Repeal 17th Amendment

Thanks for the links. I think it was the cumulative effect of scandals and incompetence that made the difference. People put up with it for a long time and then one highly publicized mess is the straw that breaks the camel's back.

I think it was probably more the 16th Amendment that made the difference in changing the shape of our governance. Under the Articles of Confederation, the federal government had to beg from the states. The Constitution allowed it to levy excise taxes and tariffs. It could carry its own weight, as could the states. The 16th Amendment allowed the federal government a deep reach into our pockets. Deficit spending, withholding taxes and the end of the gold standard made that reach go even further into our resources. Federal programs and pretentions grew, and states and the rest of society became beggars for federal funds. The 17th couldn't show anything like this effect.

So a question: what would have happened if the 16th Amendment didn't pass, but the problems of the 20th century -- wars, depressions, political conflicts, the needs of economic development -- remained? Would we bow out of some of these difficulties? Would the federal government turn to the states for funding? Would this give the states the upper hand? Or would tax hungry politicians find some other way out? I suspect the money of the millionaires was too tempting a honey pot to keep out of. But what if the amendment had specified a maximum rate of ten or twenty percent? C.N. Parkinson did a tongue in cheek analysis of the question.

I think you are probably right about Archie Butt. April 1912 was probably too late to change anything.

It's also curious how TR's, LaFollette's and Hiram Johnson's radical innovations were those made use of in the late 20th century by conservatives fed up with judicial overreaching and legislative entrenchment. Many a conservative must have been tempted at times by the prospect of recall of judicial decisions. I suspect Jefferson might have salivated at that, were it a power of state legislatures.

Here's a few sites for you:
Theodore Roosevelt Association,
Theodore Roosevelt's Works,
Conservative Reform.

Maybe you could do something for Taft.
Taft.org really doesn't cut it.
Nor does this strange site.

You brought us full circle here with,

So a question: what would have happened if the 16th Amendment didn't pass, but the problems of the 20th century -- wars, depressions, political conflicts, the needs of economic development -- remained? Would we bow out of some of these difficulties? Would the federal government turn to the states for funding? Would this give the states the upper hand? Or would tax hungry politicians find some other way out? I suspect the money of the millionaires was too tempting a honey pot to keep out of. But what if the amendment had specified a maximum rate of ten or twenty percent? C.N. Parkinson did a tongue in cheek analysis of the question.

There is no good tax. There are only worse and worser. Ironically, in 1909, when the 16th Amendment was sent to the States, the tariff accounted for less than 1/2 of Federal revenues. In 1929, the income tax accounted for less than 1/2 of Federal revenue.

[We will note the spike during WWI -- which, like the Civil War income tax, was lowered afterwards]

What gives here is that Federal demands preceded the tax. The difference is that of taxes, only the income tax could produce when Federal demands skyrocketed during the Depression and, more accutely, WWII.

I love to watch the retail tax folk get off on how bad the income tax is. If the income tax was so bad, it wouldn't work. Frankly, and I hate to say it, folks, it's worked. Maybe the retail tax would work, or whatever, maybe a breathing tax, but it'll not change the nature of taxes: the rates follow the demand.

That is, dear x, to say that you are wrong that the income tax caused the growth of the Federal government. You would, however, be correct to say that it enabled it.

I have no illusions that repeal of the 17th amendment will magically resuscitate the 10th Amendment. It won't. I call for its repeal to reconnect that line between the local voter and the local representative, and the House representative with the State house.

The most insidious effect of the 17th amendment is the destruction of representative democracy. As you say, Hiram Johson's greatest victory came in the form of Prop 17, which he would have loathed, poor bastard. This doesn't make me a fan of the initiative. (I love the irony.) The initiative would not be necessary if the people had more interest in and control of their local governments. The 17th is an impediment against it. It was a problem to a solution to a problem.

I don't know how much one can separate "causing" from "enabling." The immediate causes of the growth of government were wars and depressions and scandals involving private enterprise. But if the funds weren't potentially present, such causes wouldn't have had as much effect. I suspect, though, that in the age of world wars, it was as inevitable that the income tax would eventually come as it was that the draft would be imposed (this may give some moment for thought now that we no longer have the draft).

I believe some versions of the 16th Amendment would have limited the maximum rate of taxes that could be extracted. It might have been a good idea to have done so. Current liberal philosophy disapproves of "encumbering" the ideal Constitution with specific provisions. It's supposed to be simply broad, sweeping absolute provisions. But this leaves the meaning of the document wholly up to the courts, and it neglects the painstaking compromises on specific provisions that created the original document.

