[vannrox]

An excellent read...

Before the Seventeenth Amendment the federal government remained stable and small. Following the Amendment's adoption it has grown dramatically.

The conventional wisdom is that it was FDR's New Deal that radically increased the size and power of federal government. But scholars make a convincing case that this conventional wisdom is wrong, and that instead, it was the Seventeenth Amendment (along with the Sixteenth Amendment, which created federal income tax and was also adopted in 1913) that was the driving force behind federal expansion.

[H.Akston]

Some may argue that if you do away with the 17th Amendment (which I support doing away with) You'll have people in Congress who can directly tax you, without directly representing you. Therefore, in principle the 16th Amendment would have to fall like a domino behind the 17th.