On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 3:48 PM, Loathe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > So you think the founding fathers supported welfare, unemployment, and > other social programs? These men that didn't support ANY level of > taxation on wages? You do realize that we didn't have taxes for almost > 150 years right? That taxes were a major cause of the revolution right? > > That they were sick of government being involved in their businesses and > homes. >
Out of curiosity, do you think this is actually true? Or is this just tossing crap out there to see who will believe it? No taxes for almost 150 years? How do you think the Federal Government ran? On Magic Revolutionary Fairy Dust? >From the very beginning, the Federal government established a variety of excise taxes (import/export) and direct taxes on houses, land, slaves, etc. There were periods of time when there were no direct taxes, but excise taxes of various sorts were always in place. Those taxes, by the by, were the type of taxes that were being imposed by England. The colonists didn't object to concept of taxation (it is written into the Constitution you know), they objected to taxation without representation. You may have heard that line somewhere before. You may be talking about the lack of an income tax. The income tax was not implemented until 1861, this is true. It is also true that a good portion of the populace prior to that time didn't tend to work from wages. Excise and property taxes made a lot more sense when the middle class (generally wage earners) were a tiny percentage of the population. As for the founding fathers supporting unemployment and welfare, the colonies most certainly had programs of that nature. They were generally taken care of my local governments are called "outdoor relief". Basically destitute people were adopted by a family and the government paid the family on a case-by-case basis to take care of them. Later on with increasing urban density you saw the creation of Poor Houses for such matters. But that was a fair bit on. Judah ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:273679 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
