I wrote in this recent post,
"Actually, they do. And we know for a fact that voters in at least 87 House districts, the ones which elected freshmen GOP members, and a handful of states which elected Senators like Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, and other Tea Party-inclined GOP freshmen Senators, don't care about bi-partisanship which allows the free-spending liberal Democrats to continue their usual Washington ways.
What I believe we are seeing is not a new emphasis on bi-partisanship, but a fleeting moment of collaboration to do the minimum necessary to operate the federal government, until the 2012 elections sweep Democrats from their control of the Senate and, probably, the Oval Office.
But I agree with Charles Krauthammer, who contended recently on Fox News that Americans need a serious, knock-down, drag-out debate about the nation's direction at least once every generation.
That's what is occurring now. The recent debt limit debates and so-called (faux) crisis is merely the opening shot in that battle.
If you can objectively observe the trends of the past four years, it's pretty clear that the election of an inexperienced, spendthrift Senator from Illinois to the presidency, along with majorities in both houses of Congress, was the breaking point.
Now momentum has moved back the other way."
David Rivkin, Jr., and Lee Casey, attorneys who served in the Department of Justice during the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, wrote an editorial in Tuesday's edition of the Wall Street Journal entitled A Debt Deal The Founders Could Love. In it, they expanded on a similar point, eschewing this sudden love of bi-partisan compromise by Democrats,
"The debt-ceiling crisis has prompted predictable media laments about how partisan and dysfunctional our political system has become. But if the process leading to the current deal was a "spectacle" and a "three-ring circus," as Obama adviser David Plouffe put it, the show's impresarios are none other than James Madison and Alexander Hamilton. Our messy political system is working exactly the way our Founders intended it to.
To the extent House members were the most intransigent during the process—a matter of opinion, in any case—they were meant to be. The House of Representatives is the "popular branch," as described in The Federalist Papers, and was intended to "have an immediate dependence on, and an intimate sympathy with, the people." Many people, especially those who elected tea party candidates last November, passionately believe that the federal government has gone off the rails. They think that Washington has been spending like a drunken sailor since President Obama took office, and that this profligacy must end.
By contrast, the Framers conceived the Senate as a body of graybeards (or, at the very least, as modestly mature individuals who have reached the age of 30). It was meant to represent the interests of the states and to serve as a check on "the impulse of sudden and violent passions," or the danger of "factious leaders" offering "intemperate and pernicious resolutions" that might in time characterize the lower house. If the Senate has been less willing than the House to call an immediate halt to federal borrowing and to seek a more gradual return to fiscal responsibility, this too is exactly what it is supposed to do.
The result was a compromise, as it has nearly always been throughout our history. This will be a disappointment to many who voted for real and immediate fiscal restraint, but that too is to be expected. The Framers believed in gradual change. They prized stability and predictability. Most would have agreed with Talleyrand's injunction—"above all, not too much zeal"—and themselves watched as Talleyrand learned this lesson the hard way. An early and enthusiastic participant in the French Revolution, France's future foreign minister was forced to take refuge in the United States after his countrymen started cutting off heads.
Accordingly, the Framers rejected a parliamentary system of government, where power is concentrated in the legislature and very often in one house of the legislature. There truly are winners and losers in such political systems, and governmental policy can indeed be transformed immediately after a new government takes office.
By contrast, our Constitution diffuses power both vertically among the federal government and states and horizontally among the three branches of the federal government—and then again within Congress itself. Change, even good and necessary change, is always difficult. It must be based on consensus.
Yes, reaching consensus on any issue that matters is messy. Shouting and intransigence are commonplace in such battles and have been since the very beginning. Indeed, the Washington circus began well before the capital city was completed, and the Founding generation was second to none in its use of political invective. For example, Thomas Jefferson and his surrogates suggested President Washington had gone senile and claimed that John Adams was a closet monarchist. After he became president, Jefferson himself was excoriated because of an alleged sexual relationship with one of his slaves, Sally Hemmings.
Rarely in our system do the participants, whether in the House, Senate or White House, achieve all or even most of their goals in a single political battle. Sunday night, a debt-ceiling deal was reached that will raise the federal debt ceiling and permit continued borrowing to fund federal government operations through 2012 rather than just for another six months. The hard questions—taxes and spending cuts—have largely been postponed.
But the key point has been made. Few now suggest that we can continue on our current spending binge. That is the beginning of a consensus, and a good start towards genuine change. Postponing the difficult questions also means that the electorate can have its say in the 2012 elections, and represents significant political risks for all parties.
The Framers would be pleased at the "spectacle." "
Rivkin and Casey have done a wonderful job, in my opinion, of debunking, with historical examples, this commonly-, but wrongly-held notion that there was more political civility in our Republic's olden times. One often hears these appeals for bi-partisanship, compromise and civility when a party or leader knows they possess a very weak position, either in terms of votes or ideology.
In this most recent case, the debt limit battle, the Democrats were weak on both counts. Thus, the appeal for compromise in order to attempt to hide their weakness on spending and rather naked desire to simply be given the license to embark on a few trillion dollars more in American indebtedness.
While it's true that the ultimate amount of spending cuts were minuscule, and the debt ceiling was raised by an amount ($2.4T) calculated by Wonderboy to allow him to get through the next election before seeking to raise it again, the tide has turned, and Tea Party-inspired legislators who voted for the anemic bill made their point.
And it's not finished. Michele Bachmann voted no and, I am sure, will use that vote to bludgeon any fellow candidates for the GOP presidential nomination, should they voice support of the bill, as passed.
It would have done no good for the US to have gone through the trouble of allocating incoming tax receipts to pay debt interest and some necessary expenses, while shutting down parts of the federal government. But the near-run partial shutdown proved a point.
It substantially eroded Wonderboy's remaining low levels of power and standing with voters. I suspect, given the excessive rhetoric of Democratic Senators and the VP, calling Tea Party-backed legislators "terrorists" won't have endeared that party to voters, come 2012. Not to mention Harry Reid's continuing insistence that he wants to raise taxes so he can hand Wonderboy more money to waste.
Even if the GOP can't field a candidate who defeats Wonderboy next year, the Senate is likely to shift to GOP control, making the First Rookie's second term, if there is one, essentially pointless.
But, as Rivkin and Casey imply, America gets the government it wants and deserves. It tried Democratic hegemony for two years, and found it unacceptable. As I wrote in the earlier post, were the entire Senate up for re-election last November, chances are the Republicans would control that chamber now, too.
Come 2012, though, sufficient numbers of independents could be so wary of continued Democratic control of any federal branch of government that even a weak GOP presidential candidate will be washed into office along with majorities in both houses of Congress. To begin the work of cutting back federal government size, reach and spending.
Yes, it sure is messy when government change occurs 33 Senate seats, 435 House seats at a time, every two years, and the Oval Office only once each four years. It makes for halting, erratic government during the big power shifts.
But I sense a trifecta coming for the GOP in 2012 now that the Democrats showed their true colors during the debt ceiling battle, i.e., raise taxes, borrow more, spend more.
I believe most voting Americans no longer want that type of federal government. And when they get what they want next year, it won't look so messy anymore.
Showing posts with label Constitution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Constitution. Show all posts
Friday, August 5, 2011
Friday, July 29, 2011
More On Why A Balanced Budget Amendment Is A Bad Idea
In this post earlier this month, I argued that a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution is not a good idea. Specifically, I wrote,
"Certainly, within the context of this current struggle over Congressional authorization of a debt limit, a Balanced Budget amendment is Constitutional overkill. Being old enough to remember several attempts to add amendments to the Constitution, this is neither the time nor the manner in which to resolve the issue at hand.
Ramming such an amendment through Congress in 2-3 weeks will only assure that it's ill-designed and overlooks important details.
No, it's too blunt an instrument for what is, in reality, a product of political forces. And it doesn't share something most other amendments do, which is either an added law involving a fundamental concept viewed as central to American values, such as the Bill of Rights, or a very clear-cut, well-defined operationally-oriented amendment, such as succession of a disable President, direct election of Senators, and the like."
Last Friday, Peter H. Schuck, a professor at Yale Law School wrote an editorial in the Wall Street Journal entitled The Balanced Budget Amendment's Fatal Flaw, which provided some of the details of which I wasn't as aware, supporting my contention. Here is his piece in its entirety.
A balanced budget amendment (BBA), a hardy perennial in Congress, is once again in the headlines. This is entirely understandable. The public trusts neither the president nor Congress, regardless of the party in control, to strike and maintain an economically healthy, sustainable balance between federal spending and revenues. Thus, the idea of tying them to the constitutional mast, Ulysses-like, so that they cannot succumb to the inevitable temptation to spend more and tax less is itself tempting to many reformers and voters.
Nevertheless, many sound objections to a BBA exist, which the current version—indeed, any version—cannot adequately address. Many of these objections, such as the need for deficit spending in a recession, are hoary Keynesian pieties and will resonate only with liberals and moderates. But one objection, largely absent from the debate so far, should convince even the most hidebound conservative to strongly oppose the BBA.
I can think of no other law that would empower judges to exercise more political and policy-making discretion than a balanced budget amendment. It would quickly realize every conservative's fears of an "imperial judiciary" that "legislates from the bench"—even if the courts simply did their job and did not grasp for that power.
First, the courts would be swamped with challenges to every governmental decision with significant budgetary implications, which means almost all important decisions. As federal Judge Ralph Winter pointed out long ago, the judges would have to decide who, if anyone, would have standing to sue and who the proper defendant would be. If they ruled that no one had standing, then the amendment would be legally unenforceable, a dead letter. If the judges found standing, however, a host of exceptionally controversial legal-interpretation issues would arise.
Perhaps the most fundamental questions have been posed by Rudy Penner, who was Congressional Budget Office director in the Reagan years: What is a "budget," and which budgets are covered by the amendment? This is pivotal because the amendment would create an irresistible incentive for politicians to expand "off-budget" programs or establish new ones.
Social Security, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Postal Service and the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are all off-budget and constitute a huge share of federal fiscal commitments. The BBA does not even mention this multitrillion-pound gorilla, nor does it deal with the creation of new off-budget spending programs which would certainly proliferate in its wake, so a judge would have to decide whether they are included. (The state and local equivalent dodge of balanced budget rules is the "special district"—some 40,000 nationwide—which often has taxing power. )
The BBA also uses the basic term "tax" as if it were self-defining, but of course it isn't. Indeed, one of the key issues in the legal challenge to ObamaCare is whether the spending mandates in the legislation constitute a tax (as the administration argues) or a penalty (as its opponents claim). Only the courts can decide—and so far they have split on the issue. This is political power of a high order, given the importance of the legislation.
