Yeah..., Barack tells us "We're ONLY Talking About the Wealthiest Americans", and don't you know (No.., you probably don't! Schools don't tell you these things in US History or Civics classes...) that this is EXACTLY what the politicians told Americans when they were trying to get the 16th (income tax) Amendment passed?

It was a promise certain not to be kept when it was made in 1913, and it's a promise you'd better bet won't be kept as it's being made today!
Maybe not right away. Maybe not Obama, but how about the Next President & Congress? Are they going to feel bound by promises Someone Else made???

I'm sorry to say our g-g-grandparents fell for the promise, and I'm sorry to say we probably will too.

And here's a different reaction. If a tax increase that hits my household, which is well below 6-figures, more means I'll get single-payer healthcare for EVERYONE, SERIOUS investment in wind and solar energy, more investment in mass transit and shoring up SSI, then SIGN ME UP.

I'm done with "you're on your own." Give me an updated version of the New Deal. I'll pay my share and I'll clean sewers if that's what my part in this comes to.

Egalitare, you'll sign up to participate if you get government to do all the things you believe government ought to do. But would you allow those who believe otherwise an equal opportunity to make the decision for themselves, as to whether THEY want to participate?

Or do you propose that they be coerced into helping foot the bill for things they may disagree with, or don't believe in? Or simply believe are schemes doomed to fail, and not worthy of pursuing?

Because, as Thomas Jefferson said:
"To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father's has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association--'the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."

And as Gandhi observed:
"One who uses coercion is guilty of deliberate violence. Coercion is inhuman.
No action which is not voluntary can be called moral. Any action that is dictated by fear or by coercion of any kind ceases to be moral."
Government control gives rise to fraud, suppression of Truth, intensification of the black market and artificial scarcity. Above all, it unmans the people and deprives them of initiative, it undoes the teaching of self-help...I look upon an increase in the power of the State with the greatest fear because, although while apparently doing good by minimizing exploitation, it does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality which lies at the heart of all progress."

One other thought: Are you willing to 'sign up' your Great-Great-Grandchildren?
Require them to continue funding all those endeavors, regardless of how badly mis-managed they become, and how far they stray from their originally stated purposes?
No matter WHO they end up benefitting, other than the ones they originally set out (on paper) to benefit?

Because that's part of what we really are talking about, though we aren't looking at that aspect any more than our G-G-Grandparents looked at it in 1913.

DemoPublican -

All you are doing is arguing against having taxes at all. Since the government does provide necessary services (and the marketplace would not provide similar services), how do you propose they be paid for?

Moreover, to address your twice-made historical reference, given that the country I live in now, in 2008, is a hell of a lot better place to live than the one the people of 1913 had when they amended the constitution, I'm quite happy with the arrangement.

(and the marketplace would not provide similar services)

Why wouldn't they?
Nature abhors a vacuum, and if there's a need that creates a market for something, SOMEONE Will address it.
Just because you can't imagine it any other way than the way you've known doesn't prove that there isn't, or couldn't be another way to address what people want and need.
I live in a very rural part of the midwest, and the roads out here were NOT created by any government. Long-time local people know this. The roads were originally created and maintained by the farmers who lived around here, and needed roads.
Gov't took over control and maintainence of roads that already existed, but most modern Americans don't know this simple fact as that's yet another thing not taught in gov't run schools today.

...given that the country I live in now, in 2008, is a hell of a lot better place to live than the one the people of 1913 had when they amended the constitution...

How would you know, without also living in that time?
We've got more toys?? High Tech gadgets??
We've also got drug gangs, drive-by shootings and pitched battles in our streets because our Omniscient and Omnipotent government has decreed that people can't self-medicate the way they could in 1913. So..., there's still a market and SOMEBODY is going to address it. In this case, Criminals, because it's ILLEGAL.
There's little doubt that the average stress levels are higher for most all Americans today.
We've had a government that's landed us in a major foreign war every 20 years or so (periods generally becoming shorter with passage of time) ever since they got their hands on as much of our earnings as they claim to "need for defense".
Just a coincidence that we hopped into a stalemated European war in 1917, just 3 years after the gov't got it's hands on however much of our earnings they wanted? (the Amendment is worded to allow just that)? Turning it into, truly, a World War?
Laying the groundwork for Hitler and WWII?

