In a message dated 8/28/02 3:35:39 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

<< Uh, how about the first income tax ever passed?  It had super-majority
support in amendment form! >>

Congress passed the first federal income tax in 1861, without supermajority 
support.  If you'd asked the average Northern voter in 1861 if he supported 
taxing the wealthiest northerners to pay for a war against the South, he 
might have said yes, but if you'd asked him if he supported a precedent which 
the government could then use to take a large share of his own income and 
force him to file returns revealing his activities to the federal government, 
I rather doubt that he would have said yes.

David

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