April 4, 2008
When This Arrived In My Inbox…
…I knew I just had to share it, as it couldn’t be more accurate.
CHARLEY REESE explains incompetent Congress
Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits? Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?
You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The president does. You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don’t write the tax code. Congress does. You and I don’t set fiscal policy. Congress does. You and I don’t control monetary policy. The Federal Reserve Bank does.
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president and nine Supreme Court justices - 545 human beings out of the 300 million - are directly, legally, morally and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered but private central bank.
I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman or a president to do one cotton- picking thing. I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it.
No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator’s responsibility to determine how he votes.
Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.
What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a SPEAKER, who stood up and criticized G.W. Bush ALONE for creating deficits.
The President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it. The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes.
Who is the speaker of the House? She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow Democrats, not the President, can approve any budget they want. If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto.
It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted — by present facts - of incompetence and irresponsibility.
I can’t think of a single domestic problem, from an unfair tax code to defense overruns that is not traceable directly to those 545 people.
When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.
If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair. If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red. If the Marines are in IRAQ, it’s because they want them in IRAQ.
There are no insoluble government problems. Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power.
Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exist disembodied mystical forces like “the economy,” “inflation” or “politics” that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.
Those 545 people and they alone, are responsible. They, and they alone, have the power. They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses - provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees. We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess.
–CHARLEY REESE (born January 29, 1937) is a syndicated columnist known for his plainspoken manner and paleoconservative views. He was associated with the Orlando Sentinel from 1971-2001, both as a writer and in various editorial capacities. King Features Syndicate distributes his column, which comes out three times each week.
H/T Shana
Look, we on the right and those on the left have our political differences, more bitter and more divisive today than in decades, but the fact of the matter is that we elect our politicians to do a job for us, that job being to govern our country to their best ability.
Though they seem to have forgotten, they are our employees, not the other way around. They are there to work for us, as Americans, whether they are Democrats or Republicans. As members of the same team, that being, collectively, the House of Representatives, the Senate and the President, their job is to represent the nation as a whole, as co-workers, and to work together to see that the best interests of this country and its citizens are served.
In the private sector, such behavior and such results as we’ve seen on the part of our government would result in a whole bunch of pink slips and the same amount of new hires, so why should government be any different? Why do we give these career politicians the sort of free passes for failure that we, as citizens, would never get in our own occupations?
In the case of our elected officials, each and every one of us voters is “the boss”. If our employees can’t work together in a proactive manner, securing the fruition of our best interests, we need to fire them and hire people who will.
It’s great that so many people enjoy the salesmanship skills it takes to convince a majority of voters in their respective bailiwicks to elect them, but it would be even greater if they also had the skills, to say nothing of the negotiating abilities and statesmanship, to work together, compromise where needed and produce results that actually benefit We, The People, their employers.
Instead, as Charley Reese wrote so eloquently, we have a bunch of people at management level who are not part of any solutions, but rather are the factors behind the problems.
http://hardastarboard.mu.nu/wp-trackback.php?p=804
April 5th, 2008 at 11:25 am
As a Constitutional Republic, WE THE PEOPLE tell they the polititians what we expect them to do. It is not the other way around and that is what has been lost in this country. We have become an almost socialst democracy rather than a freee Constitutional republicn of for and by the people. Washington has been allowed to control to much power and it is WE THE PEOPLE that have allowed them to do it!
FDR began this socialistic slide with the new deal by taking advantage of a hurting populace and making them wards of the government rather than allowing the private sector to work through the depression. Statistics have shown that the depression lasted much longer than is should have BECAUSE of the new deal and government forced control of not only business and the free market but also the creation of the welfare type civil jobs that expanded the scope and power of government as well as programs that are technically unconstituional like Social Security!
FDR was not the, savior, ” he has been made out to be but the author of the beginning of the end of our nation being a Constitutional Republic with limited federal government most powers given to the states and a responsible citizenry who use the freedoms of this great nation as means to prosper themsleves and not be dependant on an all powerful government!
April 5th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Thanks Ken. Now I understand that Bear-Stearns was FDR’s fault.
April 5th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Ken –
This is why I’m concerned that we’ve gone too far over the edge where our power as voters is concerned. We, the People have allowed our leaders to perform for decades without looking over their shoulders, and now they have set precedents of their own: they are a ruling class that has little use, unless we hit them as a collective, for the voting public.
