You left out the fact that Jefferson opposed income taxes and sales taxes and that he believed government revenues should be derived from tariffs on imported goods. (Tariffs are an indirect tax levied against the supplier, who then raises the cost of the imports to offset the difference, and the higher costs are then absorbed by the people purchasing the imported goods.)
Using that quote to claim Jefferson was in favor of a Progressive Income Tax system is totally dishonest... I can see why the Left uses it.
Here we go again with the lack of knowledge of the Founders as so many seem to be, and then calling one something you have no knowledge of.
Constitutionally speaking, tariffs, duties, and posts, were established for the purpose of taxing the rich, and the rich alone, since it was the rich who were the ones who bought luxury goods, or imported goods.
In another letter to Thaddeus Kosciusko in 1811, Jefferson wrote "The rich alone use imported articles, and on these alone the whole taxes of the general government are levied.... The farmer will see his government supported....without his being called on to spend a cent from his earnings?"
It wasn't that Jefferson supported a progressive tax, it was that Jefferson understood that if the wealth of a nation was ever accrued by the few then liberty was lost. Have you not seen the quote of Jefferson where he warns of the aristocracy of the banks, and the corporations, and how he wished to "crush" such an aristocracy in its infancy?
IMO, you can never have the limited government that Jefferson desired with the wealth controlled by a few. Look at what happened to Britain when the East Indies Co. controlled the wealth. Jefferson also opposed government assistance to corporations, or corporate influence on government. If not for the current system we would not have had a distortion of the Constitution as we have seen in many cases the latest being the Kelo decision by the USSC, and the Citizens United decision, which only served to promote benefits to the corporate world, and also to international unions.
In case you have not noticed, or heard, corporations/Wall Street supported the election of Obama, and even Obamacare. In fact, 1/3 of the contributions to Obama this year has been from Wall Street.
In any event, I would support the egalitarian beliefs of Jefferson before I would support the Internationalist views of the "right" which condones the use of slave labor such as in China, the use of human trafficking of child slaves as in the cacao fields of Africa, or the enslavement of the American worker to the demands of the corporate world thus making the American people more dependent on the government for their subsistence.
