State Taxes Were Multiplied
By The Constitution’s New Taxing Power

Piled on top of state taxes, the Anti-Federalists were quick to point out a burdensome new taxing authority under the proposed Constitution. When it came to the taxing power of the soon to be ratified federal government, Patrick Henry minced no words:

"In this scheme of energetic government, the people will find two sets of tax-gatherers – the State and the Federal sheriffs. This it seems to me, will produce such dreadful oppression as the people cannot possibly bear."

As we now know, the "energy" of the new government is measured in its capacity to rack up not just billions, but trillions of dollars of debt. Not even the foresight of the Anti-Federalists could predict such profligacy.

Nonetheless, Henry peered into the future and caught a glimpse of the burgeoning welfare state and its ravenous appetite for taxes. It would make the current level of state taxes seem insignificant by comparison.

"Bring forth the Federal allurements, and compare them with the poor contemptible things that the State Legislature can bring forth…There are rich, fat Federal emoluments. You rich, snug, fine fat Federal officers – the collectors of taxes and excises – will outnumber anything from the states. Who can cope with the excise man and the tax man?"

In the Communist Manifesto Karl Marx called for a graduated income tax as one of the ten steps needed to dismantle a capitalist society. Since 1913 Marx’s dream has been enshrined in the Sixteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. It states simply that "Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."

This Amendment superseded the original requirement of Article I, Section 2 that all taxes be proportional to the census. Taxation was initially tied to population: "Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States . . . according to their respective numbers . . . . " The burden of federal and state taxes was allegedly contained.

Justice And True Compassion
The Mercy of the Wicked Is Cruel

God specifically assigns civil government the task of administering justice in society, i.e., restraining the wrongdoer and punishing those who commit crimes. Nowhere does He assign government the task of providing for the needs of the poor. To attempt such a task, government must abandon its divine assignment of administering justice, protecting life, and safeguarding property from confiscation.

This is because government becomes a perpetrator of injustice when it forcibly confiscates the property of one group in society for transfer to another group. It achieves this via state taxes in every conceivable form.

The law is perverted and used as an agency of injustice ostensibly to "respect the person of the poor" (Lev. 19:15). It specifically violates the Eighth Commandment: "Thou shall not steal" (Ex. 20:15). State taxes at all levels become a means of legalized plunder.

Such a perversion of justice was logically and eloquently documented by the Frenchman, Frederic Bastiat in the nineteenth century:

The law perverted! And the police powers of the state perverted along with it! The law, I say, not only turned from its proper purpose but made to follow an entirely contrary purpose! The law become the weapon of every kind of greed! Instead of checking crime, the law itself guilty of the evils it is supposed to punish! If this is true, it is a serious fact, and moral duty requires me to call the attention of my fellow-citizens to it.(9.1)

These words were written during and after the Revolution of February 1848. As France plunged headlong into socialism, for the most part, Bastiat’s brilliant logic fell on deaf ears.

Biblical Taxation & Welfare

By way of contrast, the biblical state does not engage in so-called welfare activity. Rather it fosters an environment of liberty under law in which men are free to work, trade, and provide for the poor in the land. State taxes are held to a minimum at every level.

Care of the poor is accomplished by such things as gleaning (see Lev. 19:9), poor loans (see Deut. 15:8), indentured servitude (see Lev. 25:39-40) and outright gifts. God has given this responsibility to the church and its individual members. Such compassion is impossible with impersonal state taxes.

When government attempts to provide for the needs of the poor it can only do so by confiscating the wealth of some other part of society. This is neither justice nor compassion, for "the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel" (Prov. 12:10).

Government is assigned the specific function of maintaining justice in society. However, when the church forsakes its responsibility by neglecting care of the poor, government moves in to fill the vacuum. It then becomes an agent of injustice and engages in illegitimate confiscatory taxation and wealth redistribution (see chapter 3).

This kind of centralization is sometimes practiced in the name of Christianity. For example, the Pilgrims were required by charter to set up a common storehouse from which everyone in the colony would be given food. Unfortunately, everyone assumed that someone else would do the planting, cultivating, and harvesting. As a result, the harvest was meager, and winter was a time of starvation and desperation.(9.2)

Finally, Governor Bradford assigned each family individual parcels of land. He announced that everyone would be living off whatever they themselves could manage to produce. The result was a bountiful harvest and the first Thanksgiving Day celebration in the fall.

Other Christian communal societies have sprung up from time to time in America. All eventually fail because they disregard biblical principles of private ownership and stewardship. It appears that such colonies can exist and even thrive, sometimes for many years, as long as they remain small and the religious bond remains strong.

The Amana colonies in central Iowa are a good example. For many years they functioned with a common storehouse. Every year each family was assigned an equal number of coupons which they could trade in at the store. Gradually, a small percentage (never more than about 25 percent) became malingerers and the common storehouse was not sufficient to provide for everybody.

In what the natives call the Great Change of 1932, the Amanas followed in the footsteps of Plymouth. In that year the experiment in Christian socialism was disbanded and free enterprise was introduced. Amana Refrigeration and other industries were incorporated and have flourished over the years.(9.3)

Thus, history confirms that socialism cannot survive, even under the most ideal circumstances. Even when strong Christian charity binds members of a communistic society, the system fails eventually.

How much more is it doomed to failure when the bond is nothing more than state coercion and impersonal state taxes? The collapse of the bloody Soviet state in 1990 is the latest example of such folly.