The problem is that while those of us like you and I, who monitor their activities, stay on top of them, the vast majority of the American people do not.
I have begun to wonder whether or not it’s worth it, whether or not we’ve gone too far to correct the bastardization our government has undergone since the FDR era.
Can the American people ever again combine our power as voters to correct the equation, or are we doomed to be lead by the same sort of government that we’ve thrown out in the centuries following 1776?
BB –
Ken has a more than valid point.
FDR did, indeed, introduce government intervention into the marketplace that had, up until that point in American history, supplied the wherewithal for our nation’s success.
In effect, he set a precedent that trashed the principle of the marketplace governing the economy. He created a welfare state and laid the groundwork for government usurping responsibilities that belonged to the people.
He did, indeed, lay the foundation for the socialist state we are becoming.
Sometimes it takes awhile, but the marketplace tends to solve all economic problems, given the chance. Once the government becomes involved, we are confronted with a lost cause: Inflated bureaucracies, ineptitude, significant tax increases to support them and a quagmire of idiocy to be subscribed to by those effected by said programs.
And it causes a major disturbance in the force (our current economy, for example, with specific attention paid to the “mortgage crisis” as an example — had the government not involved itself in the real estate biz, there wouldn’t have been a “mortgage crisis”).
Basically, had our government not stepped outside its bailiwick and involved itself in the marketplace during FDR’s time, we would not have the problems we have today.
Since then, as a matter of course, they have snowballed….
April 6th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Excellent post!!
April 6th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Tom –
Welcome and thanks!
Our country is on a path that doesn’t look at all good, and we are allowing ourselves to continue down this path unabated — the problem is that the American people, as a whole, seem to have accepted the falsehood that the government was created to enjoy the authority it now maintains in areas that the founding fathers never intended it to even be involved in.
America has worked as a nation and a concept because we have let the marketplace (read that as natural human forces functioning according to our very nature as human beings) do as it is in its nature to do: Solve problems, etc, in ways that are incentive to all concerned.
Having the government insert its “nose” into places where it isn’t supposed to be transforms solveable issues into quagmires. That has been proven out time and time again, yet we continue to permit this to happen.
I honestly don’t see any light at the end of this particular tunnel, as the only solution would involve the bulk of Americans, including Democrats, Republicans and everyone in between and outside the political equation uniting to vote out the entire government and elect new people who believe, rightly (no pun intended), that the Constitution, when adhered to, works.
The likelihood of this happening is a zillion to one, which is why I believe, unhappily, that America as we know it will someday soon be a socialist country, our Constitution a mere symbol relegated to a national archives.
But we must keep up the good fight and try to stave this off as long as possible, because once we arrive at that stage, it will be indelible as such change always is.
April 6th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Seth,
“Basically, had our government not stepped outside its bailiwick and involved itself in the marketplace during FDR’s time, we would not have the problems we have today.” I wonder. ‘Twould be the stuff of novels, this alternate history. Let’s see..”With a sigh of disgust, President Dewey signed his veto of the Atomic Energy Commission…let the private sector
manage Mutually Assured Destruction, he muttered,..”
“President Goldwater reassured the cheering throng that
moving the retirement age to 85 was good for the economy, the corporations and the decrepit labor force..” Oh, heck, you’re they guy that types novels, looking forward.
April 6th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
BB –
My statement was not alternative history, LOL, and certainly not a novel outline: It was an observation.
FDR’s “help” laid the foundation for today’s welfare state and the widely held conception that every taxpayer is responsible for maintaining some system of entitlements for the less fortunate and the lazy that was not in the script when our country was founded.
It is no fiction or revisionist history that one thing led to another.
The reason this country has been far and away the most successful in the world is because of our market-based economy, and any time the government takes it on themselves to “help” said economy, this is the kind of thing that happens. You see the results of their interference in the mortgage lending business (boy, did they “help” a lot of people become homeowners!), and you’ll see it again if the Democrats get the White House and retain their Congressional majority, and decide to take over the healthcare system.
April 7th, 2008 at 7:22 am
The current crop of politicians–and of those in the news media too–act as if they’re doing a big favor for “We The People” every time one of them opens his/her mouth.
I find myself disgusted with the lot of them (the politicians and the talking heads). A bunch of flim-flam artists these days!
In self-defense, I’ve just jointed NetFlix and started reading fiction again. I can’t take much more coverage of the 2008 elections on my television screen.
That said, you can be sure that I’ll be voting in November–for all the good it will do.
