Why Not Repeal the 16th Amendment First?
A reader writes:
Would you do us the favor of responding to some of the criticisms of the Fair Tax that have come up on our message board at Protest Warrior. No one really seems to be able to come up with the answers to some of these puzzles. If you can’t do all that, can you answer me these two questions:
“Why does the FairTax Bill only suggest the repeal of the 16th Amendment, and not simply demand it before it can be passed? No one wants to be saddled with an income tax and national retail sales tax.”
“If K street can no longer lobby the Congress Ways and Means Committee for exemptions within the Tax Code, would they simply shift their efforts on to the HHS which sets ‘prebate’ levels?”
I’ll give you the link to one of the larger discussions on the FairTax we’ve had: link
Try and read through the whole thing, some of the concerns of the initial poster are addressed further along, and others are raised as well.
Thanks for the site, it is well written and one of the best sites for FairTax info.
I prefer to contribute to a central repository of information about the FairTax, like this one — so I’ll take up your two questions here. Regarding the first:
“Why does the FairTax Bill only suggest the repeal of the 16th Amendment, and not simply demand it before it can be passed? No one wants to be saddled with an income tax and national retail sales tax.”
I don’t know for certain how Senator Linder (who wrote the bill) would answer this question, but I suspect his answer would include at least some of the following points....
Demanding the repeal of the 16th Amendment, before cultivating adequately broad-based support for an alternative form of government revenue, would be politically unfeasible.
Remember, the current income tax system gives politicians, and the interest groups that support them, a tremendous amount of political power. Any major change to this tax structure — such as eliminating the income tax and abolishing the IRS — would require massive public support in order to be passed. So massive, in fact, that the phrase “public support” might be a misnomer; it might require, in Rush Limbaugh’s words, a total revolt.
We are far more likely to inspire broad-based support for such action, and actually succeed with it, if we don’t try something wacky — such as, say, demanding the removal of the government’s current source of funding before a new one has been demonstrated politically viable.
And so the burden falls on FairTax supporters to first show that such broad-based support exists in America. Once that is in place, then Congressman Linder and his co-sponsors in Congress would have adequate clout to pass the FairTax legislation and then (but only then) move to repeal the 16th Amendment.
Recall that Congress alone cannot repeal the 16th Amendment. Amending (or repealing an amendment to) the U.S. Constitution requires support by the legislatures of three-fourths of the U.S. states. There is no possibility that this could be accomplished, in today’s world, without having its successor in place beforehand.
Is there some chance it could all backfire, and we could end up with both an income tax and a sales tax? Probably. But how would you like to be a politician up for re-election after that happens? ...After the American public has shown its clear preference for a sales tax instead of, not on top of, an income tax?
Despite my own general optimism, perhaps it is an open question, whether the FairTax will generate enough support among Americans to make its way through Congress. If, however, Americans do show enough support to pass the legislation — which would be one hell of a lot of support — it strikes me as unlikely in the extreme that those same adamant taxpayers who pushed for tax reform would settle for having both a federal income tax and a federal sales tax.
I just don’t see how it could happen — how you could have an inspired national movement for tax reform, sufficient to pass legislation to abolish the IRS, and yet ultimately end up with the opposite of what those same influential Americans worked towards, which is the elimination of the federal income tax. If that happened, I think you would start seeing some politicans running for their life, instead of running for reelection.
So although I’m sympathetic to this question — “Why don’t we just repeal the 16th Amendment first?” — I think it’s somewhat politically naive. Our first task is to demonstrate broad-based support for a consumption tax in lieu of the income tax. Then we can aim that same well-backed battering ram at the repeal of the 16th Amendment.
Given the nature of the obstacles we face at each step, it strikes me as much more likely that the FairTax would never make it through Congress, than make it through Congress and yet land on top of the income tax rather than replace it.
On to your second question:
“If K street can no longer lobby the Congress Ways and Means Committee for exemptions within the Tax Code, would they simply shift their efforts on to the HHS which sets ‘prebate’ levels?”
Probably. And over time — inevitably.
But if we generate sufficient political support to repeal the 16th Amendment, I think politicians, on whom K Street lobbyists depend for their effectiveness, would be very reluctant for a few years to touch the “new” third rail in politics, which would be the tax code.
In the modern age, a decade or two of tax sanity is the best anyone could possibly hope for. After that, it’s up to a new generation of activists — just like it is up to us, today — to work for what they believe is right.
All of this comes back to one simple truth.... If you think the FairTax is a good idea — if you agree that it would move America in a stronger and healthier direction — then there is only one course of action: Ask your friends to buy The FairTax Book — or buy it for them. Ask them to sign the petition. And then encourage them to do the same with their own friends.
If you are serious about helping make the FairTax a reality, never lose sight of the fact that its fate is ultimately dependent on the sheer quantity of public support.
