▪️EDITOR’S NOTE: The following article was written exclusively for this site. It is published nowhere else.▪️
The Coolidge Review is both a website & paper publication that goes about its business quietly, rather like Silent Cal himself. They publish non-woke articles about America’s history with a particular emphasis on the late 19th and early 20th century, the dawn of the progressive era. Much of what they publish is how that movement has ruined us. It is often both frustrating and edifying to read them. I check in on them a couple of times a month to see what they are up to and I always find something worth reading.
Recently they published a couple of articles having to do with how early progressive policies suffocated American innovation and prosperity and both of them cited the 16th Amendment, the power to tax us, which was ratified in 1913. I thought a couple of excerpts were particularly notable and here they are.
From “The Malefactors of Great Wealth” which appeared in the Summer 2026 issue of the Coolidge Review.
I knew that the progressives had ratcheted up the top marginal rate to insane proportions, but I did not know it happened so fast! You may wonder how on earth our 1918 President, Senate, and House voted that into reality. Easy: all Democrats. They controlled all of them: Woodrow Wilson was President, and the 68th Congress had a Senate with 52 Democrat seats, and a House with Democrats in operational control because they had… wait for it… Socialists caucusing with them.
If that’s not a warning for the mid-terms, I don’t know what is. We cannot let these people anywhere near power.
The Republicans on the Hill have absolutely earned our contempt. You will find no argument from me there. And while they surely have not earned our votes, they simply must have them because to not give them would be to give Democrats power and should they gain control of the House they will subpoena Trump world to death and bury them under all kinds of investigations and very likely a third impeachment — which may even see some RINO yea votes because they hate Trump so much for being the skunk at their little corruption party. Yes. I believe some Republicans will vote to impeach the President. I wrote about it for American Thinker here.
Next from The Coolidge Review was this little morsel also from their Summer 2026 issue from a piece entitled “How America Prospered Before the Income Tax“:
I had never thought of it that way but the writer is absolutely right. It absolutely is a kind of slavery. We face a loss of liberty should we not comply with their outrageous demands so we are locked in, are we not? How obscene when you think of it that way.
Surely none of us object to paying for our military and control of our borders, etc. But good gravy, 5 months of every 12? Really?
I heartily recommend both articles in particular and The Coolidge Review in general. There are no paywalls. Enjoy. 😊