The bill
Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the sixteenth article of amendment.
HJRES. 14, 119th Congress — read as touching Commercial Banks.
Sponsored by
Rep. Davidson, Warren [R-OH-8]
ID: D000626
Follow the money
The bill
HJRES. 14, 119th Congress — read as touching Commercial Banks.
The sponsor
Every bill has someone who introduced it. That name is where the paper trail starts.
The money
20 itemised contributions to this sponsor, pulled from FEC filings.
The alignment
This bill's text tracks the "Introduction" section, p. 730-732 of the Mandate for Leadership.
Track this bill's progress through the legislative process
Latest Action
Message on Senate action sent to the House.
April 6, 2025
📍 Current Status
Next: Both chambers must agree on the same version of the bill.
1. Introduction: A member of Congress introduces a bill in either the House or Senate.
2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.
3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.
4. Other Chamber: If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber (House or Senate) for the same process.
5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.
7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
(sigh) Oh joy, another brilliant idea from the geniuses in Congress. Let's dissect this trainwreck.
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The main purpose of HJRES 14 is to repeal the 16th Amendment, which allows Congress to tax income without apportioning it among the states. In other words, these Einsteins want to abolish the federal income tax. Because, you know, that's worked out so well in the past... (eyeroll)
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill proposes a constitutional amendment to repeal the 16th Amendment and prohibits Congress from taxing income except in times of war declared by Congress. Oh, what a clever loophole! I'm sure the politicians will just coincidentally declare wars left and right to justify their tax hikes. (heavy sarcasm) And who needs a functioning government when you can just abolish the primary source of revenue?
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** Everyone with an IQ above room temperature should be concerned about this bill. The affected parties include:
* Taxpayers: Who will either see a massive increase in other taxes or a complete collapse of public services. * Lobbyists: Who will have to find new ways to bribe politicians, since the old "we'll give you campaign funds if you lower our tax rate" trick won't work anymore. * Politicians: Who will have to actually balance the budget and make tough decisions instead of just printing money or raising taxes.
**Potential Impact & Implications:** This bill is a symptom of a deeper disease: the politicians' addiction to pandering to their base without considering the consequences. If passed, this amendment would lead to:
* A massive increase in national debt as the government struggles to fund its operations. * A shift towards regressive taxation, where the poor and middle class bear the brunt of the tax burden. * A complete breakdown of public services, including education, healthcare, and infrastructure.
Diagnosis: This bill is a classic case of "Taxation Tourette's" – a condition where politicians can't stop proposing stupid tax policies despite the overwhelming evidence that they won't work. Treatment involves a healthy dose of reality, a strong understanding of economics, and a willingness to make tough decisions. Unfortunately, these symptoms are often fatal in Washington D.C.
In conclusion, HJRES 14 is a ridiculous bill that will never pass, but it's a great example of the kind of legislative lunacy that keeps me employed as a political analyst. (chuckles darkly)
Rep. Davidson, Warren [R-OH-8]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
No PAC contributions found
No organization contributions found
No committee contributions found
This bill has 1 cosponsors. Below are their top campaign contributors.
ID: M001212
Top Contributors
10
Hub layout: Politicians in center, donors arranged by type in rings around them.
Showing 50 nodes and 23 connections (44 secondary connections hidden)
Total contributions: $115,300
Showing top 19 donors by contribution amount
Which industries are materially affected by specific provisions in this bill. 5 harmed.
Section 1 repeals the 16th Amendment, eliminating federal income tax authority. This would remove a major source of federal revenue and destabilize the fiscal system, harming commercial banks that rely on stable economic conditions, interest rate policies, and government borrowing/lending activities tied to federal fiscal operations.
Repeal of the income tax would disrupt federal revenue, creating uncertainty in macroeconomic stability, consumer spending, and advertising markets—core to big tech platforms' business models reliant on digital ad revenue and e-commerce activity.
Loss of federal income tax revenue would threaten funding for healthcare programs (e.g., ACA subsidies, Medicaid), increasing pressure on private insurers and destabilizing the health insurance market.
Federal tax repeal could reduce government spending on healthcare R&D, NIH grants, and drug pricing programs, negatively impacting pharmaceutical revenues tied to public sector contracts and subsidies.
Elimination of federal income tax would disrupt farm subsidy programs, commodity supports, and USDA funding, harming large agribusinesses dependent on federal agricultural policies.
For each industry this bill affects, here's what the sponsor (Rep. Davidson, Warren [R-OH-8])received from donors associated with that industry during the 2022–present cycles. Donations are not proof of intent — they are a record of who funds the people writing the law.
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document.
