Destroying the Consititution - my states attempt

I have been asleep at the wheel and completely missed my states attempt at the destruction of the electoral college. Taking a look at http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/pages/states.php?s=MD, I see that my state was the first to sign in to law that we have given away our electoral votes to whatever the rest of the country decides, based on popular vote in, in all presidential elections. There seems to be a good bit of support, by the un-informed, for this approach that the popular vote should trump electoral vote.

As Mark Levin articulated, this one man: one vote mentality is easy to sell but is completely misleading in its implementation. Because the populace does not understand the electoral college it is easy to disparage it. To understand why it is so critical requires the individual to actually do some research which is something that many seem either unwilling or incapable of doing. As Mark stated on his show on July 27, 2010, doing away with the Electoral college can only really be done with a constitutional amendment, but that is apparently too hard. However, states are permitted to give away their rights at any time.

If 'one man: one vote' is indeed the sole purpose for the support of this approach, then other changes should also be 'in the public interest'. To start, as Mark illustrated, we should abolish the United States Senate. After all, why should each state have the same number of representatives to a governing body if the states are of different sizes?

Perhaps we should really take the individual right and responsibility a number of steps further and consider all 310 million citizens as individual tax payers. With a $3.8 trillion budget, each citizen should be responsible for their 'fair share' of the budget. So, my family of 5 should be expected to pay $61,290. While I don't have the money at the moment - this will definitely cause me to become more active in the legislation that my government decides to pass. Is this practical - absolutely not. Am I honestly encouraging this - NO! However, it does put things in perspective .... doesn't it.

So, my apologies to my fellow Marylanders for not watching more closely. For the more populated states and regions around this once great country - PLEASE GET IT RIGHT. We need the popular vote more than ever to actually elect the right candidate and then my state will offer its votes when everything is said and done. Of course, I wouldn't put it past them to make changes to the law to match their political desires.

Let's go back in time

While amendments to the Constitution are worthy attempts to keep the 'living' document alive, I think there was a change made that needs to be looked at again. The section of the Constitution that I want to talk about is one of the most sensitive portions - it is important to understand that I am concerned with the less known portion of what the 14th amendment modified.
The Constitution (Article I, Section 2), as originally written spells out :

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

I am most interested in the 2nd through 4th words of this sentence. The reference to taxes was completely removed from the 14th amendment and, in my opinion, one of the biggest reasons we have the imbalance in taxation we find today. This portion of the Constitution (Article 1, Section 2) is all about how the representative government would be set up ... representative of the population.
I believe our forefathers knew what would happen if large groups of citizens had a power without responsibility for the power they created. If you take the founding fathers at their word - the taxation of the states should currently follow that of the Electoral College. Take a look at the map to follow along.
Instead of a tax system where every citizen is taxed at a given rate (don't get me started about the unfair nature of regressive taxes) - each state would be responsible for paying 'their share' to the federal government. The fair share would be the same as their ability to elect the President and Vice President. Areas of higher population have more votes and should also pay more in taxes ( on a regional basis ). This has nothing to do with income levels - it is a direct mapping to their constitutional rights presented in the Constitution. To simplify - you pay the taxes proportional to your access to the government providing the services for you.
So, in the case of the U.S. population - my state would be responsible for providing 1.86% of the federal budget (10 electoral votes for the state of Maryland against 538 total electoral votes). On the other hand a state like New York (which can decide an election) should provide 5.76% of the federal budget and California should provide 10.22%.

This model could and should be used at the state level as well. If you have a larger voice - you should pay a higher price. This is not an attack on individuals - it is the fundamental fairness that our founding fathers had designed and over time, we have forgotten. Perhaps if the citizens had to pay for the services they are demanding - they could/would be a little more careful in exercising their right to the vote in the first place.