Then there are the classic ploys that governments use to evade budgetary restrictions, about which the BBA is also silent. Does the amendment's term "outlay" apply to long-term capital investments such as infrastructure spending, of which the Obama administration is so fond? If not, we can anticipate lots more spending being called capital investment. The judges will have to decide whether the amendment applies or not.
Does "outlay" cover government loan guarantees—a form of subsidy used promiscuously by government to avoid budgetary constraints? Does "revenue" include so-called "offsetting receipts" such as the large amounts that Medicare beneficiaries pay for their physician and drug benefits? If so, we can expect Congress to use more of them. Again, the courts will have to decide.
It does seem clear that the amendment would not cover private expenditures mandated by government regulation of individuals and firms. After all, regulations affect private budgets, not governmental ones; that is part of their political appeal. If the BBA passes, then look for the politicians to transfer much of their spending desires into a burst of new regulations. For conservatives, this should be a nightmare.
The political pundits report that there is no chance that the balanced budget amendment will pass. This should be cause for conservative celebration, not disappointment.
While I'm not as focused on these legal details as Prof. Schuck is, it's the sort of weakness which I imagined an amendment would have. Loose, undefined language, easily circumvented by new fiscal creations in Congress or the White House. The unconsolidated nature of federal budgeting.
The fact that the House GOP members are pushing such an amendment is more non-partisan proof that you don't want to give too much power to Congress, because, in total, they are simply never the brightest guys in the room. Letting them add a BBA to the Constitution would create a nightmare worse, if that's possible, than our current out-of-control fiscal situation.
"Certainly, within the context of this current struggle over Congressional authorization of a debt limit, a Balanced Budget amendment is Constitutional overkill. Being old enough to remember several attempts to add amendments to the Constitution, this is neither the time nor the manner in which to resolve the issue at hand.
Ramming such an amendment through Congress in 2-3 weeks will only assure that it's ill-designed and overlooks important details.
No, it's too blunt an instrument for what is, in reality, a product of political forces. And it doesn't share something most other amendments do, which is either an added law involving a fundamental concept viewed as central to American values, such as the Bill of Rights, or a very clear-cut, well-defined operationally-oriented amendment, such as succession of a disable President, direct election of Senators, and the like."
Last Friday, Peter H. Schuck, a professor at Yale Law School wrote an editorial in the Wall Street Journal entitled The Balanced Budget Amendment's Fatal Flaw, which provided some of the details of which I wasn't as aware, supporting my contention. Here is his piece in its entirety.
A balanced budget amendment (BBA), a hardy perennial in Congress, is once again in the headlines. This is entirely understandable. The public trusts neither the president nor Congress, regardless of the party in control, to strike and maintain an economically healthy, sustainable balance between federal spending and revenues. Thus, the idea of tying them to the constitutional mast, Ulysses-like, so that they cannot succumb to the inevitable temptation to spend more and tax less is itself tempting to many reformers and voters.
Nevertheless, many sound objections to a BBA exist, which the current version—indeed, any version—cannot adequately address. Many of these objections, such as the need for deficit spending in a recession, are hoary Keynesian pieties and will resonate only with liberals and moderates. But one objection, largely absent from the debate so far, should convince even the most hidebound conservative to strongly oppose the BBA.
I can think of no other law that would empower judges to exercise more political and policy-making discretion than a balanced budget amendment. It would quickly realize every conservative's fears of an "imperial judiciary" that "legislates from the bench"—even if the courts simply did their job and did not grasp for that power.
First, the courts would be swamped with challenges to every governmental decision with significant budgetary implications, which means almost all important decisions. As federal Judge Ralph Winter pointed out long ago, the judges would have to decide who, if anyone, would have standing to sue and who the proper defendant would be. If they ruled that no one had standing, then the amendment would be legally unenforceable, a dead letter. If the judges found standing, however, a host of exceptionally controversial legal-interpretation issues would arise.
Perhaps the most fundamental questions have been posed by Rudy Penner, who was Congressional Budget Office director in the Reagan years: What is a "budget," and which budgets are covered by the amendment? This is pivotal because the amendment would create an irresistible incentive for politicians to expand "off-budget" programs or establish new ones.
Social Security, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Postal Service and the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are all off-budget and constitute a huge share of federal fiscal commitments. The BBA does not even mention this multitrillion-pound gorilla, nor does it deal with the creation of new off-budget spending programs which would certainly proliferate in its wake, so a judge would have to decide whether they are included. (The state and local equivalent dodge of balanced budget rules is the "special district"—some 40,000 nationwide—which often has taxing power. )
The BBA also uses the basic term "tax" as if it were self-defining, but of course it isn't. Indeed, one of the key issues in the legal challenge to ObamaCare is whether the spending mandates in the legislation constitute a tax (as the administration argues) or a penalty (as its opponents claim). Only the courts can decide—and so far they have split on the issue. This is political power of a high order, given the importance of the legislation.
Then there are the classic ploys that governments use to evade budgetary restrictions, about which the BBA is also silent. Does the amendment's term "outlay" apply to long-term capital investments such as infrastructure spending, of which the Obama administration is so fond? If not, we can anticipate lots more spending being called capital investment. The judges will have to decide whether the amendment applies or not.
Does "outlay" cover government loan guarantees—a form of subsidy used promiscuously by government to avoid budgetary constraints? Does "revenue" include so-called "offsetting receipts" such as the large amounts that Medicare beneficiaries pay for their physician and drug benefits? If so, we can expect Congress to use more of them. Again, the courts will have to decide.
It does seem clear that the amendment would not cover private expenditures mandated by government regulation of individuals and firms. After all, regulations affect private budgets, not governmental ones; that is part of their political appeal. If the BBA passes, then look for the politicians to transfer much of their spending desires into a burst of new regulations. For conservatives, this should be a nightmare.
The political pundits report that there is no chance that the balanced budget amendment will pass. This should be cause for conservative celebration, not disappointment.
While I'm not as focused on these legal details as Prof. Schuck is, it's the sort of weakness which I imagined an amendment would have. Loose, undefined language, easily circumvented by new fiscal creations in Congress or the White House. The unconsolidated nature of federal budgeting.
The fact that the House GOP members are pushing such an amendment is more non-partisan proof that you don't want to give too much power to Congress, because, in total, they are simply never the brightest guys in the room. Letting them add a BBA to the Constitution would create a nightmare worse, if that's possible, than our current out-of-control fiscal situation.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Constitutional Checks & Balances: Eric Cantor vs. Wonderboy
It's Thursday morning as I write this post. The media has been rife with stories of Wonderboy's temper tantrum last night over Eric Cantor's remarks, allegedly ending with his taunt,
'Don't call my bluff, Eric.'
Then the First Child reportedly slammed his chair into the table and stormed out of the meeting.
You know Cantor was on to something because this morning, Harry Reid is criticizing him.
But, seriously, you have to respect our Founding Fathers' design of the Constitution at moments like this. Why?
Well, we have a president, elected nearly three years ago, whose grandiose spending, borrowing and taxing schemes have come a cropper. They've failed. The economy continues to stagnate, employment hasn't rebounded, and, now, the federal debt has risen to its legal limit.
Meanwhile, a GOP House majority elected less than a year ago, on a tide of Tea Party anti-spending and -taxing fervor, are responding by passionately blocking Wonderboy's attempt to blithely continue his spending, while raising taxes, too, as his terms for signing a debt limit raise.
The specter of dozens of freshmen GOP Representatives intent on upholding their promise to constituents to cut spending while not raising taxes is a key part of James Madison's Constitutional check and balance system.
At present, however, we have a president given to tantrums and egotistical grandstanding. He demonizes those who disagree with him.
Perhaps the most ironic moment came yesterday, as Wonderboy was reported to proclaim that his presidency 'may go down' on the debt limit issue, but he wasn't going to give in to House demands for spending cuts without tax hikes.
It's the president's job to manage Treasury issues, which now include having sufficient money to fund obligations. Too bad Obama pushed Congress to spend so many trillions in the past 2 1/2 years, while his party held majorities in both houses of Congress, but neglected to take the opportunity to raise the debt limit.
This is how you know the First Rookie is, well, a rookie. A more seasoned executive would have realized, in advance, to attend to that important detail.
Now that his spending binge has hit the debt limit, Wonderboy is behaving like a three year-old, blasting everyone else and claiming to be the only adult in the room. The reality is that his own spending and borrowing, combined with his lack of managerial experience, led to this impasse.
Now a recently-elected House GOP majority is fairly representing their voters' wishes for less spending, less borrowing and no more taxes.
In opposition to those voters' wishes is an imperial president who believes he can do no wrong. And intends, as he threatened Cantor, to take to the airwaves- again and again, as he has done recently- to try to convince Americans that he is right and Cantor/Boehner are wrong.
Trouble is, as of Wednesday night, Dick Morris was explaining on Bill O'Reilly's Fox News program that polls show Americans see the president as the source of this standoff, not the GOP.
Should be an interesting July in Washington. But one thing to take solace with is that what you see is nothing more than Madison's intended design of checks on presidential imperialism specifically of the sort. Wonderboy is attempting to exercise.
'Don't call my bluff, Eric.'
Then the First Child reportedly slammed his chair into the table and stormed out of the meeting.
You know Cantor was on to something because this morning, Harry Reid is criticizing him.
But, seriously, you have to respect our Founding Fathers' design of the Constitution at moments like this. Why?
Well, we have a president, elected nearly three years ago, whose grandiose spending, borrowing and taxing schemes have come a cropper. They've failed. The economy continues to stagnate, employment hasn't rebounded, and, now, the federal debt has risen to its legal limit.
Meanwhile, a GOP House majority elected less than a year ago, on a tide of Tea Party anti-spending and -taxing fervor, are responding by passionately blocking Wonderboy's attempt to blithely continue his spending, while raising taxes, too, as his terms for signing a debt limit raise.
