John, they never used it. Not once. To my knowledge, the direct tax plan through apportionment, what you call as the "original tax plan" has never been used by the Founders or anyone else. I oppose property taxes, income taxes and value-added taxes. I like sales taxes because they are easy, efficient and voluntary whereas the others are none of the above. So, if there is another type of plan that is voluntary, easy and efficient, I would be delighted to review it. But any plan that allows either the federal government or a state or any other level of government to force taxation through liens, seizures, assessments, valuations or income, I totally oppose. These are the epitome of socialism on its face and communism on the back.
For me, the FairTax is the best plan. It's easy, it's efficient, it's voluntary, it's collected by the states through paid retail businesses, nothing could be more simple, fair or free than that. It even has a rebate program that reimburses everyone who is a US citizen or legal resident the FairTax they would or could pay in FairTax on essentials up to the household consumption allowance. The rate is split after collection to fund general revenue and social security separately so the monies are not commingled and the rates are set separately as well. 14.91% for General Revenue and 8.09% for Social Security and Medicare. It's really a great plan. I've tried for years to find a weakness in it, and so far I can't find one.
Anyway, the tax plans aren't of any interest to me in this election because they're all income tax based and just more same o same o of the same failed income tax. Of the plans, Trump's is as good as any and I think he'll ramp it up to the FaiTax or something similar once he's in office and actually fix the problem, because that's his end game, to fix the problem, and he knows this plan while perhaps a better version than we have now, is still the same o failed income tax system.