Today is the 100th birthday of the income tax. It’s not a happy birthday. Whether or not we needed a government many times the size of the one that existed when the first 358,000 people filed form 1040 is a separate question, and one I would answer in the negative. But the way we funded that government was an offense against our property rights, our sense of national unity, and our ability to perceive the true size and cost of the State.
Instead of paying for government as a necessary expense, we have allowed it to invade our bloodstream, and our nervous system. We allow it to control us, blind us, and divide us. We made it the master we all work for, instead of the burden we all carry. And we gave it a method of nourishing itself that all but guaranteed it would grow out of all control… reaching, in our lifetimes, a new stage in which it no longer considers its available revenue to be more than a minor inconvenience to its ambitions. We came to accept that “greed” is a sin only private citizens can be guilty of, because the State has first claim on every cent they earn.
I know why the political class insists we can never be rid of this insane system, but I wonder why we believe them.
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