If the 16th Amendment had not gone through or had been adopted in a more limited form would the federal government have gone to the states to get their tax moneys -- rather than the reverse happening? It would certainly be an interesting scenario. Would it mean more power for the states?

One reason I'm sceptical of the anti-17th Amendment arguments, though: I don't know how strong a division you can draw between the federal government and the states. I look and see politicians and bureaucrats on both sides: federal politicians who may have come up through state legislatures and state politicians who aspire to become US Senators and Congressmen, and bureaucrats who are the same on both sides of the fence. To be sure conflicts are possible, but it's not clear that the states still represent the kind of powerful and distinctive interests that they did in 1787.

Had we encouraged and promoted maximum differentiation beween the states, had we retained the Articles of Confederation and encouraged the states to have their own currency, own tariffs and own established churches, the states would remain truly distinctive interests, and perhaps the union would not have lasted until today. But the general trend has been for the states to grow closer together and more similar. There's still reason for the division of powers between the federal and state governments, but we don't think of Massachusetts or Mississippi as powerful interests that need to defend themselves against Alabama and Rhode Island.

What also gets missed in the argument for repeal is the "buck passing" aspect. Someone should study how federal and state governments work together, how Congress benefits by the reserved powers of the states, and how state legislatures live quieter lives by passing tough questions up the ladder. In other words, to what degree are federal and state governments jealously insistent on their powers and in what way do they work together to increase the benefit of each. Notice that I speak of federal and state governments. There's been a tendency among some to think of the states as "the people" and the federal government as leviathan. If we focus on state governments we may get a different view.

BTW, Teddy Roosevelt lives and history repeats itself. Check out this thread on neo-conservatives. The doctrine of public virtue isn't connected firmly to big government or small government. In one generation it's tied to Jeffersonian restraint and limitation. In the next the same rhetoric promotes more Hamiltonian projects of institution-building. There seems to be an oscillation between periods of activist and more restrained government, and like TR, Kristol and his associates are getting drawn away with the new tide of bigger government.

I guess another of history's what ifs, is what if TR hadn't ruled out a second term. Had he run in 1908 and won, he may not have lurched to the left. And 11 or 12 years in office might have worn him out more than 7 or 8 did.

I misstated that it was an "irony" that the tariff constituted less than half the Federal revenue of 1909. Rather, it was the compulsion for a new tax.

In 1909, the biggest drains on the Treasury were "river and harbor" projects and naval vessels. The former was pork justified by the Commerce Clause, and no different from whatever is spent today; the latter was inarguably constitutional, and decried by Democrats, anyway. The only difference is that where the tariff was incapable the income tax has paid for today's government.

Every increase in the income tax has followed demands upon the Treasury, and that includes Clintoon's 1994 increase. The excuse may be ludicrous, but the rationale is always the same.

You wrote,

But if the funds weren't potentially present, such causes wouldn't have had as much effect.

That is half correct. Certainly Congress spends what it has. There would be no word "deficit" if it were otherwise. This is the distinction I make between "causing" and "enabling." When Congress needs the money, it either makes it or squeezes it from wherever it can find it. If the Federal government weren't funded by income taxes today, it'd be funded by taxes on cocaine or retail sales. As in 1909, Congress goes for money where it can be found. It is only limited by political realities. This is the genius of federalism, which the 17th has clipped.

[I can never say enough that 70% income tax rates would not exist if the rich paid them, and this includes today's Europe. Talk about "enabling." There is nothing like a high tax to help the rich keep what they have and keep the middle middle and the poor poor. But I wander.]

Let's imagine had the 16th amendment failed. What, then, of Federal revenue? I suggest that when it came time for the National government to spend its billions on WWI, the Depression, and WWII, the Feds would have forced the States to cough up their own income taxes. It may have happened under duress, or have been specifically enumerated by population, but it would have happened. The need created the tax, not the other way around.

In that scenario, were Senate a State rather than a National office, I'd imagine that the Federal Government would be making far more apologies to Governors that it does today.

I'm not saying we need to go back to the Articles of Confederation. I know you say this for argument. I am suggesting an electorate that is more involved in its local prerogatives. I'm suggesting a Massachusetts less concerned with, or less influential upon, Texas, and vice versa. The more competition between the States the better; Federal predominance has largely destroyed it.

