Wrong, Mr. Love

Stephen Love of Northwest Dallas needs a course in history. He says that "federal taxes are the means by which inequities between the states are addressed."

They may be used for that, but like much that is going on today, that was never the intent for federal taxes. Federal taxes are to fund the federal government in its mission of defense and promoting the general welfare (and that's not "welfare" as we use the word). According to Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 of the Constitution:

The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.

Thomas Jefferson said that "The laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. Congress is not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union. In like manner, they are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose."

In 1824 Chief Justice John Marshall described a further limit on the General Welfare Clause in Gibbons v. Ogden: "Congress is authorized to lay and collect taxes, &c. to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States. ... Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States."

We live with a bunch of tax-happy legislators funding illegitimate government programs with our money. Our forefathers, including Jefferson and Marshall, are spinning in their graves.

"Tea party's folly on taxes." The Dallas Morning News; June 30, 2014; p. 10A.