I think the determination about which time would be better to live in must be made on an individual basis, and there are plenty of Americans who'd tell you they'd have rather been born in slower slower paced America at the turn of the last century.
And I believe you must be aware of this.

America managed to finance all it's necessary functions from 1776 (1777 if you want to use the Articles of Confederation as your marker, or 1788 for ratification of the Constitution, 1791 if you insist on holding out for the Bill of Rights to be added..., whatever) to 1913 without helping itself to personal income. 122 years at an bare minimum.
You think there were no roads?
No doctors? Hospitals? No universities? No R&D going on? Lightbulbs weren't invented? Electricity wasn't being researched and developed without government?
No Radio? There was no mechanism to assure product safety?

1895 Underwriters laboratory staff conduct tests on products and issue 75 reports to clients on a budget of $3,000 with a staff of three employees.

1897 The National Board of Fire Underwriters publishes the first “List of approved fittings and electrical devices” based on test reports published by the laboratory.
U.L.: That was a VOLUNTARY arrangement, established and funded by the emerging electrical industry and the insurance industry!! And nearly every American knows what a UL Approval sticker on an appliance signifies.
But Ooohhh Noooo... Only The Government...

The federal government had income enough to do what it needed to do prior to 1913, and post 1913 it has undertaken to do a whole lot of things it shouldn't be doing. It's undertaken to poke it's nose into just about every facet of private life..., because They Can. Because they've got as much as they want to finance it!

We should start by ending the costly "War on Drug Users" and do away with our defacto worldwide Empire. How much should our tax burden drop wby eliminating those? But who in government has the cojones to propose THAT?
Certainly not McCain, and certainly not Obama.

OK Zack. You're happy with the arrangement, but again, should that be binding on your neighbors who aren't? And Are you willing to 'sign up' your Great-Great-Grandchildren, having no clue what they'll eventually be "signed up" For?

Come on demopublicans, this is how society works. If you follow your gripe to its logical end, you would end up concluding that its wrong to outlaw rape and murder. We don't all get to do whatever we want because we have come together and agreed on certain ground rules that pertain to us all. If you don't like it, feel free to move into the wilderness and live as one with nature. Otherwise, realize that anyone who is well off in this country is that way in part because of the infrastructure and population of this country. Ultra-wealthy CEO's can do nothing without their employees. History clearly shows us that if we do not place certain checks on those members of society that have more wealth or power than the average, they will tend to concentrate that power and wealth. When this wealth disparity reaches a certain level, corruption and the subversion of democratic principles invariably follow. If you would like to take a look at how your system works in the real world, check out the most libertarian, free market nation on earth. Its a little place called somalia. I hear the beaches are really nice.

funkyspoon claims: If you follow your gripe to its logical end, you would end up concluding that its wrong to outlaw rape and murder.

Well no, funkyspoon, we won't.
And we won't because, as Thomas Jefferson stated so well, my Rights end at the point where they would begin to harm someone, or interfere with the equal right to the free exercise of another person's Rights.

Somalia...? "Libertarian"?!?!
From which anti-Libertarian website did you glean that claim?

You've just conclusively proven not to know what Libertarian principles are, thankyouverymuch.
If you did, you'd have understand that the principle stated just above, of not interfering with the equal rights of another would prevent what you see in Somalia.

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."
- L. Neil Smith -

Very much in line with what Gandhi said about coercion, isn't it?

Excellent post. Modern Republicans are so afraid of taxes that hardly a rational thought is expressed. So they lie about Obama's tax proposals.

To DemoPublicans: Of course Thomas Jefferson was in favor of property rights. But he also recognized that our democratic government would need the power to tax. On the question of how to make taxes Fair and Just, he also understood that taxes should be progressive. Jefferson said:
"Taxes should be proportioned to what may be annually spared by the individual."
and
"Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise."

Demopublican, I quit reading you about midway through your third post, for the simple reason that your argument hinges on this idea that it's wrong for one group of people to set rules and policies that everybody else has to live by. Well, that may be so, but it's even more wrong for one group to set rules and policies aimed not at getting everyone to work and live together, which is the aim of democracy, but instead to place themselves above everyone else, increasing their wealth and power at the expense of the general welfare. We've put up with that sort of wrong for twenty eight years now, and it's bankrupted us, morally and financially.