The specter of dozens of freshmen GOP Representatives intent on upholding their promise to constituents to cut spending while not raising taxes is a key part of James Madison's Constitutional check and balance system.
At present, however, we have a president given to tantrums and egotistical grandstanding. He demonizes those who disagree with him.
Perhaps the most ironic moment came yesterday, as Wonderboy was reported to proclaim that his presidency 'may go down' on the debt limit issue, but he wasn't going to give in to House demands for spending cuts without tax hikes.
It's the president's job to manage Treasury issues, which now include having sufficient money to fund obligations. Too bad Obama pushed Congress to spend so many trillions in the past 2 1/2 years, while his party held majorities in both houses of Congress, but neglected to take the opportunity to raise the debt limit.
This is how you know the First Rookie is, well, a rookie. A more seasoned executive would have realized, in advance, to attend to that important detail.
Now that his spending binge has hit the debt limit, Wonderboy is behaving like a three year-old, blasting everyone else and claiming to be the only adult in the room. The reality is that his own spending and borrowing, combined with his lack of managerial experience, led to this impasse.
Now a recently-elected House GOP majority is fairly representing their voters' wishes for less spending, less borrowing and no more taxes.
In opposition to those voters' wishes is an imperial president who believes he can do no wrong. And intends, as he threatened Cantor, to take to the airwaves- again and again, as he has done recently- to try to convince Americans that he is right and Cantor/Boehner are wrong.
Trouble is, as of Wednesday night, Dick Morris was explaining on Bill O'Reilly's Fox News program that polls show Americans see the president as the source of this standoff, not the GOP.
Should be an interesting July in Washington. But one thing to take solace with is that what you see is nothing more than Madison's intended design of checks on presidential imperialism specifically of the sort. Wonderboy is attempting to exercise.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
The Libyan Conundrums
Wonderboy surely has landed himself in a mess by his non-, then mishandling of the Libyan situation.
Of course there is a wealth of opinion already written regarding his mis-steps. Here are the ones which most concern me.
To begin, it's not so much about his fiddling while the world burns. Rather, it's about his handling of the Libyan military involvement, especially vis a vis his statements as a candidate about such action.
By now, you've probably seen the video or read the words of Wonderboy, the candidate, castigating then-President Bush for his various military actions. Back then, the Illinois junior Senator claimed that a president had to approach Congress for authorization before taking any military action.
In reality, Wonderboy did something quite different. First, he made empty statements about Quadafi, while doing nothing to enforce that 'he must go.'
Then he allowed US forces to participate in the air actions this week, but with a minimal discussion with some Congressional members. Hardly notification or asking for authorization.
Next, from Brazil, Wonderboy stated that the sole reason for US military involvement was the overwhelming agreement by 'the international community,' that a country's leader was engaged in creating a human tragedy by turning his military on them.
Others quickly asked, rhetorically, about an arm's length list of similar situations in which, on those conditions, in which the US should also intervene. Iran, Syria and Zimbabwe were mentioned.
At this point, triangulating Wonderboy's statements and actions expose him as a blatant hypocrite and internationalist, a/k/a 'one worlder.' He's bypassed the Constitution and War Powers Act, contradicted his own promises while a candidate, but claimed that the UN and other nations can command US military involvement, whereas Congress need not be consulted.
All that is, and I think will be, toxic to his re-election efforts. As usual, his sanctimonious habit of claiming one position before the fact, then doing something else in the moment, mark him as fickle and, essentially, a liar.
The crowning piece, however, is the explicit disavowal of US leadership of the Libyan action, while committing US resources. Americans don't want to see US forces under foreign command. Yet that is what is being promised.
Add to that the dismay voters feel as Admiral Mullens indicates he doesn't know what the administration believes the mission and objections for the Libyan campaign are, and you have total confusion.
Instead of a tight, focused, explicable strategy for the Libyan involvement, we have vague, differing statements from various countries' leaders and military about what they are doing in Libya. The prospect of American military personnel and equipment being commanded by foreigners is an affront to Americans. Period.
I suspect Wonderboy's inability to actually make decisions, take risks, and function as the nation's chief executive will both haunt and, ultimately, cripple him.
Of course there is a wealth of opinion already written regarding his mis-steps. Here are the ones which most concern me.
To begin, it's not so much about his fiddling while the world burns. Rather, it's about his handling of the Libyan military involvement, especially vis a vis his statements as a candidate about such action.
By now, you've probably seen the video or read the words of Wonderboy, the candidate, castigating then-President Bush for his various military actions. Back then, the Illinois junior Senator claimed that a president had to approach Congress for authorization before taking any military action.
In reality, Wonderboy did something quite different. First, he made empty statements about Quadafi, while doing nothing to enforce that 'he must go.'
Then he allowed US forces to participate in the air actions this week, but with a minimal discussion with some Congressional members. Hardly notification or asking for authorization.
Next, from Brazil, Wonderboy stated that the sole reason for US military involvement was the overwhelming agreement by 'the international community,' that a country's leader was engaged in creating a human tragedy by turning his military on them.
Others quickly asked, rhetorically, about an arm's length list of similar situations in which, on those conditions, in which the US should also intervene. Iran, Syria and Zimbabwe were mentioned.
At this point, triangulating Wonderboy's statements and actions expose him as a blatant hypocrite and internationalist, a/k/a 'one worlder.' He's bypassed the Constitution and War Powers Act, contradicted his own promises while a candidate, but claimed that the UN and other nations can command US military involvement, whereas Congress need not be consulted.
All that is, and I think will be, toxic to his re-election efforts. As usual, his sanctimonious habit of claiming one position before the fact, then doing something else in the moment, mark him as fickle and, essentially, a liar.
The crowning piece, however, is the explicit disavowal of US leadership of the Libyan action, while committing US resources. Americans don't want to see US forces under foreign command. Yet that is what is being promised.
Add to that the dismay voters feel as Admiral Mullens indicates he doesn't know what the administration believes the mission and objections for the Libyan campaign are, and you have total confusion.
Instead of a tight, focused, explicable strategy for the Libyan involvement, we have vague, differing statements from various countries' leaders and military about what they are doing in Libya. The prospect of American military personnel and equipment being commanded by foreigners is an affront to Americans. Period.
I suspect Wonderboy's inability to actually make decisions, take risks, and function as the nation's chief executive will both haunt and, ultimately, cripple him.
Monday, March 7, 2011
A First Amendment Victory: The Westboro Case
Good news from Washington, D.C., for a change. And a win for limited, Constitutional federal government by a branch of said entity. The Supreme Court upheld freedom of speech with no conditions by an 8-1 decision in the Westboro case.
There's not a lot to add. You can say all you want about the nastiness of the protesters. Call it hate speech if you wish. It doesn't matter.
I recall, in my youth, when a Neo-Nazi group was allowed to march through heavily Jewish Skokie, Illinois. Much was made of their hate speech and actions, but they were given their due, both on grounds of freedom of assembly and speech.
Our system is sufficiently strong to stand the test of hate speech. What would be far worse is for the Supreme Court to begin a descent down the slippery slope of conditioning the right to freedom of speech. From there, it's only a matter of time until administrations simply censor criticism.
It was clearly painful for the family and friends of the Marine whose funeral was the subject of the hate speech, but our nation is stronger for allowing it, rather than prohibiting it.
There's not a lot to add. You can say all you want about the nastiness of the protesters. Call it hate speech if you wish. It doesn't matter.
I recall, in my youth, when a Neo-Nazi group was allowed to march through heavily Jewish Skokie, Illinois. Much was made of their hate speech and actions, but they were given their due, both on grounds of freedom of assembly and speech.
Our system is sufficiently strong to stand the test of hate speech. What would be far worse is for the Supreme Court to begin a descent down the slippery slope of conditioning the right to freedom of speech. From there, it's only a matter of time until administrations simply censor criticism.
It was clearly painful for the family and friends of the Marine whose funeral was the subject of the hate speech, but our nation is stronger for allowing it, rather than prohibiting it.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Judge Vinson Rules: ObamaCare UnConstitutional!
It's official! US Federal District Court Judge Roger Vinson has ruled ObamaCare unconstitutional.
According to various sources I've read and heard, his is the most authoritative ruling on the case. Some detractors are claiming it's really just still '2-2,' with two other judges refusing to hear the case, and the Virginia judge also ruling against the law, but less expansively.
Vinson's ruling is clearly a product of his awareness of context and deep reasoning. It runs 78 pages and makes references to the government's own language in their defense, as well as Madison's Federalist Papers No. 51, his Constitutional Convention notes, and John Marshall's rulings.
Essentially, Vinson finds that choosing not to buy health insurance is a non-activity and, thus, can't be regulated by Congress under the Commerce Clause. Then he finds that the government's other argument, the Necessary and Proper Clause, a/k/a the Elastic Clause, also falls short.
Because the Democrats who wrote this law didn't see fit to include any sort of severability language, Vinson appropriately struck down the entire law, in deference to and accordance with the government's analogy to "a finely crafted watch." Allowing for the urge to be sick when comparing ObamaCare to a finely crafted watch, Vinson showed remarkable restraint in refusing to attempt to legislate from the bench, and simply tossing the whole mess out.
The pundits are all over this one as to whether the parties will agree to expedite its appeal directly to the Supreme Court, or not. And whether Elena Kagan will behave responsibly and recuse herself, though nobody can force her to do so. If not, it's obvious to everyone this will go down as a 5-4 decision, turning on which way the unpredictable Justice Kennedy will blow.
Regardless, it certainly has given new life to the various states which are refusing to plan for the law, and Mitch McConnell's efforts to get a floor vote on repeal in the Senate.
I forget which Congressman it was, a Democrat, who said that, basically, Congress may pass anything it wishes. Perhaps it's the nature of a chamber designed to be the repository of hot-tempered, less-educated and -sensible elected Representatives that one of its number would make such a callous, egregious statement. Perhaps that's why having a branch of career jurists is, when well-functioning, so necessary.
For once, it seems that the Judicial branch of our federal government may actually do its job and prevent Congress from a final, lethal trampling of the Constitution.
According to various sources I've read and heard, his is the most authoritative ruling on the case. Some detractors are claiming it's really just still '2-2,' with two other judges refusing to hear the case, and the Virginia judge also ruling against the law, but less expansively.
