Amendment Quote by Barton Gellman

Prior to the 16th Amendment, which authorized the individual income tax, tariffs had been one of the federal government's chief sources of funding.

— Scott Bessent

It was not until the Abraham Lincoln administration that an income tax was imposed on Americans. Its stated purpose was to finance the war,…

— Walter E. Williams

“We see then, in the first years of the Constitution, that some of its provisions—even those paraded most flamboyantly (like the First Amendment)—might be…

— Howard Zinn

Rather than passing a thousand pages of tax reform legislation and restarting the tax code manipulation process, we should change the paradigm. It is…

— Jim Bridenstine

We need to get rid of the 16th amendment, and return to the original system that funds government with a variety of tariffs and…

— Alan Keyes

Let me tell you, that's what taxation is - it's confiscation. It's your money, it's not the government's money. But the government makes you…

— Rafael Cruz

“Before Congress instituted the federal income tax in 1913, following the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution, America’s tax burden fell disproportionately…

— Jane Mayer

When liberals advocate a value-added tax, conservatives should respond: Taxing consumption has merits, so we will consider it - after the 16th Amendment is…

— George Will

Many of the opposition [to the new Federal Constitution] wish to take from Congress the power of internal taxation. Calculation has convinced me that…

— Thomas Jefferson

The Founding Fathers realized that "the power to tax is the power to destroy," which is why they did not give the Federal government…

— Ron Paul

Nothing can be clearer than that what the Constitution intended to guard against was the exercise by the general government of the power of…

— Melville Fuller

The nation's first experiment with the income tax was tried at this time; another violation of the Constitution.

— G. Edward Griffin