Four Reasons to Amend the U S Constitution to End the U S Government's Monopoly Self- Funding Taxing and Borrowing Powers.

Sec. #8: 4 Reasons to Repeal I-8-1

Repealing Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 1 (I-8-1) from the U S Constitution will end the U S Government’s power to tax.  Future funding for “the Feds” will come from the 50+ American states, not 150 million or so Americans and American businesses.  Each State will be assigned a ratable share of the yearly Federal Budget.  The state legislative bodies will decide how to tax their own citizens/residents to raise their assigned share.  

Prepared by J C Malinski, cst.net@aol.com           

Here are four reasons, drawn from American history, that tell readers the dangers of granting the U S Government monopoly control over its own financing.  As history has actually “played out” over the 230 years since ratification of the Constitution, the fulfillment of the near Biblically-prophetic warnings of the danger of the self-funding monopoly, centering around Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 1 (I-8-1) of the Constitution, are abundantly clear.  Borrowing, authorized under I-8-2, also needs to tightly capped, by not allowing borrowing to fund new programs, only paying off U S Treasury debt securities that exist as of the date of beginning the CST system.  

The Constitution’s predecessor, the Articles of Confederation (the A of C), through Article 8, funded the U S Government of the time by dividing the “common expenses” of operating the “Union” government created by the 13 original States among the 13.  Each state legislature decided how to pay its ratable share of those common expenses.  It’s mandatory to use the CONSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT TAX (the CST) as the new funding system to pay for U S Government operations.  The CST is a 21st Century update to Article 8 of the A of C.  

The monstrous size of the U S Government of the 21st Century is crystal-clear evidence of the need to move to the CST to shrink the size, scope, and involvement of “the Feds” in America’s life, and the lives of Americans.   

This means repealing from I-8-1 of the Constitution Congress' power to lay and collect “Taxes, Imposts and Excises ….”  (Duties will remain, to be fully used to fund the AMERICAN HEROES APPRECIATION FUND (the AHAF)).  

Due to decades of shameful misuse of the self-funding power(s), the U S Government can no longer be allowed to have self-funding power(s).  

Here is a point-by-point list and explanation of the four reasons. Of the following, the final quotes from Senator Long and George Mason are probably the most sobering:

1. An extract from Anti-Federalist Paper Brutus # 5, published December 13, 1787.
2. An extract from a set of instructions, dated May 30, 1783, that the county of Fairfax Virginia sent to its representatives in the Virginia state legislature.
3. An extract from an anonymous letter written by a Continental Army officer, published in The Massachusetts Centinel, November 21, 1787.
4. Comments from Senator David Long, President Pro Tem of the Senate chamber of the Indiana General Assembly in March 2013.  Long's comments are matched with comments from Virginian George Mason a few months after the completion of the drafting of the Constitution on September 17, 1787.
  

Item #1.  The following is an extract from Anti-Federalist Paper Brutus #5, published December 13, 1787.  (#5 is readily available on the Internet for anyone wanting to read the full text.  The initial reference to “taxes, duties, imposts, and excises” is found in Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 1 (1-8-1) of the Constitution.  I-8-1 grants the U S Government "umbrella" monopoly-funding taxing power.)

The extract begins:  

1st. To detail the particulars comprehended in the general terms, taxes, duties, imposts and excises, would require a volume, instead of a single piece in a news-paper. Indeed it would be a task far beyond my ability, and to which no one can be competent, unless possessed of a mind capable of comprehending every possible source of revenue; for they extend to every possible way of raising money, whether by direct or indirect taxation. Under this clause may be imposed a poll-tax, a land-tax, a tax on houses and buildings, on windows and fire places, on cattle and on all kinds of personal property: — It extends to duties on all kinds of goods to any amount, to tonnage and poundage on vessels, to duties on written instruments, newspapers, almanacks, and books: — It comprehends an excise on all kinds of liquors, spirits, wines, cyder, beer, etc. and indeed takes in duty or excise on every necessary or conveniency of life; whether of foreign or home growth or manufactory. In short, we can have no conception of any way in which a government can raise money from the people, but what is included in one or other of three general terms. We may say then that this clause commits to the hands of the general legislature [general legislature being Congress - ed.] every conceivable source of revenue within the United States. Not only are these terms very comprehensive, and extend to a vast number of objects, but the power to lay and collect has great latitude; it will lead to the passing a vast number of laws [the 70,000+ pages of the Internal Revenue Code & Regulations? - ed.], which may affect the personal rights of the citizens of the states, expose their property to fines and confiscation, and put their lives in jeopardy: it opens a door to the appointment of a swarm of revenue and excise officers [the IRS of today? - ed.] to pray [sic] upon the honest and industrious part of the community, eat up their substance, and riot on the spoils of the country.  

2d. We will next enquire into what is implied in the authority to pass all laws which shall be necessary and proper to carry this power into execution. [The words “necessary and proper” are contained in the final paragraph of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution - ed.]  

It is, perhaps, utterly impossible fully to define this power. The authority granted in the first clause can only be understood in its full extent, by descending to all the particular cases in which a revenue can be raised; the number and variety of these cases are so endless, and as it were infinite, that no man living has, as yet, been able to reckon them up. The greatest geniuses in the world have been for ages employed in the research, and when mankind had supposed that the subject was exhausted they have been astonished with the refined improvements that have been made in modem times, and especially in the English nation on the subject — If then the objects of this power cannot be comprehended, how is it possible to understand the extent of that power which can pass all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying it into execution? It is truly incomprehensible. A case cannot be conceived of, which is not included in this power. It is well known that the subject of revenue is the most difficult and extensive in the science of government. It requires the greatest talents of a statesman, and the most numerous and exact provisions of the legislature. The command of the revenues of a state gives the command of every thing in it. — He that has the purse will have the sword, and they that have both, have every thing; so that the legislature [i.e., U S Congress - ed.] having every source from which money can be drawn under their direction, with a right to make all laws necessary and proper for drawing forth all the resource of the country, would have, in fact, all power

Does the IRS and the Internal Revenue Code and Regulations of today come to mind from the Brutus #5 extract?  