Vinson's ruling is clearly a product of his awareness of context and deep reasoning. It runs 78 pages and makes references to the government's own language in their defense, as well as Madison's Federalist Papers No. 51, his Constitutional Convention notes, and John Marshall's rulings.
Essentially, Vinson finds that choosing not to buy health insurance is a non-activity and, thus, can't be regulated by Congress under the Commerce Clause. Then he finds that the government's other argument, the Necessary and Proper Clause, a/k/a the Elastic Clause, also falls short.
Because the Democrats who wrote this law didn't see fit to include any sort of severability language, Vinson appropriately struck down the entire law, in deference to and accordance with the government's analogy to "a finely crafted watch." Allowing for the urge to be sick when comparing ObamaCare to a finely crafted watch, Vinson showed remarkable restraint in refusing to attempt to legislate from the bench, and simply tossing the whole mess out.
The pundits are all over this one as to whether the parties will agree to expedite its appeal directly to the Supreme Court, or not. And whether Elena Kagan will behave responsibly and recuse herself, though nobody can force her to do so. If not, it's obvious to everyone this will go down as a 5-4 decision, turning on which way the unpredictable Justice Kennedy will blow.
Regardless, it certainly has given new life to the various states which are refusing to plan for the law, and Mitch McConnell's efforts to get a floor vote on repeal in the Senate.
I forget which Congressman it was, a Democrat, who said that, basically, Congress may pass anything it wishes. Perhaps it's the nature of a chamber designed to be the repository of hot-tempered, less-educated and -sensible elected Representatives that one of its number would make such a callous, egregious statement. Perhaps that's why having a branch of career jurists is, when well-functioning, so necessary.
For once, it seems that the Judicial branch of our federal government may actually do its job and prevent Congress from a final, lethal trampling of the Constitution.
Monday, January 10, 2011
The Constitution, Federal Government & Individuals
Fox News' contributor and program host, former judge Andrew Napolitano, often repeats his contention that in the Constitution, the federal government doesn't have a direct relationship with the individual. Specifically, he advances the view that the Framers did not intend for the federal level of our government to intercede through or around the states to establish direct relationships with all individuals.
It took income tax to do that.
Now we have massive federal intervention in the lives of individuals, rather than the federal government perhaps legislating services to be furnished by individual states, along with the provision of funding. The obvious large programmatic examples are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and, at least in the past, ADC.
Why is this? And aren't these programs really radical departures from the limited federal government as much for their direct connection with individuals as their establishment of expectations by individuals of direct benefits from Washington?
Come to think of it, was the federal draft for military service in the 1860s also an instance of improper reach by the federal government through the states?
Whether one agrees with Napolitano, or not, it's refreshing to consider his contention, i.e., that somewhere in the history of the US from its early years to now, qualitatively different powers became part of the federal government. And one of the hallmarks of this qualitative change has been its construction of individual relationships with individuals which, prior to that, gave us a different type of government.
One wonders if so much of the Progressive movement depended upon this individual connection. Without it, the federal government is more sterile, less focused upon legislation that, as Napolitano often notes, is unconstitutional on its face, because it does not apply to all Americans.
It's probably wishful thinking to hope we can ever turn this clock back. But I suspect it would do a great deal to reduce federal power and spending if we could.
It took income tax to do that.
Now we have massive federal intervention in the lives of individuals, rather than the federal government perhaps legislating services to be furnished by individual states, along with the provision of funding. The obvious large programmatic examples are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and, at least in the past, ADC.
Why is this? And aren't these programs really radical departures from the limited federal government as much for their direct connection with individuals as their establishment of expectations by individuals of direct benefits from Washington?
Come to think of it, was the federal draft for military service in the 1860s also an instance of improper reach by the federal government through the states?
Whether one agrees with Napolitano, or not, it's refreshing to consider his contention, i.e., that somewhere in the history of the US from its early years to now, qualitatively different powers became part of the federal government. And one of the hallmarks of this qualitative change has been its construction of individual relationships with individuals which, prior to that, gave us a different type of government.
One wonders if so much of the Progressive movement depended upon this individual connection. Without it, the federal government is more sterile, less focused upon legislation that, as Napolitano often notes, is unconstitutional on its face, because it does not apply to all Americans.
It's probably wishful thinking to hope we can ever turn this clock back. But I suspect it would do a great deal to reduce federal power and spending if we could.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
About Congress, the Constitution & Detailed Powers Attribution for Legislation
Much has been made recently, especially by Congressional Democrats, of today's reading in the House of the Constitution.
One Democratic Representative derisively snorted that the GOP is treating the Constitution 'like some sacred document.'
As Monica Crowley observed on Fox News yesterday, sometimes these Democrats make the Tea Party's task almost too easy.
But, seriously, there's a legitimate issue here. In the lead staff editorial in today's Wall Street Journal, California's ultra-liberal Representative Henry Waxman was quoted as saying he was taught in law school that the Constitution means, or is, 'whatever a judge says it is.'
Thus, Waxman inadvertently explains the Progressive approach to legislation, i.e., Constitution be damned, just pass what you want and leave it up to a judge to decide.
That's wrong. That's not upholding the oath we all heard the entire House swear yesterday.
Instead, as Waxman mistakenly illustrated, Progressives will keep passing unconstitutional laws, knowing that they only need a few judges, serially, to expand Congressional powers via judicial writ, while they have unlimited time and attempts to achieve that objective.
However, if they were held to a higher standard a priori, i.e., providing a detailed, public justification from the Constitution, for legislation, much of their power-expanding agenda would be revealed for what it is.
You see, until we get term limits for the federal bench- all of it- Waxman's approach is a major loophole in our system of checks and balances.
When 435 Representatives and 100 Senators have to publicly justify voting on the existence of a Constitutional source of power for legislation, they are liable to removal for supporting legislation of overly-expansive Congressional and federal power. But when they can pass anything, and force a lawsuit to allow a judge to rule on the Constitutionality, they both evade responsibility, while also moving the issue from one of a vote among 535 elected legislators to one life-appointed federal judge. Perhaps a few more, if the case is appealed up through the federal chain to the Supreme Court.
So requiring Congress to be more specific in identifying the source of power for new legislation is actually quite important in our system. It's about 'sunshine,' transparency, and the clear articulation by legislators of their views on limited versus expansive federal powers as described and enumerated in our Constitution.
Bucking these issues to the courts, knowingly, is subterfuge and a conscious undermining of the system's designed checks and balances.
One Democratic Representative derisively snorted that the GOP is treating the Constitution 'like some sacred document.'
As Monica Crowley observed on Fox News yesterday, sometimes these Democrats make the Tea Party's task almost too easy.
But, seriously, there's a legitimate issue here. In the lead staff editorial in today's Wall Street Journal, California's ultra-liberal Representative Henry Waxman was quoted as saying he was taught in law school that the Constitution means, or is, 'whatever a judge says it is.'
Thus, Waxman inadvertently explains the Progressive approach to legislation, i.e., Constitution be damned, just pass what you want and leave it up to a judge to decide.
That's wrong. That's not upholding the oath we all heard the entire House swear yesterday.
Instead, as Waxman mistakenly illustrated, Progressives will keep passing unconstitutional laws, knowing that they only need a few judges, serially, to expand Congressional powers via judicial writ, while they have unlimited time and attempts to achieve that objective.
However, if they were held to a higher standard a priori, i.e., providing a detailed, public justification from the Constitution, for legislation, much of their power-expanding agenda would be revealed for what it is.
You see, until we get term limits for the federal bench- all of it- Waxman's approach is a major loophole in our system of checks and balances.
When 435 Representatives and 100 Senators have to publicly justify voting on the existence of a Constitutional source of power for legislation, they are liable to removal for supporting legislation of overly-expansive Congressional and federal power. But when they can pass anything, and force a lawsuit to allow a judge to rule on the Constitutionality, they both evade responsibility, while also moving the issue from one of a vote among 535 elected legislators to one life-appointed federal judge. Perhaps a few more, if the case is appealed up through the federal chain to the Supreme Court.
So requiring Congress to be more specific in identifying the source of power for new legislation is actually quite important in our system. It's about 'sunshine,' transparency, and the clear articulation by legislators of their views on limited versus expansive federal powers as described and enumerated in our Constitution.
Bucking these issues to the courts, knowingly, is subterfuge and a conscious undermining of the system's designed checks and balances.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
The Constitutionality of ObamaCare
The Wall Street Journal's weekend interview in this past Saturday's edition was with noted conservative Constitutional law scholar Randy Barnett.
Barnett gave a thorough explanation of his detailed views of the merits and likelihood of success of the several states' lawsuit against ObamaCare.
But what drew my attention were these passages from Barnett,
"When the Constitution was written, Mr. Barnett says, commerce was understood to mean "trade in things...goods...The Commerce Clause was really put there, essentially, to create a free-trade zone for the United States," not to give Congress power over all economic activity."
And, near the interview's end,
"Will his argument prevail? "If I want to bet actual money, I'll always bet the court upholds anything Congress does," Mr Barnett says."
When I read this, I realized that I believe our country has no hope for anything resembling an America like the one I knew growing up, without a Constitutional Convention.
Mr. Barnett, a serious conservative and champion of the original Constitution and individual liberty, believes that the Supreme Court will typically simply rubber stamp any foolish, illegal and unconstitutional law Congress sees fit to pass.
When someone like Barnett sees no hope for respect for the Constitution from Congress, it's time to rewrite and amend the Constitution to force it to.
At a minimum, to my earlier post on ten things I'd change in the Constitution, I'd now add a more specific rewrite of the Commerce Clause which also struck down and obliterated existing case law on the subject.
It appears that the Commerce Clause, as liberally interpreted by the Supreme Court, has become the first punch in a 1-2 combination that has essentially stripped the States of their significant powers. The next punch after the Commerce Clause is the Supremacy argument, which states that where the federal and a state government clash, federal law and rule trumps.
If we can't trust our courts to adhere to the Constitution, then we need to amend the Constitution to prohibit those rulings we've already seen the federal courts make in favor of the federal government, and, then, limit the courts, as well.
There appears to be no other way now to restore the limited government which the Framers designed in the Constitution.
Barnett gave a thorough explanation of his detailed views of the merits and likelihood of success of the several states' lawsuit against ObamaCare.
