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America didn't really have much of a military back then, nor did we have medicare and social security. You would need to get rid of those three things to get rid of income tax.
Let me help the historically challenged on this issue. In 1894 the United States didn't have social security or any social programs or a substantial military to speak yet that is when the U.S. Congress enacted the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act imposing an tax on income for the second time. At the time of enactment income or profits above $4,000 were taxed at a rate of 2%.
In 1995 Charles Pollock sued the Farmers' Loan & Trust Company for withholding his portion of the tax and the subsequent case was resolved by the Supreme Court in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Company, 157 U.S. 429 (1895) which struck down the the statute as being unconstitutional
Fast forward to 1909, still no social safety nets or military to speak of, President William Howard Taft introduced a proposal to amend the Constitution,
"upon the privilege of doing business as an artificial entity (hear that Citizens United) and of freedom from a general partnership liability enjoyed by those who own stock."
Where is the Howard Taft of today?!? But I digress.
The amendment which was ratified in 1913 establishing what Justice Edward Douglass White wrote in his dissent of Pollock,
"after the government has withstood the strain of foreign wars and the dread ordeal of civil strife, and its people have become united and powerful, this court should consider itself compelled to go back to a long repudiated and rejected theory of the constitution, by which the government is deprived of an inherent attribute of its being—a necessary power of taxation."
It would be another two decades before the U.S. would establish a system of social safety net programs and another three decades before the establishment of the massive military that we retain today. So boys and girls, let's not pretend that the income tax is the raison d'etre for the existence of the Internal Revenue Service.
By the way an interest historical note of contemporary relevance. In his dissent on Pollock, Justice Henry Billings Brown wrote:
The decision involves nothing less than the surrender of the taxing power to the moneyed class. By resuscitating an argument that was exploded in the Hylton Case, and has lain practically dormant for a hundred years, it is made to do duty in nullifying, not this law alone, but every similar law that is not based upon an impossible theory of apportionment. Even the spectre of socialism is conjured up to frighten Congress from laying taxes upon the people in proportion to their ability to pay them.[9]
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My how the more things change the more they stay the same.
Well, if it was, then it must have been much better off before the automobile, airplanes and radio and motion pictures, too, which were introduced at about the same time.
Unless you feel that you have isolated the single factor that explains why Americans were so much happier and healthier and well-fed and prosperous a hundred years ago than they are today.
America 100 years ago was just exiting what I consider to be the territory expansionary period of our history. Look up the expansion eras for all empires (which the USA is by the way; we just totally annihilated the locals) and you'll see that the period of expansion is one where wealth is plundered from the conquered and most authority rested in local offices held together by a loose network that led back to the central government.
Over time, things get more complicated. The empire runs into other empires, and has to compete. The British Empire had to compete with the Spanish, French, and other empires of the day, not to mention dealing with a pesky upstart in the USA. The businesses which could gorge themselves on new business now suddenly had to ensure that they held to laws to protect the environment (the earliest British air quality laws date back to the mid 1800s), and suddenly workers demanded rights (how DARE THEY refuse to work 18 hours a day for pennies!), health care advances meant people could live longer, and meant retirement was guaranteed for more and more people who didn't die from debilitating diseases.
This is all nothing new. It's just the cycle of civilizations. America is no different.
I love it when minimalists wax nostalgic for when everyone could live in a log cabin fending off the "Injins", cooked on cast iron stoves and hunted their own food. Good luck with that, there's 300 million of us now. The very internet you are waxing nostalgic on was developed by whom? Oh that's right ... BIG GOVERNMENT!
It's also easy to point to a green field and see the small growth and say there's 1000% growth when there was very little to begin with and say we're somehow inferior today.
I guarantee you if you took a guy from 1913 and brought him here today he'd take today's world with all its problems and issues over his world, 100%. So go ahead and keep waxing nostalgic. Better yet, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT and disconnect that internet cable, go live in your log cabin, go hunt your food and grow it, and live 50 miles from the nearest doctor, with only a horse to ride in or maybe a carriage, and get back to us.
name a tax/law that expires and I will give you 1000 bucks.
Can't think of one but we need to institute a "War Tax" to pay for our military adventures, hit everyone equally with no exemptions. Maybe if we had to pay as we went for getting envolved in these wars, we would think twice before we jumped in.
It doesn't shock me any more than any other screed. One of the things that had happened in the age was the government seizing land from the natives en masse and handing it over to railroads - think about the heritage of your arch-conservative railroad baron Stanton when you ponder just which ideology really strokes the teat of government. Now, consider that if we went back to those glorious times and the government came around and started taking YOUR land at gunpoint and giving it to their cronies, like Monsanto or Halliburton and Bank of America, you might long for the good old days of income tax.
The ultra-rich have a lot of folks wanting to be like them and encourage their fantasies by letting them think that they have a chance by sucking up. I call those mentally deficient wannabees "suckers." P.T. Barnum knew all about them. Get past the rhetoric. Do your own research from a variety of sources and with an open mind. Quit spewing like demented parrots.
FWIW - Henry Ford did NOT invent the assembly line. He borrowed the idea from the meat packing industry. The "death tax" would only impact those who had bequests in the MILLIONS and BILLIONS of dollars. You aren't going to get cheated out of Aunt Rose's china. It isn't worth dissecting the other points, as those who willingly want to be suckered will be.
America didn't really have much of a military back then, nor did we have medicare and social security. You would need to get rid of those three things to get rid of income tax.
Also if we went back to using tariffs to collect revenue we would likely start a trade war and make consumer goods very expensive.
On the other hand the real victims would be competing nations. It might even bring a few jobs back, as long as it applied to services as well. Sure they wouldnt buy our bonds anymore, but the Fed could print money to pay them off and say foreigners are no longer allowed to buy them. Another point, liquor taxes were a big revenue source. Prohibition was unthinkable before the income tax.
Commenting on the 47% of Americans who paid no Federal Income Tax the previous year,
"We're halfway there!". - Ron Paul
I have to say it - that made me smirk a little bit, it is funny!
Intellectually I could say that Ron Paul has no concept of what the "cost of civilization" is yadda yadda but I have to hand it to him to make a good point or two and is one of the few intellectually honest minimalists out there.
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