Until the Progressive era under Teddy Roosevelt there was no income tax and no government bureaucracy except for paying pensions to Civil War veterans and their spouses (which didn’t wind up fully until very modern times when the last soldier’s widow died).
Upton Sinclair took dead aim at America’s heart and hit them in the stomach.
The Jungle - Wikipedia - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle
The furor caused the Pure Food and Drug Act,
Under the free market only system people died from unpasteurized milk, tainted meat, but today thanks to regulations about the only cases of food poisoning come from the potato salad at the big church picnic and occasionally from imported cilantro, but hillbillies never eat cilantro on purpose so that doesn’t count.
The new decision will paralyze rule making. Not a bad thing in of itself, but from here until that decision is reversed in a decade or two or five, instead of rule making Congress will use their taxation powers.
Don’t worry, they won’t tax me or thee—
They’ll tax that guy behind the tree.