Does Anyone Remember "Impoundment?"

I had the opportunity to engage in a fairly intense political discussion this past weekend with a naturalized US citizen who was born in Spain. Her not-unexpected bias is very liberal, and her comments were filled with ad hominem arguments against various prominent Republicans: Bush, Cheney, Palin, Limbaugh, et.al.

Why is it so many liberals feel compelled to launch personal attacks against conservatives or Republicans? Don't they realize how empty of logic and substance this usually marks their own positions?

In any case, as our conversation wound its way through a variety of political topics, she began to realize that I really am open-minded in my political views, though usually adhering to a fairly stable set of values.

Thus, I criticized the Bush administration's reliance on the TARP, as well as its further bastardization under Wonderboy's regime. I noted that if you thought Bush was imperious, you have to acknowledge that our new First Rookie is even more so.

When we discussed poverty and ignorance as the two most serious problems bedeviling our Republic, she steadfastly refused to believe a widely-known fact, i.e., that the Democratic party is heavily controlled and influenced by the NEA. My companion simply disavowed this, though she had no evidence with which to disprove my contention, nor support her own.

We then got around to discussing federalism. I opined that, after watching Glenn Beck's recent program, it was dawning on me that, rather than a partisan issue, the major problem we all share is that of states' rights versus an unconstitutionally-powerful federal government. Somehow, the talk turned to our recent dependence on courts, rather than legislatures, for resolving important issues.

Suddenly, I found myself educating my companion on the history of impoundment.

Does anyone else recall this fundamental turning point in American history? Briefly stated, here's what happened.

In 1975, a Democratic Congress sent Richard Nixon a budget which he judged too expensive to afford. He announced he'd simply impound, or choose not to spend, all of the money appropriated in the budget.

The result was a lawsuit by the Congressional leaders to force Nixon to spend every penny. God help us, the courts sustained the plaintiffs, and we've been in trouble ever since. Just read this article to see how naive Sam Ervin was in his contention that Congress would be responsible in its victory to reign supreme over budgetary authority.

This is the basis for the continuing debate over a presidential line-item veto.

In retrospect, 34 years later, can you believe how naive and senseless the Democrats, and, really, all of Congress, were, to actually remove an effective bar to wildly uncontrolled Congressional spending? The quotes attributed to Ervin at the time, in the linked The Atlantic article, are almost too inane to now take seriously,

"Congress," he says, "is not composed of wild-eyed spenders, nor is the President the embattled crusader against wasteful spending that he would have you believe."

That was then. The piece goes on to note,

"It is a political fact, fully recognized by Ervin, that anti-impoundment legislation will have to be accompanied by new evidences of congressional self-control in spending. Ervin is personally a budget-balancer anyway."

Unfortunately, Sam Ervin's short-sightedness failed to appreciate the use to which those who followed him would put his judicial victory. And, sadly, we see how, once again, courts weighed in to damage our Republic. All three branches played a role in this mess. Now, it's grown massively beyond the scale of nearly four decades ago.

The idea of any current leaders of Congress actually committing to a balanced budget is laughable.

How many citizens are even aware of that long-ago battle over just 4% of the fiscal 1975 federal budget? And how its outcome led to our present federal excesses by both parties?