscal sanity regarding trillions of American citizen tax dollars. It favors safeguarding our long term financial solvency as a Republic. It favors preserving the American legacy for future generations. And it unfailingly mandates transparency, accountability, and efficiency by compelling government to compete to demonstrate its competence to the citizens it represents and serves.

To see how the proposed 28th Amendment kills Congressional Vote-Trading for Pork-Favors and thereby sharply reverses the trend of Federal deficit spending, link to:

To see how States’ Rights are augmented under the proposed 28th Amendment, link to:

To see the argument as to why a Balanced Budget Amendment is impractical, link to:

Regarding the status of cities and counties under the proposed 28th Amendment, link to:

Regarding the status of business corporations and visiting foreigners under the proposed 28th Amendment, link to:

The body of the above content (the document in toto) is posted on Google Docs at:

In order to revise Congress’s Constitutional powers of taxation, it is neither necessary nor desirable to repeal the 16th Amendment. In many (but not all) ways the proposed 28th Amendment will supersede the 16th Amendment. Consider that the 17th Amendment superseded various portions of Article I without making explicit reference to those portions. Moreover, the 16th Amendment did not give Congress the authority to levy income taxes. Congress already had that authority via Article I section eight. Rather, the 16th Amendment clarified the broad extent of Congress’s power to levy income taxes. This was necessary because there had been some confusion over the intersection of apportionment, enumeration, and direct versus indirect tax sourcing – all of which are stipulated by the Constitution.

Since under the proposed 28th Amendment, the US Congress will still have the power to levy income taxes (as well as any other taxes) in the District of Columbia and the US Territories, the clarifications provided by the 16th Amendment are still necessary.

Ending the power of Congress to levy income taxes on State inhabitants is only one important part of the proposed 28th Amendment.

Congress DID have a 91% tax rate just a few years ago. When they legalize 100 million Mexicans over the next few years, what stops them then from taxing the remaining right-of-center Gringos 90%?

Congress will soon be taxing your weight with a FAT tax just as they now tax your skin color with the tanning tax.

The states became irrelevant with the 17th Amendment. But your state reps collude in all this.

A 90% tax on state revenue does not mean 90% on individuals, so no revolution . The states won't object because it will be doled back just as it is now, from each state according to its ability to each according to its need. That dole reduces the NET extraction to a tolerable level but leaves the feds with the power. You have to ban the federal government not only from taxing too much but they can't be allowed to fund anything in the states either.

That means you need an Amendment that strips away almost all Art. I Sec. 8 powers down to common defense and nothing else or the states and feds will continue to collude.

But if "equal protection" becomes too inconvenient, they'll just change it to "~~equal~~ protection" - as in racket.

Just imagine I'm a "justice" on the Supreme Court.

I think that we are still a nation of laws more so than a nation of men.

Just an example: The nation's law is that people who come to this country without permission or overstay must be deported. But the bureaucracy of men doesn't bother to keep track of most of them. The police of men only occasionally round a few up for publicity. The judiciary of men finds endless excuses to let them stay. The states of men are prevented by federal authorities of men from deporting anybody.

Let me know when you stop dreaming.

I do not disagree in principle with the philosophy of your point. I believe in encouraging private sector charity to handle the needs of the suffering.

But realize that the catastrophe/strain exception in the 28th Amendment does not _require_ the Congress to issue deductions, exemptions, or credits in cases such that a State is experiencing catastrophe/strain. - It merely allows Congress the option.

If we remove that clause, Congress still has options - they’re just more expensive. Congress could still pass a bill appropriating funds to pump hundreds of billions in emergency relief to a strained State (a la Louisiana after Katrina). But as we know, anytime the Fed hands out money, it does so with great inefficiency. It’s much better to allow Congress to provide tax exemptions to States that have catastrophes than to ‘triple count’ tax dollars by handing them from citizens to their States to the Federal Government back to a State in crisis. Just in the process of the Fed counting the tax dollars it collects, money gets wasted.

We don’t want to put a cap on how high government can raise taxes because sometimes it is necessary for us to fight wars or deal with financial melt-downs.

The ‘State governments hawking after Federal Government hawking after State governments’ mechanism that the 28th Amendment establishes will keep Federal taxes low by virtue of the competitive and transparent interactions between the two.

who have a financially vested interest

But since the 17th Amendment, they have no direct vote on the matter.

The Feds can and have put in a 90+% tax rate before - just not on everybody.

It will be much easier for the Feds to put a 90% tax bite on the states. All they have to do is take over 90% of the function of the states in exchange.

Look how Medicare is going. It's taking a large and growing chunk of every states income. At some point, the Feds just step in and say we're taking Medicare over completely and the states must now fork over another 25% of their revenue. The cycle is: Increase the mandated spending on area X for the state until it's unendurable, take area X over in exchange for another chunk of state revenue

This can happen with education, just with a slow expansion of the NCLB mandates. Any government function can be transferred from state to federal responsibility this way, as long as you don't recognized Constitutional limits on Federal authority.

And given enough money to pay off a few states here and there, there would not be a united front of 50 governors fighting this.

There has never been a 91% tax on all American earners. That is simply untrue.