Obviously, I’m feeling very negative these days.
April 7th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
The free market is very capable of spurring innovation and creativity. It has it’s weaknesses, utilizing one of the seven deadly sins as one of it’s drivers. And likewise government has some shining moments, if as the first GOP pres noted “of the people, by the people and for the people (I guess the last phrase is verbotin in conservative camps these days) Bite your tongue and enquire of the elderly widow if she appreciates her $550/mo ss check..then
give her the free market alternative. Consider the successes and failures of government vs free market
here: http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/Marketfailures.htm
and http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/GOVERNMENT_SUCCESS_STORIES.htm As with any listing, we can agree or disagree and our perceptions say more about us than the stated facts. Since my home is long since paid for, I guess the damn credit cards that show up in my mailbox daily must be, like you say, the government’s fault. More specifically, I guess the danged mailman.
April 7th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
AOW –
I’m right in there with you on that. Politicians on both sides are pretty much six of one, half a dozen of the other these days, and none are to be trusted.
One problem is that nobody is willing to give an inch toward any kind of compromise, not even within their own parties. This all-or-nothing attitude is what is keeping our government so firmly divided and the competition so bitter.
I only see this as becoming worse.
April 7th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
BB –
What a fair and impartial website, “Fight The Right — Liberalism Resurgent”!
I really don’t have the time to address everything on the list at the first link, but I will say this: Seat belt, helmet and other laws aimed at protecting only those at whom they are aimed are unconstitutional, just as are most of today’s anti-gun laws.
If the media were so caring about the public good, they would spend less time playing liberal politics and more time investigating and exposing companies or industries that need exposing, and showing the public reasons why it is necessary to vote with their feet and wallets to force improvements. The same goes for so-called “consumer watch-dog” groups — they are so busy pursuing politics based agendas that they have no time to do what they get all those nice tax deductions for.
Bottom line: Whether you say they are good or would be good, many things simply are not the government’s job, period.
April 8th, 2008 at 12:33 am
Very interesting post and comment stream, Seth. It is obvious there are more than enough feet at which blame can and should be laid; however, it changes nothing. As you so adamantly point out, we are the only ones who can effect a change whether good or not. I share your concern for the state of the nation and the direction it seems headed. Understanding the evolutionary triggers/facilitators may be of benefit only if people will unblindly view the truth and agree that a change of national political direction is necessary. Unfortunately, I see two opposing camps so deeply entrenched that nothing will move them and a mass of middle-grounders who don’t really care.
As for the gubmint becoming involved in social [welfare] programs, there was a president (I believe) that warned of the day when the people realized they could vote for the distribution of treasury funds among themselves. We were forewarned, ignored the warning, and now the piper demands his due!
Ringling Bros should be afforded a bountiful harvest by the people voting out 545 clowns!
April 8th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Seth,
“What a fair and impartial website, “Fight The Right — Liberalism Resurgent”!” What can I say? Neither the Heritage Foundation nor the Cato Institute listed the failures of the free market or the successes of gov’t! I will agree that when there is failure in the private sector, they fold and leave, whereas gov’t just continues in the failure mode (thinking fail-safe?) Recalling the bruhaha over the replacement
USAF air tanker fleet, where the best deal was foreign, where does that fall in the failure/success
of free market/gov’t? I may be a braindead liberal, but I’d rather keep our military US-supplied.
April 8th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Old Soldier –
I’m familiar with the quote from reading it fairly recently, and it was right on point. Instead of the Gov’t being “all things to all people”, it needs to stay focused on what it was intended to be, and what it was intended to do.
I don’t see how we’re going to get out of this mess short of a massive coup d’etat, which is as unlikely as enough of the voting base getting together to throw out the incumbent clowns and elect a whole new crop that’s not rife with bums whose only skills are knowing how to get reelected and “work the system”.
BB –
First, I have to say I agree with you 500% re the idiocy in buying any military hardware from foreign manufacturers, not only because we then have to depend on non-U.S. sources for spare parts, etc, but in the case of technologies involved, well, it doesn’t strike me as any kind of a good idea to stock our inventory with stuff whose technological details are already embedded within the knowledge bases of foreign countries — they could sell the same stuff to our enemies or potential enemies or, just as bad, we are depending upon their people, rather than our own, to safeguard any secret information regarding that technology.
