Exactly. I didn't think "from each according to his ability" was part of our constitution. What is your constitutional basis for transfer payments?
The current population is 294,997,212. At $1000 a head, that comes to almost $295 billion. Go to $2000 and you are approaching $600 billion. Isn't that enough to meet the constitutional powers? Sure, crank in some sort of tax forgiveness for the poor (based on income and assets). But when it comes to the main mission of the Federal government, national defense, why shouldn't each of us pay an equal share?
"The current population is 294,997,212. At $1000 a head, that comes to almost $295 billion. Go to $2000 and you are approaching $600 billion. Isn't that enough to meet the constitutional powers? Sure, crank in some sort of tax forgiveness for the poor (based on income and assets). But when it comes to the main mission of the Federal government, national defense, why shouldn't each of us pay an equal share?"
You obviously aren't seriously interested in doing something about our horrendous tax system; all you want to do is engage in philosophical debate. You know that eliminating all federal programs except for national defense is a political non-starter and you know that requiring poor people to bear the same tax burden as the affluent is going nowhere.
Do you have any serious and substantive comments to make on the subject of tax reform?