The latest headlines tell us that former President Trump is “flirting” with eliminating the Federal income tax. While the media treats this as some radical notion, they conveniently forget that for most of American history, no one sent their paycheck to Washington. The Federal Government funded itself through tariffs and excise taxes from 1789 until 1913. That’s 124 years without the government reaching directly into citizens’ pockets.
This discussion illuminates the fundamental problem with our relationship with the Federal Government. Every election cycle, politicians dangle the promise of tax reform in front of voters like a carrot on a stick. Meanwhile, the Federal bureaucracy grows larger, more expensive, and more intrusive with each passing year. The simple truth is that the income tax isn’t just about revenue – it’s about control.
Let’s put this in perspective. Right now, Texans send approximately $265 billion annually to the Federal Government in taxes. What do we get back? At best, $162 billion in Federal spending. This means Texans overpay by $103 billion every single year. To put that figure in stark terms, the total cost of Hurricane Harvey’s damage was estimated at $75 billion. The amount that the Federal Government siphons from Texas annually equals a natural disaster the size of Harvey hitting our state every nine months.
Here in Texas, we’ve enshrined our opposition to income taxes in our constitution. Article VIII, Section 24 of the Texas Constitution explicitly prohibits the legislature from imposing an income tax without a statewide referendum. Even then, the revenue must be dedicated to reducing property taxes and funding education. We’ve proven that an income tax isn’t necessary to run a successful government. While other states struggle with budget deficits and crushing tax burdens, Texas has built the 8th largest economy in the world without ever implementing an income tax.
But this debate about Federal income tax reform misses the larger point. The problem isn’t just how the Federal Government collects its revenue – it’s what it does with it. That $103 billion annual overpayment funds a massive bureaucracy that churns out 180,000 pages of Federal regulations administered by 440 separate Federal agencies and 2.5 million unelected bureaucrats. It pays for programs Texans don’t want, policies we oppose, and a level of government overreach that would make King George III blush.
When Trump talks about eliminating the income tax, he’s unknowingly making the case for Texit. An independent Texas wouldn’t need to debate eliminating the Federal income tax because we wouldn’t have one to begin with. We’d control our own revenue streams, set our own trade policies, and keep every dollar here where it belongs – in Texas.
The numbers don’t lie. Texas could eliminate both the Federal income tax burden and our property tax system, maintain current levels of state services, fully fund our military and border security, and still have money left over. We could do this through a combination of our existing state sales tax and tariffs on international trade – just like the United States did for most of its history.
Critics will say it can’t be done. They’ll claim that modern government requires an income tax to function. Yet somehow, nine other nations with advanced economies operate without an income tax, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Monaco. If these smaller nations can prosper without an income tax, imagine what Texas could do with our resources, population, and economic might.
The reality is that the Federal income tax debate is just another symptom of a larger disease. The United States has morphed from a voluntary union of sovereign states into a centralized bureaucratic empire that demands ever more from its subjects while delivering ever less in return. No amount of tax reform can fix this fundamental problem.
When politicians in Washington debate eliminating the income tax, they’re admitting something that Texit supporters have known all along: there’s a better way to fund government than the current system. The only question is whether Texans will continue to wait for Federal reform that never comes, or take control of our own future through independence.
Let’s remember what Sam Houston said: “Texas has yet to learn submission to any oppression, come from what source it may.” The Federal income tax is just one more form of oppression that we’ve endured for far too long. It’s time to end it – not through reform, but through independence.
Trump can’t do anything of the sort himself.
Only Congress has that authority.
And Congress will NEVER eliminate the income tax.
End of discussion.
The job of a DC Demon is to LOOT.
And LOOT they will do!
For far too long the Federal government had been draining ys all of our hard earned income and sending it to foreign nations to help fund their wars and on useless programs to keep people compliant with their rule. It’s past time for for us to become an Independent Nation once again. God Bless Texas!!
Along with far away government being problematic for Texas, the US bureaucracy is also just too big to perform as it should for all Americans. The Queen Mary couldn’t turn on a dime either. But a built-in problem that has now been clearly revealed to all is the deep state culture of unelected bureaucrats in DC.
Many of the deep staters started out as appointees in one administration or another, moving over to a regular federal position after making lots of contacts while working in the administration. And in their stint in the administration, these people easily jumped into the Swamp Culture, which is all about feathering their own nest. It certainly is nothing like JFK’s “ASK NOT WHAT YOUR COUNTRY CAN DO FOR YOU, BUT WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR YOUR COUNTRY.” And now that they are burrowed into their federal employee union-protected jobs, it is all about them, certainly not about the USA.
Remember IRS employee Lois Lerner, who was caught abusing conservative citizens she didn’t like, using the IRS as a weapon on them, she was allowed to retire and keep her pension, rather than being prosecuted and sent to prison? No justice was seen there. The bigger the organization, the easier it is to move about anonymously and succeed at getting selfish things for themselves. Certain people are drawn to becoming a part of such opportunistic organizations. Big is not always better.