Jan 18, 2018
Hello again. Tonight is Federalist # 12, which is all about Revenue. Or in other words, tax collecting.
Naturally this one is written by Alexander Hamilton, the banker. He founded the Bank of New York. Later on, President George Washington appointed him as the first Secretary of the Treasury, and in that capacity he also founded the first Bank of the United States. So he would be the one to write an essay to convince the people of New York that the Constitution would be a great idea, because the government would be better at collecting taxes. I admit I got a bit of a chuckle out of that. Can't picture a modern legislator promoting anything with the idea it'd let the Federal government collect more taxes. Anyway, I found it a bit amusing. Then again, I also get many of the dirty jokes in Shakespeare.
The modern debates on reforming the tax code, basically started with the work of Alexander Hamilton.
But he does make some valid points. No government can do much without revenue, no one can, really. If it's got to be done, and it does, it ought to be done well. And he does say that most of that revenue would come from duties on imports, and not from landowners and especially not from farmers, who generally don't have much cash anyway. That had to go over rather well in a largely agrarian society.
This is a short one, but has value of it's own. Good day.
The original text from Congress.gov
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Show Theme: "Canon in D" from Owen Poteat
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