A Modest Proposal: How To Put Teeth Back Into The Tenth Amendment UPLC

Comrades, I come to praise Washington, DC, not to bury it!  Even the most cynical critic of our fearless  leaders must admit some good comes from that pit of decadence, that den of thieves, filled with oversexed sociopaths from all fifty states, Puerto Rico and Guam.

Why just this past year between debauchery filled orgies where MOC's celebrating Teddy Kennedy Day took turns sandwiching Nancy Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein who were dressed as waitresses, yuck,  sickening,  they pulled it together long enough to raise the debt ceiling to $16 trillion which gives us just enough time to make it through Christmas.  I do not believe there is enough bourbon in Kentucky to make me amenable to "sandwiching" either of those hags of congress.  I have my standards, you know.

Enough of the praise already.

I know you are busy and are eager to know what great wisdom the neurons firing in my noodle have for your today.

The Tenth Amendment to the United States Of America goes like this:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution, nor prohibited to it by the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

All politics is local.  On this we should be certain.

I will ask my state senator to look into having our great state of Tennessee collect from its citizens and businesses any tax, state, federal, and local, where the money could then be impounded first to do the people's business at the state level, holding back any funding necessary for the numerous unfunded federal mandates as it relates to health care and education, and the environment, and then if there is any monies left over, these would be sent along to Washington, DC with an explanation.  The taxes would then be apportioned fairly over the population of my state and would then comply with the constitutional requirement that all taxes must be apportioned equally among the states.

Fool, you say, it will never work?  Why not, I say?

All politics is local.  Taxes are local as well.  Why should federal taxation bypass the state when it is in the people's interest to have the state in the taxation loop?  In a perfect world where all men and women are angels we would not need to change how we do business with Washington, DC.

The demons occupying the halls of congress are forcing good men and women to find another path to fairness, justice, and righteousness.

Placing the states in the position of tax collector for the federal government places the power closer to the people where this nation's founders envisioned it.

You got a better idea?   I am listening!

Jackson Delano Maybolt, President Urban Poverty Law Center