But what drew my attention were these passages from Barnett,
"When the Constitution was written, Mr. Barnett says, commerce was understood to mean "trade in things...goods...The Commerce Clause was really put there, essentially, to create a free-trade zone for the United States," not to give Congress power over all economic activity."
And, near the interview's end,
"Will his argument prevail? "If I want to bet actual money, I'll always bet the court upholds anything Congress does," Mr Barnett says."
When I read this, I realized that I believe our country has no hope for anything resembling an America like the one I knew growing up, without a Constitutional Convention.
Mr. Barnett, a serious conservative and champion of the original Constitution and individual liberty, believes that the Supreme Court will typically simply rubber stamp any foolish, illegal and unconstitutional law Congress sees fit to pass.
When someone like Barnett sees no hope for respect for the Constitution from Congress, it's time to rewrite and amend the Constitution to force it to.
At a minimum, to my earlier post on ten things I'd change in the Constitution, I'd now add a more specific rewrite of the Commerce Clause which also struck down and obliterated existing case law on the subject.
It appears that the Commerce Clause, as liberally interpreted by the Supreme Court, has become the first punch in a 1-2 combination that has essentially stripped the States of their significant powers. The next punch after the Commerce Clause is the Supremacy argument, which states that where the federal and a state government clash, federal law and rule trumps.
If we can't trust our courts to adhere to the Constitution, then we need to amend the Constitution to prohibit those rulings we've already seen the federal courts make in favor of the federal government, and, then, limit the courts, as well.
There appears to be no other way now to restore the limited government which the Framers designed in the Constitution.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Thomas Jefferson's Stimulus Bill
I've been thinking a lot lately about how much our federal government has strayed from its roots.
Founded as the second compact between 13 successfully rebellious colonies, the Constitutions enshrined a limited cooperative agreement among those original states at a time when everyone realized that the states were, well, "states" in their own rights. That is, sovereign political entities which ceded some of their taxing and domestic, and pretty much all foreign affairs and military powers, to a federal government which existed at their joint consent.
During Jefferson's term of office, the prelude to the War of 1812, also occasionally known as "The Second American Revolution," was in full swing. British naval vessels impressed American seamen born in Britain. Jefferson, a Francophile, wouldn't abandon the French, but wouldn't declare war on the British, either.
His solution?
The embargo. Being possessed with no particular head or sense for commerce and business, Jefferson closed US ports to trade with both England and France, thus destroying New England's economy for several years during the century's first decade.
I vividly recall my grade school history book's period cartoon illustrating angry Boston seamen carrying signs saying, "O Grab Me!," a clever punctuation of the embargo's palindrome. They were so enraged with Jefferson's action that they'd rather risk impressment by the British than suffer certain economic failure at the hands of Jefferson's ineptitude.
Still, during the period of Jefferson's awful foreign policy blunder, 1807-1809, there was no stimulus bill.
Nobody in Congress, to my knowledge, authored a relief bill to pay idled merchant seamen or merchants affected by the economic downturn in the nation's seafaring regions.
Jefferson isn't famous for a speech imploring Congress to authorize a massive debt issue in order to allow Treasury to pay unemployed New Englanders and others hurt by the senseless Embargo Act. Because he didn't make one.
The founding fathers would be absolutely incredulous to see today's federal government simply run the money presses faster and borrow more money in financial markets to pay the unemployed. I would not be surprised if they would consider such action as grounds for a suit involving the unlawful exercise of federal power.
Funding a shooting war is one thing.
Borrowing just to pay for pork barrel make-work projects and fund yet another in a series of unemployment benefits bills is quite another. And unjustifiable in any era.
Founded as the second compact between 13 successfully rebellious colonies, the Constitutions enshrined a limited cooperative agreement among those original states at a time when everyone realized that the states were, well, "states" in their own rights. That is, sovereign political entities which ceded some of their taxing and domestic, and pretty much all foreign affairs and military powers, to a federal government which existed at their joint consent.
During Jefferson's term of office, the prelude to the War of 1812, also occasionally known as "The Second American Revolution," was in full swing. British naval vessels impressed American seamen born in Britain. Jefferson, a Francophile, wouldn't abandon the French, but wouldn't declare war on the British, either.
His solution?
The embargo. Being possessed with no particular head or sense for commerce and business, Jefferson closed US ports to trade with both England and France, thus destroying New England's economy for several years during the century's first decade.
I vividly recall my grade school history book's period cartoon illustrating angry Boston seamen carrying signs saying, "O Grab Me!," a clever punctuation of the embargo's palindrome. They were so enraged with Jefferson's action that they'd rather risk impressment by the British than suffer certain economic failure at the hands of Jefferson's ineptitude.
Still, during the period of Jefferson's awful foreign policy blunder, 1807-1809, there was no stimulus bill.
Nobody in Congress, to my knowledge, authored a relief bill to pay idled merchant seamen or merchants affected by the economic downturn in the nation's seafaring regions.
Jefferson isn't famous for a speech imploring Congress to authorize a massive debt issue in order to allow Treasury to pay unemployed New Englanders and others hurt by the senseless Embargo Act. Because he didn't make one.
The founding fathers would be absolutely incredulous to see today's federal government simply run the money presses faster and borrow more money in financial markets to pay the unemployed. I would not be surprised if they would consider such action as grounds for a suit involving the unlawful exercise of federal power.
Funding a shooting war is one thing.
Borrowing just to pay for pork barrel make-work projects and fund yet another in a series of unemployment benefits bills is quite another. And unjustifiable in any era.
Monday, June 21, 2010
David Souter's Faulty Logic
Two attorneys and law professors, John McGinnis and Michael Rappaport, wrote a nice little piece in last Monday's Wall Street Journal revealing Supreme Court Justice's David Souter's shocking inability to employ logic correctly.
The authors noted Souter's recent Harvard commencement address, wherein the quirky Justice decried original intent as a "simplistic" reading of the Constitution. He then went on to hail Brown v. Board of Education as an example of using current social values to overrule the Constitution.
However, as McGinnis and Rappaport explain, this isn't true. The Plessy decision which Brown reversed was, itself, a product of then-current racial realities, as interpreted by that era's Supreme Court. Plessy, thus, was an example of what Souter claims to favor, but, oddly, a case which he then supports having been overturned.
You can see the problem. Souter comes down on both sides of the issue. He was against Plessy, a decision which exemplified his view that the Constitution should be molded to fit current societal values. Then he also supports the case that overturned that prior case.
More evidence that some Justices need to just be ignored, because they can't manage to reason their way to a simple, consistent, logical conclusion.
Time for those Supreme Court and other federal bench term limits.
The authors noted Souter's recent Harvard commencement address, wherein the quirky Justice decried original intent as a "simplistic" reading of the Constitution. He then went on to hail Brown v. Board of Education as an example of using current social values to overrule the Constitution.
However, as McGinnis and Rappaport explain, this isn't true. The Plessy decision which Brown reversed was, itself, a product of then-current racial realities, as interpreted by that era's Supreme Court. Plessy, thus, was an example of what Souter claims to favor, but, oddly, a case which he then supports having been overturned.
You can see the problem. Souter comes down on both sides of the issue. He was against Plessy, a decision which exemplified his view that the Constitution should be molded to fit current societal values. Then he also supports the case that overturned that prior case.
More evidence that some Justices need to just be ignored, because they can't manage to reason their way to a simple, consistent, logical conclusion.
Time for those Supreme Court and other federal bench term limits.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Democrats Brush Off Constitutional Challenges To Obamacare
Thursday's Wall Street Journal carried and editorial noting that Florida district court judge Roger Vinson denied the Justice Department's request for an extension to reply to the multi-state suit over Obamacare.
Never mind that a judge thinks it important to consider the constitutional question. The editorial quotes Frisco Nan as declaring the suit by 20 state AGs "frivolous."
Cabinet secretary Sebelius characterized it as "more to do with politics than with policy."
Never the less, Wonderboy's Justice gang is trying to slow-roll and delay the suit, hoping, no doubt, to drag it out so that it will fade from the public's memory.
Fortunately, judge Vinson observed that Justice possesses the not inconsiderable resources of the federal government.
So their homework is due, as planned. Should be interesting to read what they cook up, now that they are evidently under such time pressure and scarce resources.
Never mind that a judge thinks it important to consider the constitutional question. The editorial quotes Frisco Nan as declaring the suit by 20 state AGs "frivolous."
Cabinet secretary Sebelius characterized it as "more to do with politics than with policy."
Never the less, Wonderboy's Justice gang is trying to slow-roll and delay the suit, hoping, no doubt, to drag it out so that it will fade from the public's memory.
Fortunately, judge Vinson observed that Justice possesses the not inconsiderable resources of the federal government.
So their homework is due, as planned. Should be interesting to read what they cook up, now that they are evidently under such time pressure and scarce resources.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
The States' Health Care Constitutional Lawsuit
I'm very enthused by the broad movement of so many states joining a common lawsuit against the recent health care bill on Constitutional grounds.
Despite the mainstream media's refusal to acknowledge the legitimate bases, and its attempt to paint the effort as misguided and doomed, there really are solid reasons for the suit.
The most easily-understood basis is simply that government cannot force you to buy anything just because you are, well, living.
Auto insurance is in exchange for the privilege of driving on common, public roads. The military draft is not a product, and is clearly provided for in the Constitution for common defense.
States are correct in believing that, once allowed to choose health care as a compulsory purchase, there is nothing to prevent, say, government mandates to buy GM cars, or anything else, and set the price, too.
The other major basis, as I understand it, is the federal government's infringement upon the sovereignty of the states with respect to their fiscal decisions.
The example I've heard is from Florida. A state legislator noted that the health care bill saddles the state with an unaffordable mandate for Medicaid, forcing it to either raise taxes or cut other spending. States, you see, typically have balanced budget rules and are not allowed to run deficits.
Again, this is a slippery-slope issue. If the federal government, a creation of the (then 13) states, can turn the tables and become their master, what is left for states to control?
The tenth amendment becomes a joke.
There's also an interesting aspect to the suit that brings this recent post into play.
If the Supreme Court, to which this case will surely eventually come, decides for the states, it's back to the drawing board for Wonderboy's health care sector takeover. Sold, in part, on fiscal rectitude, it will be difficult for him to plunge ahead without the mandate. Sure, his minions are probably working on 'Plan B,' but that, too, will need to be legislated.