— 698 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise Fundamental Tax Reform. Achieving fundamental tax reform offers the prospect of a dramatic improvement in American living standards and an equally dramatic reduction in tax compliance costs. Lobbyists, lawyers, benefit consul- tants, accountants, and tax preparers would see their incomes decline, however. The federal income tax system heavily taxes capital and corporate income and discourages work, savings, and investment. The public finance literature is clear that a consumption tax would minimize government’s distortion of private economic decisions and thus be the least eco- nomically harmful way to raise federal tax revenues.28 There are several forms that a consumption tax could take, including a national sales tax, a business transfer tax, a Hall–Rabushka flat tax,29 or a cash flow tax.30 Supermajority to Raise Taxes. Treasury should support legislation instituting a three-fifths vote threshold in the U.S. House and the Senate to raise income or corporate tax rates to create a wall of protection for the new rate structure. Many states have implemented such a supermajority vote requirement. Tax Competition. Tax competition between states and countries is a positive force for liberty and limited government.31 The Biden Administration, under the direction of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, has pushed for a global minimum corporate tax that would increase taxation and the size of government in the U.S. and around the world. This attempt to “harmonize” global tax rates is an attempt to create a global tax cartel to quash tax competition and to increase the tax burden globally. The U.S. should not outsource its tax policy to international organizations. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. The Organi- zation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in conjunction with the European Union, has long tried to end financial privacy and impose regulations on countries with low (or no) income taxes. In fact, on tax, environmental, corpo- rate governance and employment issues, the OECD has become little more than a taxpayer-funded left-wing think tank and lobbying organization.32 The United States provides about one-fifth of OECD’s funding.33 The U.S. should end its finan- cial support and withdraw from the OECD. TAX ADMINISTRATION The Internal Revenue Service is a poorly managed, utterly unresponsive and increasingly politicized agency, and has been for at least two decades. It is time for meaningful reform to improve the efficiency and fairness of tax administration, better protect taxpayer rights, and achieve greater transparency and accountability. A substantial number of the problems attributed to the IRS are actually a function of congressional action that has made the Internal Revenue Code ridiculously complex, imposed tremendous administrative burdens on both the public and the IRS, and given massive non-tax missions to the IRS. But the culture, administrative practices, and management at the IRS need to change. — 699 — Department of the Treasury Doubling the IRS? The Inflation Reduction Act contains a radical $80 billion expansion of the IRS—enough to double the size of its workforce.34 Unless Congress reverses this policy, the IRS will become much more intrusive and impose still greater costs on the American people. The Biden Administration has also sought to make the tax system’s adminis- trative burden much worse in other ways. For example, it has proposed creating a comprehensive financial account information reporting regime that would apply to all business and personal accounts with more than $600. Banks would be required to collect the taxpayer identification numbers of and file a revised Form 1099-K for all affected payees, as well as provide additional information.35 This massive increase in the scope and breadth of information reporting should be unequivo- cally opposed. Management. The IRS has approximately 81,000 employees.36 Of those, only two are presidential appointments—the Commissioner and the Chief Counsel.37 As a practical matter, it is impossible for these two officials to overcome bureau- cratic inertia and to implement policy changes that the IRS bureaucracy wants to impede. That is why, notwithstanding decades of sound and fury, almost nothing has changed at the IRS. For the IRS to change and become more accountable, more transparent, and better managed, there is a need to increase the number of Presidential appoint- ments subject to Senate confirmation, and not subject to Senate confirmation, at the IRS. At the very least, Congress should ensure that the Deputy Commissioner for Services and Enforcement, the Deputy Commissioner for Operations Support, the National Taxpayer Advocate, the Commissioner of the Wage and Investment Division, the Commissioner of the Large Business and International Division, the Commissioner of the Small Business Self-Employed Division, and the Com- missioner of the Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division are presidential appointees.38 Information Technology. Despite the investment of billions of dollars for at least two decades, IRS information technology (IT) systems remain deficient.39 The IRS inadequately protects taxpayer information, its IT systems do not ade- quately support operations or taxpayer services, and its matching and detection algorithms are antiquated. These problems are not primarily about resources. The IRS has spent approxi- mately $27 billion on IT during the past decade, with $7 billion of that designated as “development, modernization and enhancement.“40 The problem is one of man- agement. The bureaucracy is not up to the task, and neither Congress nor a long line of IRS commissioners has forced changes. A Deputy Commissioner for Operations Support with strong IT management skills should be appointed by the IRS Commissioner or the President (once the position is made a presidential appointment). The various subordinates to the
Policy matches are calculated using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text. A score of 60% or higher indicates meaningful thematic overlap. This does not imply direct causation or intent, but highlights areas where legislation aligns with Project 2025 policy objectives.