Instead, we have a situation in which the rich states are unwilling to let the poor states fail. It was not the 17th amendment that lowered poverty levels in Alabama. Rather, the 17th amendment exascerbated Alabama -- or NYC -- poverty by "enabling" it through federalization of the problem.

Just a thought.

I'm glad for your reading of TR. Exactly.

Two items from the This Week in Senate History website:

September 28, 1913: President Woodrow Wilson wrote to a close friend confidentially venting his frustration with several Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee who were blocking what he considered to be high priority legislation. "Why should public men, senators of the United States, have to be led and stimulated to what all the country knows to be their duty? Why should they see less clearly, apparently, than anyone else what the straight path to service is! To whom are they listening? Certainly not to the voice of the people, when they quib[b]le and twist and hesitate."

October 1, 1963: The Senate revised its rules to allow former presidents to address members in the chamber "upon formal written notice to the Presiding Officer." In earlier years, the Senate had occasionally considered without enthusiasm constitutional amendments providing that former chief executives could serve as at-large senators, allowing them to offer guidance on significant issues. Since the adoption of this rule, several former presidents have visited the chamber and made informal remarks, but none has yet requested permission to deliver a formal address.

Wilson must have been a real pain in the neck. Forever complaining. Barber's neurotic active-negative type of President.

And lest we think that everything Congress has done to the Constitution since 1912 or 1865 has been a mistake, at least they did spare us "Bill Clinton, At Large Senator For Life."

I love that Wilson quotation. Was it over the tariff? Wilson called a special session for it and didn't sign a bill until October that year, I think, a horrifyingly long session back then. Anyway, I wonder how quickly people around him caught on to his god-awful personality?

During and after the 1912 election, some serious and much not-serious thought was given as to what to do with ex-Presidents. Carnegie offered a pension, effective only with the first ex-president after March, 1913 (to snub Roosevelt). Others, as you noted, suggested a permanent seat in the Congress. Taft thought that one would be a fitting punishment for Roosevelt. Or, he suggested "Dr. Osler's Method,"

"the proper and scientific administration of a dose of chloroform, or of the fruit of the lotus tree... the funeral pyre... might make a fitting end to the life of one who has held the highest office, and at the same time would secure the country from the troublesome fear that the occupant could ever come back."

Thanks for the Barber link. I'm surprised to see TR in the "passive positive" category, although seeing Carter, Ford, & Clinton in the "Active Positives" makes me think I'd better keep reading -- or forget about the "psychological approach" to history. The most awful biography of Taft was William Howard Taft: An Intimate History by Judith Icke Anderson. She analyzed his presidency from the perspective of his 350-lb capacity scale. It's a stupid book.

Barber did a pretty good job with presidential character when he wrote his book in the 1970s. It was pretty clear that there were at least three kinds of Presidents. Those who tried to be activists and enjoyed the job (FDR, JFK). Those who believed in more limited, less activist government (Taft and Coolidge, and maybe Eisenhower), and the neurotics (Wilson, LBJ, RMN, and probably Hoover). The "passive positive character" is a problem, though. Was Reagan different from FDR because of his psychological make-up, or just because of his political philosophy? How a President feels about himself and the job may make the difference between an FDR and an LBJ, but is the psyche so critical with more restrained Presidents?

And since Nixon, Barber's categories don't fit so well. As a liberal Democrat he was obliged to make Carter an active positive, but everyone else would find him negative at least about enjoying the job. Ford also makes active positive in Barber's revised scheme, but most observers would find him negative at least on the activism scale. The example of Clinton suggests that Barber's scheme doesn't tell us what's most important about "predicting presidential character." Now that everybody has to be "active positive," shouldn't we make other distinctions? And shouldn't we recognize the predilection of the "active positives" like FDR and JFK for lying and distortion? Shouldn't we recognize the neurotic, self-defeating element that gave Clinton more in common with Nixon than with the Roosevelts? JFK himself had the kind of neurotic, catch me if you can behavior that makes "active-positive" seem to be a much less healthy designation. Bush #41 is also a problem. After Barber every President (except Reagan) and every candidate has to pretend to like the job and want to do more and more in office, but GWHB's attitudes towards the office were pretty complicated. At least the conventional wisdom of the day was that he had some things in common with Hoover. "Presidential neurosis" is probably a lot more common than Barber thought. BTW, it seems like every website groups the Presidents differently. A sure sign that Barber's scheme isn't the best.

More on the income tax to keep the ball rolling.

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