Good luck with that now.
If the Supreme Court decides in favor of the federal government, look for the states to turn to the Constitutional Convention alternative in a big way.
Already, nearly half the states are joining this lawsuit. Certainly the number is nearing 20.
If the suit fails, how hard will it be for those 20 or so states AGs to convince another 15 or so to join a common effort to rein in their joint creation, the federal government, and, by the way, the courts as well?
Not very hard.
This is a first in my life time and, I believe, really ever. A broad group of states suing the federal government for overstepping its bounds. The states have, however, the ultimate trump card.
Rewrite the Constitution to simply forbid the offending act, and a whole lot more.
Despite the mainstream media's refusal to acknowledge the legitimate bases, and its attempt to paint the effort as misguided and doomed, there really are solid reasons for the suit.
The most easily-understood basis is simply that government cannot force you to buy anything just because you are, well, living.
Auto insurance is in exchange for the privilege of driving on common, public roads. The military draft is not a product, and is clearly provided for in the Constitution for common defense.
States are correct in believing that, once allowed to choose health care as a compulsory purchase, there is nothing to prevent, say, government mandates to buy GM cars, or anything else, and set the price, too.
The other major basis, as I understand it, is the federal government's infringement upon the sovereignty of the states with respect to their fiscal decisions.
The example I've heard is from Florida. A state legislator noted that the health care bill saddles the state with an unaffordable mandate for Medicaid, forcing it to either raise taxes or cut other spending. States, you see, typically have balanced budget rules and are not allowed to run deficits.
Again, this is a slippery-slope issue. If the federal government, a creation of the (then 13) states, can turn the tables and become their master, what is left for states to control?
The tenth amendment becomes a joke.
There's also an interesting aspect to the suit that brings this recent post into play.
If the Supreme Court, to which this case will surely eventually come, decides for the states, it's back to the drawing board for Wonderboy's health care sector takeover. Sold, in part, on fiscal rectitude, it will be difficult for him to plunge ahead without the mandate. Sure, his minions are probably working on 'Plan B,' but that, too, will need to be legislated.
Good luck with that now.
If the Supreme Court decides in favor of the federal government, look for the states to turn to the Constitutional Convention alternative in a big way.
Already, nearly half the states are joining this lawsuit. Certainly the number is nearing 20.
If the suit fails, how hard will it be for those 20 or so states AGs to convince another 15 or so to join a common effort to rein in their joint creation, the federal government, and, by the way, the courts as well?
Not very hard.
This is a first in my life time and, I believe, really ever. A broad group of states suing the federal government for overstepping its bounds. The states have, however, the ultimate trump card.
Rewrite the Constitution to simply forbid the offending act, and a whole lot more.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Wonderboy's New Deficit Commission
For eight years or so, we heard complaints about George W. Bush's 'Imperial Presidency.'
Don't look now, but guess who's the new Emperor? Yes, Wonderboy.
In his recent surprise appearance at a White House press briefing, the First Rookie solemnly intoned that, since Congress had rejected the idea of a Deficit Commission, he, by executive order, would create one.
Wow. Talk about the will of the people!
Wonderboy went on to lecture all of us dumber-than-him voters that the deficit is an important problem, so he won't let Congress duck the issue.
Sorry to say, as usual, the slick pol from Chicago is too clever by a half.
It's not the deficit, but, as Ronald Reagan intuitively understood, it's the federal and local government spending levels and growth.
Hopefully, Republicans and conservatives will jointly stonewall this presidential commission, robbing it of any shred of credibility. That means Warren Rudman and his ilk, retired GOP Senators and Representatives, have to swallow hard and resist the temptation for some more national face time, in the interests of showing the commission up for what it is.
Here's a total spendthrift president who has already doubled the planned deficit, spending more than any president since Washington, now concerned about the deficit he has so hugely, personally increased.
The good news about his executive order, however, is that such a commission hasn't any power. As a creation of the executive branch, it can only produce a report. Whereas, say, a Senate commission could have moved swiftly to vote its findings and recommendations into law.
Thank God for small favors.
Don't look now, but guess who's the new Emperor? Yes, Wonderboy.
In his recent surprise appearance at a White House press briefing, the First Rookie solemnly intoned that, since Congress had rejected the idea of a Deficit Commission, he, by executive order, would create one.
Wow. Talk about the will of the people!
Wonderboy went on to lecture all of us dumber-than-him voters that the deficit is an important problem, so he won't let Congress duck the issue.
Sorry to say, as usual, the slick pol from Chicago is too clever by a half.
It's not the deficit, but, as Ronald Reagan intuitively understood, it's the federal and local government spending levels and growth.
Hopefully, Republicans and conservatives will jointly stonewall this presidential commission, robbing it of any shred of credibility. That means Warren Rudman and his ilk, retired GOP Senators and Representatives, have to swallow hard and resist the temptation for some more national face time, in the interests of showing the commission up for what it is.
Here's a total spendthrift president who has already doubled the planned deficit, spending more than any president since Washington, now concerned about the deficit he has so hugely, personally increased.
The good news about his executive order, however, is that such a commission hasn't any power. As a creation of the executive branch, it can only produce a report. Whereas, say, a Senate commission could have moved swiftly to vote its findings and recommendations into law.
Thank God for small favors.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Direct Election Of Senators: A Hidden Federalization
In this post from this past June, I enumerated 10 things I believe need to be fixed in the Constitution.
Since then, I've decided there should be an additional item regarding deficits and balanced budgets. But that's for another post.
Today, I want to comment on an aspect of my ninth item which I had heretofore not realized.
In the June post, I wrote,
"9. Novice politicians gaining entry to the Senate due to the amendment requiring direct election of this body intended to be more deliberative and experienced than the House."
All I really focused on, thanks to Wonderboy's misguided election last November, was making sure that Senators have more qualifications than just age and citizenship.
Watching Mary Landrieu's comic performance during the voting to bring the Senate health care bill to the floor gave me another insight.
One unintended consequence of the direct election of Senators was the removal of an important check in the Constitutional system. It wasn't between the branches, but between the federal government and the states.
I've never seen this expressed anywhere else, so I thought I'd offer some observations.
Prior to the amendment providing for the direct election of Senators, as I noted in this post from March, 2008, quoting the Senate's own website,
"Just reflecting on the original mechanism for Senate election, it's easy to see how differently Senators prior to 1913 would behave, as opposed to modern Senators. Senators chosen by their state's political party leaders would almost of necessity be committed to the welfare of their state over their own career. Because they didn't really 'run' for the office, fund-raising, politicking as it is currently understood, and the appeal to voters' baser motivations probably didn't occur as they do today.
I can imagine Senators of that day truly behaving as the Constitution's architects intended, worrying less about their seat than carefully addressing major issues to the benefit of the country and their state."
Indirectly-elected Senators were an intentional Constitutional check on federal power. State-level political parties would ensure that Senators didn't expect lifetime careers. Rather, they were beholden to the state party, which, by necessity, had to do a good job for the state's voters, or lose its control over the legislatures.
This carefully-calibrated bias for states rights in the Senate was torn away with the passage of the 17th amendment.
After some reflection, I think it's this aspect of the direct election of Senators that has been most damaging. Representatives are subject to recall every two years. Senators, by contrast, manage to go six years between elections. Without the pre-selection by their own parties, I believe they have become disconnected from their states, to the detriment of the nation.
No longer answering to their own parties, Senators today seem to be in business mostly for themselves. Mary Landrieu's deal with Harry Reid to get a $300M dispensation for Louisiana in the health care bill does, in one sense, reflect her working for her state's benefit. But, in a larger sense, she really did damage to the nation. With no need to explain the larger benefits of the bill to her state-level Democratic party, Landrieu basically bought her seat forward with that $300M.
If she were being nominated by her party, she probably wouldn't have been quite so mercenary with everyone's money.
I believe that indirectly-elected Senators had to assure their parties back in the home state that they were working for both the country's and the state's good. If the state party saw voters leaning one way on an issue, they could and probably did make clear to the Senator how s/he should vote, if s/he were to remain in the seat.
Not so anymore. Now, it's mostly a popularity contest, with Senators often feeling themselves above the state party apparatus, once elected.
Issues like tax levels and fiscal rectitude don't seem to matter to the Senate anymore. They avoid taking responsibility for excessive spending, buying votes with it.
But the Senators of old didn't need to do that, because their voters were the state party politicians in the legislatures.
It seems to me that this unintended consequence has had seriously bad long term consequences for our nation. A key states' rights linkage, the indirect election of Senators, was removed, implicitly handing much more power to the federal government, and insulating Senators from any real pressure from their own states' parties.
Since then, I've decided there should be an additional item regarding deficits and balanced budgets. But that's for another post.
Today, I want to comment on an aspect of my ninth item which I had heretofore not realized.
In the June post, I wrote,
"9. Novice politicians gaining entry to the Senate due to the amendment requiring direct election of this body intended to be more deliberative and experienced than the House."
All I really focused on, thanks to Wonderboy's misguided election last November, was making sure that Senators have more qualifications than just age and citizenship.
Watching Mary Landrieu's comic performance during the voting to bring the Senate health care bill to the floor gave me another insight.
One unintended consequence of the direct election of Senators was the removal of an important check in the Constitutional system. It wasn't between the branches, but between the federal government and the states.
I've never seen this expressed anywhere else, so I thought I'd offer some observations.
Prior to the amendment providing for the direct election of Senators, as I noted in this post from March, 2008, quoting the Senate's own website,
"Just reflecting on the original mechanism for Senate election, it's easy to see how differently Senators prior to 1913 would behave, as opposed to modern Senators. Senators chosen by their state's political party leaders would almost of necessity be committed to the welfare of their state over their own career. Because they didn't really 'run' for the office, fund-raising, politicking as it is currently understood, and the appeal to voters' baser motivations probably didn't occur as they do today.
I can imagine Senators of that day truly behaving as the Constitution's architects intended, worrying less about their seat than carefully addressing major issues to the benefit of the country and their state."
Indirectly-elected Senators were an intentional Constitutional check on federal power. State-level political parties would ensure that Senators didn't expect lifetime careers. Rather, they were beholden to the state party, which, by necessity, had to do a good job for the state's voters, or lose its control over the legislatures.
This carefully-calibrated bias for states rights in the Senate was torn away with the passage of the 17th amendment.
