Pork and The Sixteenth Amendment
Published Sun, Feb 8 2009 2:19 PM
Technorati Tags: Federalism, States Rights, Constitution
The giant so-called “stimulus” package has got me thinking about why it is that we see so much “pork” in the federal budget. That has led me to believe that the sixteenth amendment to the Constitution was one of the most ill-conceived ideas to come out of the “progressive” politics of the early twentieth century. It was ill conceived that is if you believe in a federal government limited to specific aims as outlined in our Constitution and envisioned by the framers.
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.
This certainly is a far cry from the original plan for supporting the federal government. Article 1, section 9 of the Constitution prohibited the government from laying a direct tax on individuals.
No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken.
A capitation defined as a poll tax or as a tax of a fixed amount per person. The framers clearly did not want the federal government laying a direct tax on individuals. From the wording of this paragraph in the Constitution it seems to me that the federal government could lay taxes on the states, based upon the population of each state.
The twenty fourth amendment essentially eliminated the possibility of a poll tax. Since a poll tax is a tax or fee payable for the right to vote, and the twenty fourth amendment prohibits the government from denying the right to vote for failure to pay a poll tax (or any other tax), poll taxes clearly are prohibited. This leaves the income tax as the only form of direct taxation available to the federal government.
As a side note, a person's civil rights, including the right to vote, can be denied based on felonious acts. However, even though deliberately evading the payment of taxes rises to the level of felony, as does even the unintentional act of filing a false or misleading tax return (can you believe it, a felony that doesn't require criminal intent?), the twenty fourth amendment still guarantees the right to vote in spite of that failure.
On yet another side note, it seems that the United States Secretary of the Treasury, Tim Geithner, is a felon. Although he's not been prosecuted or convicted, it's clear that he evaded his taxes, a felonious act. Isn't it interesting that the “change” in government we got in our last election cycle included putting the foxes in charge of the henhouse?
What's interesting to me about the superseded section of the Constitution in article 1 section 9 is that it implied that the federal government could lay a tax upon the States based upon their population, rather than directly upon the people. This seems to fit well with the notion that the federal government was originally intended to represent and govern the States, leaving the representation and governance of the people to the States.
This notion that the original intent of the framers for the federal government to represent and govern the States and for the States to represent and govern the People is supported by other parts of the Constitution and its amendments. For example, the original scheme for selecting Senators (since replaced by popular election through the seventeenth amendment) clearly indicates that the Senate was intended solely to represent the States. The establishment of the electoral college with electors chosen by each State “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct” even implies that the President was intended to be the chief executive for the government overseeing the States, rather than for the People. The tenth amendment also supports this notion, reserving the powers not prohibited to the States nor granted to the federal government to the States.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
The sixteenth amendment (and parts of the fourteenth and the seventeenth amendments) seems to have turned that notion on its head. Today it comes as little surprise that many politicians believe that the federal government should govern and rule the lives of the people. Today, the States, those sovereign powers that established the federal government, are little more than an afterthought in governance.
Our federal courts have taken decisions that the tenth amendment left up to the States and overturned them, stripping the States of the right to govern the people according to the will of their people. Our Congress has passed laws restricting what men may do with their own property and labor in the name of interstate commerce, even when no part of that property or the produce of their labor takes part in interstate commerce, and our courts have supported this.
We are less a republic today than we are a representative democracy. Some of you might disagree with me on this, but I think that this is not a good thing. We are even less the participants in a representative democracy than we are victims of a vast and uncaring bureaucracy. And over it all we are the subjects of a politically omnipotent, although far from omniscient judicial oligarchy.
Through a long train of abuse of power, negligence, and apathy we have surrendered local power over the issues that affect us locally to people that may live thousands of miles from us. Perhaps the worst aspect of this is that the “central planners” making the decisions for us have little or no knowledge of the local issues that we face.
The “stimulus” package has been called by some conservative pundits the “porkulus” package. Conservatives love to rail against pork barrel spending, and usually for good reason, because of all of the waste, fraud, and abuse that seems to accompany it. Meanwhile, those that represent us continue to engage in it, often proud of the “work” they are doing for their state. To be truly honest about it, pork barrel spending is actually a way that our Representatives and Senators can bring money to the States for projects that otherwise would be unavailable to them. And it's all because of the sixteenth amendment.
Other conservatives and I have long argued that it makes little sense to take money from the States, pass it through a federal bureaucracy and then return it to the States where it will pass through yet another bureaucracy before finally being put to use. But thinking about it, that's not really what happens. The federal government takes the money from individual people, then passes it through the bureaucracy where it eventually goes to the States' bureaucracy and ultimately gets put to use. It's a small difference, but the States ultimately get something for what seems to be nothing.
The sort of projects that the States have funded through “federal monies” are often not the sort of projects that they could get taxpayer approval for within their own borders. Lets face it, despite what a few rich liberals say, most people don't enjoy paying taxes, and even fewer enjoy paying more taxes. Without federal pork barrel spending, the States would have to tax their own citizens in order to pay for these projects. Taxpayers and voters are likely to remember that when it comes time to vote for new state level representatives. Increasing state taxes isn't conducive to a long political career at the state level, especially when the taxes go to something that seems frivolous on the other side of the state.
“Federal money” on the other hand appears to the layman as a great boon. The Representative or Senator that brings money home to the state does something that benefits the state. And they do it without the appearance of a cost to the state. The people on the other hand get the shaft, and there's little connection between the taxes they pay to the federal government to the “benefits” their state receives. For that matter, most of the people don't even feel the impact on their taxes of pork. Just under forty percent of wage earners actually pay any federal taxes. When their federal Representative or Senator brings home the bacon it's at zero cost to them. If their state had to pay for the projects they'd see the effect in their own pocketbook. The state wins. The Representative or Senator wins. Close to half of the people win. The (federal) taxpayers lose.
Of course “federal money” comes with strings attached. In exchange for the monies received from the federal government for local projects come a passel of regulations. The federal government can require all sorts of impact studies, monitoring, and bureaucratic hoops that must be followed in the spending of the money and the implementation of the projects. They (the federal bureaucracy) can impose regulations that require alterations in local laws and regulations — without which the money can be withheld. Those regulations can even go so far as to affect the rights of individuals who have little or nothing to do with the projects being implemented. In accepting “federal money” the States sacrifice a little more of their sovereignty each time, and toss the rights of the individual on the scrap heap. The federal government gains power while the rest of us lose.
Until recently, pork barrel spending was a relatively insignificant part of the total federal budget. After all, what's a few million, or even a few hundred million dollars (per project) compared to a budget that runs into multiple trillions of dollars? The so-called “stimulus” package looks to change that. Now we're talking about several hundreds of billions of dollars in pork barrel spending. That could put the amount of pork in the federal budget close to twenty percent.
What that will do to individual liberty is not something I like to contemplate.
The United States Constitution, as established by the framers and ratified by the States ensured a limited federal government, restricted in its power over our lives. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson said…
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
Would that the generations of politicians that came after the framers had shown a bit more prudence in the changes that they chose to make to our government. Over time, the States have lost their power, and the federal government has grown in power. We are still the greatest nation in the world, and the most free people, and yet we are no longer as free as we once were. The question with regard to government intervention in our lives is no longer “is this permissible”. Now it seems to be “how much longer before we can get away with it”.
The sixteenth and seventeenth amendments have done much to reverse the notion of a limited federal government. They ought to be repealed, but I fear that they never will be. They give too much power to politicians at every level, at the expense of a dwindling minority of people that make the system work.
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