Arguing on internet discussion forums about the finer points of tax reform can be useful for sharpening your chops, and testing your own ability to understand and explain the plan, but it’s unlikely to actually generate much public support.
To do that, a far better strategy is to talk to your friends and relatives, and to let the FairTax Book do most of the selling. The book seems to be a remarkably effective tool at turning everday Americans on to the value of the FairTax.
Thanks for responding to my e-mail on the site, I’m flattered. I can certainly understand the political naïveté that my first question would suggest, but perhaps I can more clearly state my concern here. The original poster of the thread (bgmacaw) probably said it best:
2. The likelihood of ending up with both FairTax and income tax — FairTax can be passed by a simple majority of both houses of Congress plus the President’s signature. However, the repeal of the 16th Amendment, which authorizes the income tax, requires a much more demanding 2/3 vote in each house and then approval by 3/4 of state legislatures. The likelihood of ending up with both the 23% federal sales tax and some form of income tax is greater than supporters indicate. Also, even in the unlikely event of a 16th ammendment repeal, Congress still will have the authority to impose various excise taxes and so forth that will be used to make up any shortfalls in the sales tax and these taxes are likely to be more burdensome to the economy than current income taxes.
You have answered my question (to my satisfaction, I might I add), but I can still think out an objection based on yet another scenario: The picture you paint is of a national groundswell of public support — and to be honest that is the most likely way that this will happen– but in the unlikely event of the FairTax bill passing in Congress without convincing a truly overwhelming majority of Americans, I can certainly see this happening.
p.s. You said “I prefer to contribute to a central repository of information about the FairTax, like this one — so I’ll take up your two questions here.” I prefer that as well, I didn’t mean (though my initial e-mail wasn’t clear enough on this) for you to sign up to the Protest Warrior message board and join our debate, but for you to respond to the objections raised in the thread here on this site.
You’ll have to read through the thread to see what our concerns are (or I’ll do my best to transcribe them into question form and submit them here). We are a site full of conservatives, Republicans, Libertarians, and just generally America supporters. The objections we raise on the boards, I feel, are likely to be the most common or prickly ones for the average, well-informed American.
I’ll try again to get a few more of our concerns to you so you can help us knock them down.
p.p.s Do tags work here? I guess I’ll find out. [HTML tags do, but not the other stuff. I’ve fixed your tags above. –Ed.]
Nesta, it sounds like we’re agreed that the best way to proceed (and probably the only way to proceed) is to ensure that there is a broad groundswell of support for the FairTax. I actually don’t see how Congress would ever pass the FairTax without it.
Bgmacaw’s objection seems predicated on the possibility that Congress might just whimsically decide to pass the FairTax. But there is absolutely no chance of this happening.
In Boortz’s words, “Passage of the FairTax would constitute the greatest transfer of power from government to the people since the Revolutionary War.” As a rule, politicians don’t give up power this way until the public absolutely demands it.
Title 1 of H.R. 25 does repeal income, payroll, estate, and gift taxes. Title II then replaces Subtitle A of the Internal Revenue Code with a sales tax. H.R. 25, under the authority of congress, does repeal income tax. It does not, however, repeal the right of congress to levy income taxes. The congress does not have the authority to change rights provided by the constitution. While congress can initiate such a constitutional change, the ultimate authority requires support from 38 of the state legislatures. Such a constitutional change is a longer process. In fact, the 16th Amendment took 4 years to pass. A 1909 tariff bill included the proposed constitutional amendment—ratification did not occur until 1913. FYI: the following is the amendment in question:
Amendment XVI
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The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
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H.R. 25 builds the bridge for tax reform. Once we cross that bridge, our grass roots movement will be needed to burn it to prevent any future utilization by congress. We will need to take this second action at the appropriate time.
The original provisions for funding the federal government were replaced by the 16th Amendment.
The funding for the federal government was to be provided by the states. This was specified in the articals of the constitution. The founding fathers were emphatic about the limiting the power of the federal government.
It was the 16th amendment to the constitiution that allowed the federal government to bypass the states and tax the individual.
The 16th amendment to the constitution changed the way the federal government was to be funded. The 16th amendment rewrote the articals of the constution that specified how the federal government was to be funded.
The Artical provided funding of the federal government by placing a fee on the states. That fee was based on the population of that state.
The 16th amendment eliminated that artical and replaced it with the taxation of the individual.
I’m replying to this website because it is supporting a transfer of the current system to another system and it has not considered the original intent of the founding fathers.
The federal government should be the last entity in the tax chain. The local government should be the first, the state should get the next, and the federal government should get the least.
A federal government governed by the 10th amendment should have the least amount of influence over the individual. That was the intent of the founding fathers.
The idea that repealing the 16th amendment would leave a gaping hole in the funding process is fiction. The repeal of the 16th amendment would only return us to the original intent of the founding fathers.
The federal government would be funded by the states based on population.
There is already a replacement for the repeal of the 16th amendment. All we have to do is repeal the 16th amendment.