Joe Barton: “As the gentleman from Arizona has pointed out, when the Constitution was ratified by three-fourths of States in 1787…”

“As the gentleman from Arizona has pointed out, when the Constitution was ratified by three-fourths of States in 1787 through 1789, it was unconstitutional to have any kind of a head tax or income tax. That situation changed in the early 1900s. The constitutional amendment making income tax constitutional, the 16th amendment, passed, as the gentleman has pointed out. Since that time, the average marginal tax rate at the Federal level has gone from 1 to over 40 percent. So we do need to pass a constitutional amendment making it more difficult to raise taxes. Again, it does not take college level algebra to understand this amendment. Two-thirds is a bigger fraction than one-half. Therefore, it would be more difficult to get two-thirds vote to raise taxes in the House and the Senate than the current one-half plus one.”