President Trump once again has called to abolish the federal income tax. Honestly, I didn’t think we would hear this once he was inaugurated. I thought it was just a campaign promise like Bush’s “Read my lips, no new taxes.” But here we go!
The President said on Monday that we would like Congress to abolish the income tax.
“Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich foreign nations, we should be tariffing and taxing foreign nations to enrich our citizens,” he said.
He said that the United States was never richer than when it made money through foreign tariffs rather than through personal income tax of citizens.
Also on Monday, the Senate confirmed Scott Bessent for Treasury secretary. Bessent is an advocate for Trump’s tariff and growth agenda so let’s do it!
It is worth remembering that income tax was introduced briefly during the Civil War to fund that war and Americans were promised that it would be temporary. It was repealed in 1872.
The 16th Amendment in 1913 reintroduced taxes and again to fund World War I, Americans were told that it was temporary and necessary for “justifiable” government needs. By the 1940s, the government tried to bury the notion of the tax as temporary and hired Walt Disney Studios to make the film The New Spirit, starring Donald Duck as a dutiful taxpayer. This 7-minute film is an amazing artifact!
This means that income tax has been a permanent fixture of American life for barely a century. If it was repealed once, it can be repealed again!
