Blue state values

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Are you talking Federal taxes or state and local?

Your argument is a little problematic as there was no Federal income tax when this nation was founded. In fact if you will go and look at Amendments to the US Constitution, Article 16 is what provides the Federal gov't the authority to collect income tax, and it wasn't ratified until 1913, a little past Ben's time. While we do know that many/most of the founding fathers were in favor of a progressive tax system, whether or not they saw this as a means to redistribute wealth is debatable. I am not enough of a historian to have knowledge of their thoughts on this, and can't remember of the top of my head any writings that addressed this. Perhaps someone like Chandos knows of some.

However, given the views that many of the founding fathers hael regarding size and scope of the Federal Gov't, I seriously doubt they ever envisioned the Fed gov't using taxation as a means of wealth redistribution.

 

I dunno, property rights aren't protected by the constitution. You'd think most founding ideals would be.

Edit for clarity: Which is to say, the right to own property is not constituionally protected.

 

A,

Article 5 of the Bill of Rights:

Bold is mine. I think that is pretty clear.

 

Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha! - G. Gordon Liddy?! Oh yes, he would be the expert on stealing. He probably thought that one up during his 5 year stay in prison for conspiracy, burglary, and illegal wiretapping. What's really funny is that it was Jimmy Carter (a LIBERAL) who gave him his get-out-of-jail free card. Maybe Jimmy should have kept him there. It's further proof that Carter was not a very good president. But then we would not have that clown Liddy ranting on AM radio about the evil liberal agenda, while giving us all a good laugh. Thank you, I needed that one, Darkwolf! ...And this thread was supposed to be about "values"....

That is right on target. Washington and Hamilton would have wanted a federal government that had enough power to create a standing army to meet the threat of foreign attacks on American soil and shipping; and they would want government to have a mild regulating effect on the economy through a national bank and taxation on certain commodities such as whiskey (which they imposed) and tariffs on particular imports. But they would have never dreamt of a "federal income tax" as we know it.

On the other hand, Jefferson and Madison would have come unglued. One of Jefferson's main desires as president was to reduce the scope of federal power, which Washington and Hamilton had expanded, and he was fairly successful at paying down the federal government debt and cutting defense. But he was still pragmatic enough to use expanded executive power to achieve specific ends, such as the Louisiana Purchase.

[ December 03, 2004, 06:48: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

 

Darkwolf: Right, I got that. I'm afraid I misunderstood your original post. Forget I said (typed?) anything

 

Chandos,

Common ground? Us? Wow, the Christians must be right, the end is near, as this is surely sign of the apocalypse! Let me buy you a before we all meet our maker.

Oh, and Liddy may be a crackpot, but even a broken clock is right twice a day.

 

Also on G. Gordon Liddy: you can find a very recent interview of Liddy by Johann Hari in the Independent (UK) where Liddy expresses how impressed and taken up with Hitler he was while growing up in (the mostly German-American) Hoboken in the 30s. The dude is rabid. (Would link, but you now need a subscription for the article; I think some other sites are carrying it.)

Are we to understand the poor lonely sheep in this analogy represents the rich, while the threatening wolves are poor, inner-city welfare recipients?

 

I find this intriguing. If there was no federal income tax, how in the world did the federal government fight wars, pay its employees, build its buildings, etc.?

I see it is mentioned there were taxes on whiskey and tariffs on imports, but I find it hard to believe the federal government could have functionied solely on those two forms of income.

 

Colonial and post-revolutionary America had a well-developed (and almost ancient) system of property taxes (assessed in a number of different ways; the famous English "window tax" valued houses on the number of windows, and so led to the building of houses with fewer windows!) and poll taxes (flat taxes on adult males and sometimes slaves).

 

Aldeth,

First hit on Google for "historical US income tax rates".

History of the Income Tax in the United States

 

Well, there really was not much of a federal government before 1788. There were the Articles of Confederation, and the Federal Congress, which was actually quite powerless. Almost all the power was with the individual states. This had been a real problem during the Revolution. It was Washington who held the Continental Army together with the sheer force of his own will. The Federal Congress was powerless to collect taxes to pay and equip a standing army in the field, which is why the use of local militia was an issue. As a result some of the soldiers went for years without being paid. The states were free to create their own system of taxes and it varied by state, as did the currency. The picture that emerges is that the states were supreme and independent.

That started to change after the Constitutional Convention of 1787-88, and the Founding Brothers put the machine of a national government in motion. Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Hamilton served in the first administration, hiring staff, finding office space and creating the departments that would serve as the future machinery of government. There was no standing army and no war until 1812.

Hamilton was the driving force behind the first national economy, raising the first federal taxes, creating a national bank and putting the government's finances and credit in working order. He functioned as an unofficial prime minister, leaving Washington to mostly approve what he had crafted (and the congress, of course) during the first few years. But the crafting of our currency was actually Jefferson's doing. This was done mostly in New York, which Hamilton hoped would become the permanent capital. Philadelphia is where it was moved next in a series of compromises, before the banks of the Potomac was voted on by congress, and the site hand-picked by Washington himself (close to his home, Mount Vernon). This was known as the issue of Residency and was tied to another issue, Assumption, which really showed Hamilotn's genius and cunning. He traded one for the other.

One of the first ways in which Hamilton made the states beholden to federal power was his very shrewd move on the issue of Assumption; the government assuming the debt of the states for the Revolution. This paved the way for the raising of federal taxes to pay off the federal debt, but mostly on imports, and not directly on the states or their citizens. I could go on about all this, but I'm sure most of you are falling asleep by now...sorry, to go so far off topic with all this...

[ December 04, 2004, 03:01: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]