The CST, implemented as proposed, will also lead to a structure that will place tight, inescapable, limits on U S Government spending.        

Item #2.  The following quote is from a set of the instructions Fairfax County, Virginia sent to their representatives in the State Legislature, dated May 30, 1783.  (Found on pgs. 124/5 of the book Problems in American History, Volume 1, Through Reconstruction, first copyright 1952).  

Here is the opening sentence in the instructions: 

We desire and instruct you strenuously to oppose all encroachments of the American Congress upon the sovereignty and jurisdiction of the separate States; and every assumption of power, not expressly vested in them, by the Articles of Confederation….

The reference to “American Congress” is to the 2nd Continental Congress.  More specifically, to the men in this Congress (this Congress was essentially, the U S Government of the time) who wanted more centralized power for Congress over the 13 new States.  Something like the European Union of today.   Here are the first of two quotes on the dangers of granting taxing power to “the Feds” of the time:   

And in particular we desire and instruct you to oppose any attempts which may be made by Congress to obtain a perpetual revenue, or the appointment of revenue officers.  Were these powers superadded to those they already possess, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitutions of Government in the different States would prove mere parchment bulwarks to American liberty.

After some sentences on the political back-and-forth between the “big” and “small” government men of the day, the second quote begins:  

After having reluctantly given up part of what they [they, being the big government men and the spending they wanted. - ed.] found they could not maintain, they still insist that the several States shall invest the United States in Congress assembled with a power to levy, [the book’s italics] for the use of the United States, the following duties, &c., (duties, &c. referring to proposed spending) and that the revenue officers shall be amenable to Congress.  The very style is alarming.  The proposed duties may be proper, but the separate States only can safely have the power of levying taxes. [the book’s italics] Congress should not have even the appearance of such a power.  Forms generally imply substance, and such a precedent may be applied to DANGEROUS PURPOSES HEREAFTER. When the same man, or set of men, holds both the sword and the purse, there is an end of liberty. [emphasis mine - ed.]

The “sword” refers to the police power of the state to determine public policy, then writing laws to implement those policies. The “purse” means the ability to extract money from the populace to fill government coffers.  

Item #3.  Found on pg. 142 – Problems in American History – Volume I, Through Reconstruction – Prentice-Hall, Inc. Edited by Leopold, Link, Coben.  Originally copy written in 1952.  No ISBN #.  The ISBN system started in late 1966.   Pgs. 142-143 quote from an anonymous letter written by a Continental Army officer, published in The Massachusetts Centinel November 21, 1787.   The following is preceded by 4 points, written by the Army officer, which lead up to a “summary” in this point 5 regarding the proposed U S Government under the then proposed Constitution being given the power to tax.  

Point 5 – The consequence must therefore be, either that the union of the states will be destroyed in a violent struggle, [the Civil War, 75 years later? - ed.] or that their sovereignty will be swallowed up by silent encroachments into a universal aristocracy [today’s massive U S Government? - ed.]; because it is clear that if two different sovereign powers [the States and the U S Gov’t being the “sovereign powers” - ed.] have a co-equal command over the purses of the citizens, they will struggle for the spoils, and the weakest will be in the end obliged to yield to the efforts of the strongest.

Does history indicate that in the States vs. U S Government framework, “the Feds” are the weakest?  

Item #4. The final quotes match statements from Indiana Senator David Long (in 2013) and Virginian George Mason (in 1787/88):   On February 26, 2013, the Senate chamber of the Indiana General Assembly passed Joint Resolution 18 calling for an Article V (under the Constitution) amending convention to proposed amendments to limit the powers of Congress with respect to taxation and commerce.   On March 2, 2013, Senator David Long, the President Pro Tem of the Senate chamber of the Indiana General Assembly, was quoted in the online publication NWI.com (Northwest Indiana). The article described how the Republican-controlled chamber “approved a resolution asking Congress to order a national constitutional convention to consider amendments intended to limit the regulatory and taxing authority of the federal government and re-balance power between the federal government and the states.”

Because they have the purse strings they can literally blackmail the states into doing what they want. ... State's rights get obliterated after a while," said Senate President David Long, R-Fort Wayne. "It's getting to the point where there's just one government, that's the federal government, and we're implementing their will.

Please compare Senator Long’s quote with a quote from Virginian George Mason, made during the Constitution’s 1787/88/90 ratification debates. (Source:  Tax Analysts - Tax History Museum: 1777 – 1815 – The Anti-Federalist Critique heading next to the picture of Patrick Henry).  

Virginia's George Mason argued that "the assumption of this power of laying direct taxes, does of itself, entirely change the confederation of the States into one consolidated government." He, like many Anti-federalists, feared that this arrangement was "calculated to annihilate entirely the state governments.”

Barack's UNaffordable Care Act? Barack's War on Coal? Barack's Common Core? Are these DANGEROUS PURPOSES HEREAFTER?  

Dear readers, thank you for your time, thought, and consideration.  

J C Malinski