Where you say that a 90% tax on State revenue does not mean a 90% tax on individuals is to somehow miss the point of the 28th Amendment. It is the individual citizen who pays taxes to his State (and ONLY to his State). It will not exactly be a secret when the Congress proposes to raise the State Tax Rate who is going to ultimately end up paying for the increase. Governors might be helpful pointing this out (screaming from the top of their lungs) to their citizens - because the State power they get to govern will be greatly diminished by the tax increase. - To the tune of billions upon billions of dollars. You say State governments will go along with this for the typical Federal dole out? No they won’t. What can a Congressman legally give to a Governor such that the Governor will say, “Yeah, go ahead take money billions of dollars of power out of the State I am running.”? The whole point of Federal deficit spending is that the Fed Gov spends BIG money it does not have. Whatever pork a Congressman brings back to the State: A)is less than what the State pays to fund the pork of the other States; and B)is not something the Governor gets to control or take credit for. You’re the one dreaming if you think Governors will give up billions of dollars of State power in exchange for a pittance of pork that they will have no say in the administration of. You’re in a deep sleep if you think the average citizen will be happy to hear that billions of dollars is leaving his State to fund the pork in other States. That’s money that could have been used to pay for his kids’ schools or to pay police salaries or to fix one of the pot holes he drives over every day. The whole point of the 28th Amendment is that it establishes an inescapable system that starkly exposes these discrepancies because State governments lose BIG MONEY POWER in the face of such discrepancies. Citizens of a State will never stand for it, and their Congressional representatives will never be able to hold office based on it.

It would have gone from 3% of net to 3% of gross to 3% of wealth which would be redefined as "income" every Jan. 1.

Maybe, but probably not. Had there been a limit in the 16th Amendment, it would have meant that the Progressives weren't that strong, or the anti-Progressives not that gullible.

I just think that we would have had a slower progression, had the conservatives been a bit more conservative in their grant of new taxing power.

Then all coinage sdould be gold, silver...

That doesn't work anymore because there are insuffient quantities for a fractional reserve world economy that is so much larger than those commodities. People didn't own much when those could regulate the economy. Gold would have to be $50,000 in current dollars per ounce. Think of the deflation that would have occured over the last 80 years with 1 oz. = $20.67. A nice house would be $80.

Look at the price spikes. There is no reason to fix apples against gold and be eating them one day and polishing them the next because the government ran out of gold.

Slowhandluke,

Under the proposed 28th Amendment, ALL tax pasture in a State will be the exclusive province of that State’s government. All State governments are far more sensitive and responsive to their voters than is the Federal Government to its voters because it is obviously easier to effect change at the State level than at the Federal level.

Obviously, it will be much harder for the Fed Gov to raise taxes on the COLLECTION of the 50 State governments because State governments are organized and directly invested in spending HUGE amounts of money to manage the affairs of their States. When they have to give up billions of dollars to the Fed to fund things like “the study of bovine flatulence in the State of Connecticut” there will be bloody hell to pay. Forty Nine Governors will say hell no! - And their citizens might just agree with them.

Tell me, how could you as a Senator get re-elected in your State if you voted yes on a budget bill that brought back at best a few hundred million dollars in pet pork projects but in exchange you send billions of dollars out of your State? (You are aware this is essentially the deficit spending works, aren’t you??)

Nobody said there had been a 91% tax on all earners, just that the top rate for some was 91%. Having established that as a possible rate, putting a 50% tax on states doesn't seem so bad. The states aren't likely to pass that directly through, so there will still be some folks who don't pay taxes and so don't care.

You are way, way too hopeful about politicians not being bought off. You don't have to buy them all off, just the last few (Landrieu, Nelson). If the money goes to their state, it takes a goodly amount. If the money goes to their own pocket, not so much. Just look at how many of the folks we send to Washington end up rich. Either their wife becomes a lobbyist, or they get wonderful investment help. The buyouts come in both subtle and crude forms.

This will take some pre-planning. Look at George Soros Secretary-of-State effort. One (or more) of his groups worked to get far leftist folks elected to Secretary of State positions so they could turn a blind eye to ACORN election rigging. They can do the same thing for the Governor slots. There is no natural law requiring governors to be loyal to their own state, or to be honest. Do you thing Governor Blago-whatever could not be bought off?

Medicare and No-Child-Left-Behind are the model on how this is going to work. Raise the mandates to where the states can't pay, and then take over both the program and the funding source.

And when the Federal Rate goes up, the PR story will be that the States just need to tax their rich a little more.

I live in New Jersey. Billions go out of New Jersey and a pittance comes back. Liberals won't yell much if "It's for the Children". H*ll, even at a state level, our RINO governor has decided to keep shoveling money to the failed big city schools and cut money to all the suburban schools. And not enough folks are complaining.

It doesn't matter how little pork comes back, if the pork goes to the governor's friends and supporters. There are some governors who might actually think about the state, but probably not enough.

If you want the states to keep the Feds at arm's length, then just rescind the 17th Amendment, giving the states real power in Washington again.

Regarding post #45, I have to ask Slowhandluke the same thing I asked you: What can the Congress legally give to a State’s Governor such that the Governor is fine with giving up billions upon billions of dollars of State power? “How does a nice three hundred million dollar bridge to nowhere grab ya’? You won’t be in charge of overseeing that, of course. And it’s the Congressional representatives from your State that will get the lions share of the credit for ‘bringing home the bacon’. But surely won’t squawk if the State you’re empowered to govern gives up a few measly billion dollars in exchange for that three hundred million dollar pork project. Right?”

Slowhand,

The point of a 91% rate on all American earners had never been levied and never will was simply to demonstrate that it was even more absurd to think that State governments and their citizens would roll over for such an absurdity. The Congress has the power to raise the tax rate that high under our current system and under the system that would be established by the proposed 28th Amendment. However, despite having the power, Congress cannot raise the tax rate that high under either system because it has not political willpower.

The billions don’t go up in smoke (entirely.) They come back through all kinds of payments to individuals and agencies. Seeing it up to the feds in one bundle will be even easier to justify as a good “investment” when they total up all the payouts to individuals and agencies in the state. It just saves them the trouble of calculating the outflow, which every state gov does anyway. They know the net now. The “return” on the “investment”, of course, will be the ponzied deficit, minus direct federal expenses on overseas defense and foreign aid, just like it’s done now.

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