No Taxation Without Enumeration

"In the first place, it is to be remembered, that the general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws: its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any." - Federalist Papers, No. 14, November 30, 1787

"Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a FEDERAL, and not a NATIONAL constitution." - Federalist Papers, No. 39, January, 1788

According to James Madison, Founder and author of much of the original document that would go on to become the United States Constitution, our government is NOT a national government. We are, in fact, NOT one nation, under God, nor anyone or anything else. We are not, essentially, a republic, but rather a federation of republics with a republican federal governing authority.

The United States federal government does NOT have the plenipotentiary and extraordinary power of the fifty States combined - instead, to it have been enumerated through the Constitution ratified BY those States, very specific and limited powers. This government was never meant to have power to govern the individual's behavior, but rather, the power to govern interactions between States and between foreign powers and the States in their collectivity.

No matter what power the 16th Amendment may provide the federal government to tax the income of the individual without apportionment and without regard to an enumeration or census, the federal government simply DOES NOT HAVE THE POWER to appropriate funds from the treasury in order to finance ANY act, resolution, or order that exceeds the limits of its enumerated powers.

The federal government continues to raise taxes on business and individuals in order to fund rapidly expanding programs THAT IT HAS NO BUSINESS CONDUCTING. Federal entitlements (to include Medicare, Medicaid, and social security) as well as most discretionary spending in the realm of agriculture, labor, health and human services, housing and urban development, energy, and education are simply outside the realm of the federal powers enumerated by the Constitution, and are therefore unconstitutional. All of these powers - powers not delineated for the federal government - are specifically reserved for the States and the people by the 10th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Therefore, because the federal government has no constitutional authority - and therefore no need - to appropriate funds for these programs, the federal government is needlessly taxing the American people.

According to the Congressional Budget Office's projection for FY 2010, the federal government will spend 1 trillion 463 billion dollars on Medicare, Medicaid, and social security alone. That's 1,463 million times a million dollars. On average, if the government simply did not levy these taxes, each American man, woman, and child would keep about $4,800 of their own money per year - and that's just the three biggest entitlement programs.

We can't cut all of these programs all at once. But for starters, we should stop withholding all taxes. The American people should see - all at once, every April 15th - just how much money Uncle Sam is pilfering, instead of receiving a refund check in the mail that makes them think they're receiving something instead of losing it. Maybe then, people will finally start to wonder just where all this money is going.