After some reflection, I think it's this aspect of the direct election of Senators that has been most damaging. Representatives are subject to recall every two years. Senators, by contrast, manage to go six years between elections. Without the pre-selection by their own parties, I believe they have become disconnected from their states, to the detriment of the nation.
No longer answering to their own parties, Senators today seem to be in business mostly for themselves. Mary Landrieu's deal with Harry Reid to get a $300M dispensation for Louisiana in the health care bill does, in one sense, reflect her working for her state's benefit. But, in a larger sense, she really did damage to the nation. With no need to explain the larger benefits of the bill to her state-level Democratic party, Landrieu basically bought her seat forward with that $300M.
If she were being nominated by her party, she probably wouldn't have been quite so mercenary with everyone's money.
I believe that indirectly-elected Senators had to assure their parties back in the home state that they were working for both the country's and the state's good. If the state party saw voters leaning one way on an issue, they could and probably did make clear to the Senator how s/he should vote, if s/he were to remain in the seat.
Not so anymore. Now, it's mostly a popularity contest, with Senators often feeling themselves above the state party apparatus, once elected.
Issues like tax levels and fiscal rectitude don't seem to matter to the Senate anymore. They avoid taking responsibility for excessive spending, buying votes with it.
But the Senators of old didn't need to do that, because their voters were the state party politicians in the legislatures.
It seems to me that this unintended consequence has had seriously bad long term consequences for our nation. A key states' rights linkage, the indirect election of Senators, was removed, implicitly handing much more power to the federal government, and insulating Senators from any real pressure from their own states' parties.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Liberals vs. Conservatives As Envy vs. Ambition
Lately, I've been giving a lot of thought to the differing core, underlying values and attitudes which must drive liberals and conservatives.
From my recent reading of Amity Schlaes' excellent book, "The Forgotten Man," current reading of Mark Levin's "Tyranny and Liberty," and frequent viewings of Glenn Beck's Fox News Channel program, it's been easier for me to reflect upon the circumstances surrounding the Founding Fathers' as they wrote the Constitution.
Nearly forgotten now is the struggle those men had in securing the freedom to engage in economic activity as they wished. In the mercantilism system of Great Britain of that time, colonies supplied natural resources and raw materials. Finished goods were largely prohibited to be manufactured. It's not well-recalled now, but in that day, machinery, machine tools and plans for machines were not allowed out of Britain to her colonies.
The Revolution which Americans fought against Britain was as much about economic freedom as it was about political freedom and fair representation to a taxing, governing authority.
In reading about the men who founded our country, there are various references to John Hancock as the colonies' wealthiest man. But you never hear him berated for that. Nor any speeches during the framing of the Constitution calling for punitive taxes on Hancock or his ilk.
Rather than attempt to take the wealth of men like Hancock, the new Republic's structure tried to allow for any other man to rise to similar levels of wealth. The concepts of opportunity and ambition vastly outweighed those of envy or jealousy.
Now, we seem to have reversed this. All we hear is that business people earning "too much" need to pay higher taxes. That the important issues are to provide income and health care to the poor.
No longer does anyone seem to recall that the minimalist Constitution was so written in order to allow everyone to realize the fruits of their own labor and best efforts. It wasn't to levelize incomes and redistribute the new country's total personal incomes.
In short, thanks to the past seventy years' of post-FDR liberal pressure, our Republic is now more focused on seeing envy of economic success given priority over each person's opportunity to realize their own economic and other dreams.
Ambition is given lip-service, while laws are crafted to carry out envy-driven wealth- and income-transfers.
If you can't keep the wealth you create in America, what motivation is there for the poor to improve themselves? Why would anyone labor if the fruits are evaluated and that declared 'excess' by some politician confiscated?
Truly, one can see much more clearly in the current environment that liberals are primarily governed by envy, rather than the individual's ambition to create her/his own better life through one's own labor and talents.
From my recent reading of Amity Schlaes' excellent book, "The Forgotten Man," current reading of Mark Levin's "Tyranny and Liberty," and frequent viewings of Glenn Beck's Fox News Channel program, it's been easier for me to reflect upon the circumstances surrounding the Founding Fathers' as they wrote the Constitution.
Nearly forgotten now is the struggle those men had in securing the freedom to engage in economic activity as they wished. In the mercantilism system of Great Britain of that time, colonies supplied natural resources and raw materials. Finished goods were largely prohibited to be manufactured. It's not well-recalled now, but in that day, machinery, machine tools and plans for machines were not allowed out of Britain to her colonies.
The Revolution which Americans fought against Britain was as much about economic freedom as it was about political freedom and fair representation to a taxing, governing authority.
In reading about the men who founded our country, there are various references to John Hancock as the colonies' wealthiest man. But you never hear him berated for that. Nor any speeches during the framing of the Constitution calling for punitive taxes on Hancock or his ilk.
Rather than attempt to take the wealth of men like Hancock, the new Republic's structure tried to allow for any other man to rise to similar levels of wealth. The concepts of opportunity and ambition vastly outweighed those of envy or jealousy.
Now, we seem to have reversed this. All we hear is that business people earning "too much" need to pay higher taxes. That the important issues are to provide income and health care to the poor.
No longer does anyone seem to recall that the minimalist Constitution was so written in order to allow everyone to realize the fruits of their own labor and best efforts. It wasn't to levelize incomes and redistribute the new country's total personal incomes.
In short, thanks to the past seventy years' of post-FDR liberal pressure, our Republic is now more focused on seeing envy of economic success given priority over each person's opportunity to realize their own economic and other dreams.
Ambition is given lip-service, while laws are crafted to carry out envy-driven wealth- and income-transfers.
If you can't keep the wealth you create in America, what motivation is there for the poor to improve themselves? Why would anyone labor if the fruits are evaluated and that declared 'excess' by some politician confiscated?
Truly, one can see much more clearly in the current environment that liberals are primarily governed by envy, rather than the individual's ambition to create her/his own better life through one's own labor and talents.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Constitutional Fix #5: Congressional Special Treatment
Continuing with my further comments on the list I first enumerated here of ten things which need to be changed in the US Constitution, I want to discuss number 5,
" Special treatment of federal employees/Congress with respect to pensions, healthcare and other benefits"
Among the more frustrating things members of Congress have done is exempted themselves and their entity from various laws which it imposes on all other Americans.
For instance, in the recent health care bills authored by Congressional Democrats, members of Congress were allowed to opt out of the socialized health care that the body will impose on the rest of the nation.
Members of Congress have their own pension and health care benefits. Because so many have made Congress a career, they can legislate perks for themselves which ordinary citizens can never receive.
It would be impossible to mention, in advance, every way in which Congressional members could feather their own nests via legislative exemptions. A simpler approach is to add an amendment to the Constitution prohibiting any language in any bill or law which allows for different treatment of Congressional members from other citizens. No exemptions.
Making this a Constitutional component gives it permanent standing and moves it beyond the reach of any future Congress.
Of course, if we had term limits, this would be less of a problem. However, until, and even then, it simply makes sense to remind federal legislators that they are not above their constituents, and are never entitled to special treatment simply because they won an election.
" Special treatment of federal employees/Congress with respect to pensions, healthcare and other benefits"
Among the more frustrating things members of Congress have done is exempted themselves and their entity from various laws which it imposes on all other Americans.
For instance, in the recent health care bills authored by Congressional Democrats, members of Congress were allowed to opt out of the socialized health care that the body will impose on the rest of the nation.
Members of Congress have their own pension and health care benefits. Because so many have made Congress a career, they can legislate perks for themselves which ordinary citizens can never receive.
It would be impossible to mention, in advance, every way in which Congressional members could feather their own nests via legislative exemptions. A simpler approach is to add an amendment to the Constitution prohibiting any language in any bill or law which allows for different treatment of Congressional members from other citizens. No exemptions.
Making this a Constitutional component gives it permanent standing and moves it beyond the reach of any future Congress.
Of course, if we had term limits, this would be less of a problem. However, until, and even then, it simply makes sense to remind federal legislators that they are not above their constituents, and are never entitled to special treatment simply because they won an election.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Is The Federal Reserve System Constitutional?
The Wall Street Journal carried a very interesting editorial on Saturday by Mark Spitznagel, the hedge fund manager who currently employs Nassim Taleb, the author of a noted book on financial systemic risk, "The Black Swan."
Spitznagel's piece focuses on Austrian Ludwig Von Mises' predictions of credit problems in the 1930s, and his book, The Theory of Money and Credit.
The editorialist cited Von Mises' work as he noted the folly of current Fed interest rate policy,
"Government-imposed interest rates artificially below rates demanded by savers leads to increased borrowing and capital investment beyond what savers will provide. This causes temporarily higher employment, wages and consumption.
Ordinarily, any random spikes in credit would be quickly absorbed by the system- the pricing errors corrected, the half-baked investments liquidated, like a supple tree yielding to the wind and then returning. But when the government holds rates artificially low in order to feed ever higher capital investment in otherwise unsound, unsustainable businesses, it creates the conditions for a crash. Everyone looks smart for a while, but eventually the whole monstrosity collapses under its own weight through a credit contraction or, worse, a banking collapse.
The system is dramatically susceptible to errors, both on the policy side and the entrepreneurial side. Government expansion of credit takes a system otherwise capable of adjustment and resilience and transforms it into one with tremendous cyclical volatility."
With these passages in mind, I wondered aloud, over coffee, to a colleague this weekend whether the Federal Reserve Act was unconstitutional?
How could the income tax have required a constitutional amendment, whereas creating a central bank did not?
Surely, as you read the Constitution, you cannot find any basis on which Congress can simply create a central bank. There's not even a reference to the control of the US currency in the founding document.
From another Journal editorial last year, I know that the creation of the Federal Reserve System dates from the Progressive Era of about a century ago. It was a sop to the Populist movement which demanded free coinage of silver to inflate farmers out of their debt problems.
In retrospect, it's clear that the modern Fed is particularly susceptible to precisely the sort of errors of which Spitznagel, citing Von Mises, writes. Only two Fed Chairmen in its long history are accorded almost unalloyed respect- William McChesney Martin and Paul Volcker. Both are revered for their ability to stand up to administrations and Congress, executing their office's responsibilities for long term US economic health, rather than short term credit demands.
