Well the 16th amendment is called the progressive taxation amendment. The founding fathers did taxation what was called capitation taxation. That is apportionment by numbers. So, taxes have to be spread across all the people whether– it’s really the same for all the people percentage wise. It’s much like the tithe in the Bible where God says, “Hey, everybody does 10 percent.” You can call that a tax if you want. Everyone is treated the same.
But under Woodrow Wilson the 16th Amendment gets ratified to the point they can tax the upper class whatever percentage they agree on. It started at 3% and at one point rose to 86% so technically we the people made it constitutional by voting it in.
Was it bad? I agree it was a very bad and we should ratify it again back to originality because as for the picture above the government Constitutionally was never given the power over Health, unemployment and labor, food and ag, education, housing, energy and environment, and science.
If the government released its grip back to the states where these powers was once housed. They wouldn't need a progressive tax.
Let the states, the free market, and capitalism do most of the work.