How about this approach. Have only one tax that is initiated at the local level. What is left after local use goes to the state & federal. That’s it. Why send money to the feds to filter back down to the states & finally the local level where it actually accomplishes something? The total funds would only need to change hands once at each level. So,maybe there isn’t much left for the feds....would this be a bad thing?
Well, as long as the feds have the power to tax they will. Even without the noxious 16th Amendment, the feds would still have the constitutional power to tax and they will. But the key is cutting the feds to about 1/5 it’s current size and requiring a low flat income tax.
If the 16A were repealed miraculously, wouldn’t it be nice to go back to the simple constitutional idea of taxing the states, not the people, directly based on proportional census (Art I, Sec 9, Cl 4)? Even now, ONLY legal appropriations justify Treasury withdrawal with regular published accounting of receipts and expenditures (Art I, Sec 9, Cl 7). The federal government acts are generally so unconstitutional.