"How, by the way, did we ever let ourselves..."

"How, by the way, did we ever let ourselves be talked into such a thing?  The income tax was first proposed for several reasons.  The tariff, from which the federal government received most of its funding, was for a variety of reasons bringing in a decreased revenue.  At the same time, federal expenditures were going up, thanks in part to an increase in the military budget. 

An alternative had to be found.  At the time, many Americans viewed the tariff as an unfair tax that burdened them as consumers and benefited big business by sheltering it from foreign competition.  A tax on incomes, the argument went, would at last force the rich to pay their share.  And that's just how the income tax was pitched to the people: tax relief for you, in the form of lower tariffs, and a tax increase for the rich.  Do not worry, people were told.  Only the richest of the rich will ever pay the income tax.

That phony promise didn't last long.  Within a few years, tax rates had shot through the roof, and classes of people who had thought they would never be taxed found themselves paying as well.  And by the 1920s the tariff was raised again anyway, so the people wound up getting the worst of both worlds." -Page 80 of The Revolution, A Manifesto

"What we should work toward, however, is abolishing...."

"What we should work toward, however, is abolishing the income tax and replacing it not with a national sales tax, but with nothing.  Right now the federal government is funded by excise taxes, corporate income tax, payroll taxes, the individual income tax, and miscellaneous other sources.  Abolishing the income tax on individuals would cut government revenue by about 40 percent.  I have heard the breathless claims about how radical that is - and compared to the trivial changes we are accustomed to seeing in the government, I suppose it is.  But in absolute terms, is it really so radical?  In order to imagine what it would be like to live in a country with a federal budget 40% lower than the federal budget of 2007, it would be necessary to go all the way back to.... 1997.

Would it really be so hard to imagine living in 1997 again?  In return, we would have an economy so robust and dynamic that it would doubtless shatter even my own optimistic expectations.  And we would once and for all have repudiated the totalitarian assumptions at the heart of the income tax." -Pages 79 & 80 of The Revolution, A Manifesto

"With a consensus not yet established...."

"With a consensus not yet established behind the abolition of the income tax (although I have never ceased voting and speaking on behalf of such an outcome), I have done my best to eliminate income and other taxation in as many specific cases as possible, in order at least to make dents in the edifice in the meantime.  For instance, I have proposed, for all those whose income consists largely of tips, that income in the form of tips be exempt from income taxation.  I have proposed that America's teachers be granted tax credits, thereby increasing their salaries.  I have proposed that people with terminal illnesses be exempt from Social Security taxes while they struggle for their lives.  (There is surely no moral justification for taxing people who are trying to maintain their very lives.)" -Page 79 of The Revolution, A Manifesto