However, to illustrate my point about the government’s responsibility: What if you were, say, a computer engineer whose job description was computer engineering and computer engineering only, per agreement when you were employed. You are compensated exactly what both you and your employer believe your employment is worth and put in a full day every day.
Then one day, your boss says, “I need to add to your work load, I need you to clean the commodes twice a day in all the bathrooms on all 23 floors. I know it isn’t in your job description, but it would be very, very nice if you could do this.”
Jobs are scarce in your industry, so you go ahead and take on the extra responsibility, even though it means putting in extra hours (you’re on salary, so no O.T., sorry) in order to get your regular work done.
A month later, the boss is back: “I need you to come in on the weekends from now on — sorry, no more money’s involved, jump aboard the scaffolding and wash all the windows in the building. Take your time, of course, you’ll have both Saturdays and Sundays to get the job done each week.”
Now you’re a bit steamed.
“Commodes and windows weren’t in our agreement when I took this job!” You object.
“Yes, but,” the boss says, “it would be very, very nice…”
When our founding fathers got together to make a nation, they agreed that the government would have limited responsibilities, and among the greatest concerns of all there was minimal taxation by the government, and how those taxes collected would be spent. As there was no mention in your computer engineer’s employment of commodes & windows, there was no mention during the drafting of the Constitution of tax allocation for social programs benefitting a relative few, enactment of laws protecting individuals from themselves, meddling in the marketplace, financing a National Endowment for the Arts, “earmarking” everybody’s taxes to benefit specific cities and states so that politicians could get reelected and other tax chomping, tax increase causing (no new gov’t programs are created without entailing oversized, wasteful, taxpayer financed bureaucracies) programs.
If you don’t want to add unrelated duties to your agreed upon computer engineering responsibilities (commodes & windows), why should the government add to their agreed upon responsibilities of protecting us from all enemies, foreign and domestic, dealing with foreign governments on our behalf and enforcing Constitutional laws as written?
Because it is very, very nice?
April 8th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
“Ringling Bros should be afforded a bountiful harvest by the people voting out 545 clowns! LOL, Old Soldier!
BB, you saying you “may be a brain dead liberal” is one of the most ridiculous statements I ever heard you say. Well, of course I didn’t “hear” you, but saying “I read you say” somehow doesn’t sound right.
So anyway, I read the entire comment thread and all I have to say is, just like Always, I’m feeling a bit negative these days too. I guess it’s political doldrums, but tomorrow’s another day and I am by nature an optimist. Still, there comes a time when optimism doesn’t cut it. Like when one is being accused of being a witch and the test of the truth is that if they throw you in a lake with a large stone tied to you and you drown, then you’re innocent but if you live you’re a witch and they’ll burn you at the stake. Rather hard being an optimist then, hunh? That’s sort of how I’m feeling about where our country is headed, but tomorrow’s another day and all that.
Great post here, Seth. It generated lots of discussion.
April 8th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
This problem is not limited to your side of the border, and the real problem is, once you lose anything a political system takes away, you never seem to get it back.
April 8th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Gayle –
Thanks.
When I originally read Reese’s article, I was impressed beyond belief at his insight into the evolution of our government from where it began to where it has arrived (BTW, I got a great laugh, also, at Old Soldier’s Ringling Brothers comment). It’s not that many of us don’t see this, it’s just that the man put it into words so succinctly.
I also think that BB needs to know that in our opinion (I take license here, as a fellow conservative blogger) he is anything but a “brain-dead” liberal, rather a much more intelligent and insightful human being than most of those commenters who claim the title of “liberal” (if only all liberals were like BB, there might actually be an on-going dialogue that kept our country on an infinitely more even tack than it presently lays claim to).
It’s not all that difficult to feel negative re our present political milieu, from that perspective we seem to be in, or near, dumpster level.
Our government is a far cry from what it was intended to be some 232 years ago, when those concerned designed a government that worked so well until it was changed in the last century.
AB –
You hit the nail right on the head — once a government like yours or ours adds a new policy, no matter how much of a failure it is, it becomes an institution no matter how much it fails, no matter how much money it costs the taxpayer or no matter how negatively it effects people and country, it’s ours to keep.
April 9th, 2008 at 8:59 am
Though they seem to have forgotten, they are our employees, not the other way around.
oh my gosh Seth…so so true!..excellent expose!
April 9th, 2008 at 9:09 am
Angel –
Thanks.
I truly wish I could see some sort of light at the end of this tunnel, but alas, there doesn’t seem to be one.