Joe Barton: “Mr. Speaker, the first Federal income tax that was levied on the American people was 1 percent of any net income over…”

“Mr. Speaker, the first Federal income tax that was levied on the American people was 1 percent of any net income over $3,000. Today, the average American taxpayer pays 39.8 percent in Federal and State taxes. That is an all-time high with the exception of World War II when we were fighting to maintain democracy against Naziism and imperialism of the empire of Japan. Simply put, something needs to be done about that. We need a tax limitation amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. When the original Constitution was written by our Founding Fathers, they made it unconstitutional to have an income tax. Unconstitutional. You could have had a 100 percent vote, and there would be no income tax because it was unconstitutional. But the sixteenth amendment to the Constitution, which was passed in 1913, made income taxes constitutional. So we need a \2/3\ vote to raise taxes, Federal taxes on the American people. The question is, would it work? That is a fair question. We have not had anybody who opposes it say that it would not work.”