Martin was responsible for the famed Korean War era Accord, by which the Fed was released from its obligation to fund Treasury debt and keep rates low as part of that accommodation. Though a senior Treasury official when he authored the Accord, Martin immediately became Fed chairman upon McCabe's resignation, which was triggered by the fallout from the Accord and Truman's Treasury Secretary's refusal to work any longer with McCabe.
In that linked source on the Accord's history, it is notable that there was an exchange between McCabe and a Senator regarding which had primacy, the Treasury or the Fed. The lack of clarity over this point, and the Fed's "bolted on" nature remains to this day, nearly 60 years later.
It would be asking a lot to now reverse course nearly 100 years after the Fed was created. But I truly fear that we are, as a nation, arriving at several "tipping points" simultaneously, and one of them is the Fed's continuing wrongheadedness with respect to interest rate and liquidity policies.
It has been a major cause of bad credit decisions in the US economy from the day that Alan Greenspan began easing monetary policy in the post-9/11 environment. While not by any means the only governmental actor nor agency which contributed to the real estate-based credit bubble, the bursting of which, in 2007 and 2008, wreaked such global economic havoc, the Fed certainly did more than its share to facilitate the mess.
Its current 0% rate policy seems to be repeating the Greenspan's error of 2001, with hardly a voice of dissent nor caution that we should have learned from the former's mistakes earlier this decade.
I believe Milton Friedman was right on both political as well as economic grounds when he argued for dissolving the Federal Reserve's role in monetary policy and, instead, setting a single annual growth rate for the nation's monetary base.
Such a law, passed by Congress, would certainly be Constitutional, whereas it seems there is absolutely no basis in the Constitution for the creation of the Federal Reserve System.
Spitznagel's piece focuses on Austrian Ludwig Von Mises' predictions of credit problems in the 1930s, and his book, The Theory of Money and Credit.
The editorialist cited Von Mises' work as he noted the folly of current Fed interest rate policy,
"Government-imposed interest rates artificially below rates demanded by savers leads to increased borrowing and capital investment beyond what savers will provide. This causes temporarily higher employment, wages and consumption.
Ordinarily, any random spikes in credit would be quickly absorbed by the system- the pricing errors corrected, the half-baked investments liquidated, like a supple tree yielding to the wind and then returning. But when the government holds rates artificially low in order to feed ever higher capital investment in otherwise unsound, unsustainable businesses, it creates the conditions for a crash. Everyone looks smart for a while, but eventually the whole monstrosity collapses under its own weight through a credit contraction or, worse, a banking collapse.
The system is dramatically susceptible to errors, both on the policy side and the entrepreneurial side. Government expansion of credit takes a system otherwise capable of adjustment and resilience and transforms it into one with tremendous cyclical volatility."
With these passages in mind, I wondered aloud, over coffee, to a colleague this weekend whether the Federal Reserve Act was unconstitutional?
How could the income tax have required a constitutional amendment, whereas creating a central bank did not?
Surely, as you read the Constitution, you cannot find any basis on which Congress can simply create a central bank. There's not even a reference to the control of the US currency in the founding document.
From another Journal editorial last year, I know that the creation of the Federal Reserve System dates from the Progressive Era of about a century ago. It was a sop to the Populist movement which demanded free coinage of silver to inflate farmers out of their debt problems.
In retrospect, it's clear that the modern Fed is particularly susceptible to precisely the sort of errors of which Spitznagel, citing Von Mises, writes. Only two Fed Chairmen in its long history are accorded almost unalloyed respect- William McChesney Martin and Paul Volcker. Both are revered for their ability to stand up to administrations and Congress, executing their office's responsibilities for long term US economic health, rather than short term credit demands.
Martin was responsible for the famed Korean War era Accord, by which the Fed was released from its obligation to fund Treasury debt and keep rates low as part of that accommodation. Though a senior Treasury official when he authored the Accord, Martin immediately became Fed chairman upon McCabe's resignation, which was triggered by the fallout from the Accord and Truman's Treasury Secretary's refusal to work any longer with McCabe.
In that linked source on the Accord's history, it is notable that there was an exchange between McCabe and a Senator regarding which had primacy, the Treasury or the Fed. The lack of clarity over this point, and the Fed's "bolted on" nature remains to this day, nearly 60 years later.
It would be asking a lot to now reverse course nearly 100 years after the Fed was created. But I truly fear that we are, as a nation, arriving at several "tipping points" simultaneously, and one of them is the Fed's continuing wrongheadedness with respect to interest rate and liquidity policies.
It has been a major cause of bad credit decisions in the US economy from the day that Alan Greenspan began easing monetary policy in the post-9/11 environment. While not by any means the only governmental actor nor agency which contributed to the real estate-based credit bubble, the bursting of which, in 2007 and 2008, wreaked such global economic havoc, the Fed certainly did more than its share to facilitate the mess.
Its current 0% rate policy seems to be repeating the Greenspan's error of 2001, with hardly a voice of dissent nor caution that we should have learned from the former's mistakes earlier this decade.
I believe Milton Friedman was right on both political as well as economic grounds when he argued for dissolving the Federal Reserve's role in monetary policy and, instead, setting a single annual growth rate for the nation's monetary base.
Such a law, passed by Congress, would certainly be Constitutional, whereas it seems there is absolutely no basis in the Constitution for the creation of the Federal Reserve System.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
A Continuing Question
As I drove home yesterday through central Pennsylvania, a billboard appeared with this simple message:
WHERE'S THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE?
It took me a second to realize the context. And I have to agree, this important Constitutional qualification is still murky in Wonderboy's case.
Wouldn't you think, if there were no issue, that his handlers would have blasted a certified copy all over the media last summer? Instead, the Secretary of State of Hawaii mumbled about how they couldn't release it for privacy reasons. We were assured that there is one, but never actually saw it.
This so-called president remains illegitimate so long as this question goes unanswered.
Like so many other important questions, Wonderboy and his handlers deflect it with an arrogance meant to belittle those asking for this simple proof of birth in the US.
Right after I realized the meaning of the billboard, I quickly asked myself why Pennsylvania went for Obama in the last election. It's clearly a state with many residents who share virtually no values with our current president.
The birth certificate billboard came amidst several for guns and ammunition.
How in the world could a state full of people referred to by Wonderboy derisively as 'clinging to their guns and religion' have voted for him?
How different would things be now if they had not?
WHERE'S THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE?
It took me a second to realize the context. And I have to agree, this important Constitutional qualification is still murky in Wonderboy's case.
Wouldn't you think, if there were no issue, that his handlers would have blasted a certified copy all over the media last summer? Instead, the Secretary of State of Hawaii mumbled about how they couldn't release it for privacy reasons. We were assured that there is one, but never actually saw it.
This so-called president remains illegitimate so long as this question goes unanswered.
Like so many other important questions, Wonderboy and his handlers deflect it with an arrogance meant to belittle those asking for this simple proof of birth in the US.
Right after I realized the meaning of the billboard, I quickly asked myself why Pennsylvania went for Obama in the last election. It's clearly a state with many residents who share virtually no values with our current president.
The birth certificate billboard came amidst several for guns and ammunition.
How in the world could a state full of people referred to by Wonderboy derisively as 'clinging to their guns and religion' have voted for him?
How different would things be now if they had not?
Monday, July 6, 2009
Ending One-Party Legislation in Congress
I'm working my way through the the points in this post, in which I enumerated what I consider to be 10 serious flaws in our Constitution.
Today I want to discuss my third point,
"Passage of legislation over significant minority opposition with no attempt at compromise"
This year, with a president and both chambers of Congress controlled by one party, but not in a landslide fashion for any of the three, we have already seen Democrats stiff-arm Republicans over the stimulus and 'cap and trade' bills. Threats have been made about using a 'reconciliation' method to pass universal health care, so that there could be no attempt to discuss it. And the president has consented to this, whether tacitly or explicitly.
In all of these cases, the worst results is that, contrary to what voters want, which is sensible deliberation and compromise, the Democrats have simply ignored any input from Republicans.
Does anybody really think our country is best-served by one party shoving its ideas through by narrow margins? Especially on sweeping issues such as the largest single spending bill in our nation's history, or bills totally restructuing energy and healthcare sectors of the economy to have much more explicit governmental interference?
These are issues which affect large parts of every American's life. Surely whatever landmark legislation is passed needs to respect the concerns of a sizable minority.
Thus, my suggestion that all Congressional bills must pass with a 75% majority. That way, either significant collaboration from both parties must be gained, or one party must truly have overwhelming sway with voters.
The Constitution's article regarding Congress must be modified to clearly state that each bill, in order to become law, must have a 3/4 majority of each House- nothing less.
This nonsense of passing 'cap and trade' legislation in the House by 7 out of 435 votes serves nobody at all.
It's a disgrace to all Americans that our Congress treats the welfare of voters so diffidently as to play politics on such core areas of our lives.
Today I want to discuss my third point,
"Passage of legislation over significant minority opposition with no attempt at compromise"
This year, with a president and both chambers of Congress controlled by one party, but not in a landslide fashion for any of the three, we have already seen Democrats stiff-arm Republicans over the stimulus and 'cap and trade' bills. Threats have been made about using a 'reconciliation' method to pass universal health care, so that there could be no attempt to discuss it. And the president has consented to this, whether tacitly or explicitly.
In all of these cases, the worst results is that, contrary to what voters want, which is sensible deliberation and compromise, the Democrats have simply ignored any input from Republicans.
Does anybody really think our country is best-served by one party shoving its ideas through by narrow margins? Especially on sweeping issues such as the largest single spending bill in our nation's history, or bills totally restructuing energy and healthcare sectors of the economy to have much more explicit governmental interference?
These are issues which affect large parts of every American's life. Surely whatever landmark legislation is passed needs to respect the concerns of a sizable minority.
Thus, my suggestion that all Congressional bills must pass with a 75% majority. That way, either significant collaboration from both parties must be gained, or one party must truly have overwhelming sway with voters.
The Constitution's article regarding Congress must be modified to clearly state that each bill, in order to become law, must have a 3/4 majority of each House- nothing less.
This nonsense of passing 'cap and trade' legislation in the House by 7 out of 435 votes serves nobody at all.
It's a disgrace to all Americans that our Congress treats the welfare of voters so diffidently as to play politics on such core areas of our lives.
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