THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XI, Issue # 131, May 23, 2009
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
WHEN GOVERNMENT GOES INSANE
By Alan Caruba
THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION, THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY MAJORITY IN CONGRESS, & THEIR THREAT TO AMERICA'S
POLITICAL & ECONOMIC FUTURE: LIBERAL LEFTIST DEMOCRATS SHOVING THEIR RADICAL POLICY AGENDA DOWN
THE THROATS OF AMERICANS -- INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY, CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT, & THE FREE MARKET ECONOMY
BEING DESTROYED -- PUSHING THE U.S.A. FURTHER & FURTHER DOWN THE ROAD TOWARD MAJORITARIAN
DICTATORSHIP & THOROUGHGOING STATISM -- ERASING THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS OF INDIVIDUALS & THE
CONSTITUTIONALLY RESERVED POWERS OF THE MEMBER-STATES OF THE AMERICAN FEDERAL UNION -- ELIMINATING THE
CONSTITUTIONAL LIMITATIONS ON THE AUTHORITY OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT & ESTABLISHING AN ALL-POWERFUL
CENTRAL GOVERNMENT WITH UNLIMITED POWER TO CONTROL & DIRECT THE AMERICAN ECONOMY
FULL STORY:
I have this theory that, every so often, governments go insane. Usually, they have someone who is already demented
heading up the government, but it takes a majority of the elected body to enact crazy laws and it takes the government
apparatchiks to engineer the systemic failures, the wars, and the crazed rush off the cliff.
The U.S. presidential and congressional elections of 2008 constitute a splendid example of this. The majority of
America's voters elected a man with the thinnest possible resume for the job of President of the U.S.A. Indeed, the man
has refused to release his birth records to reassure voters he met the minimum, constitutional standards for the job. The
man, however, was a skilled orator, able to give voice to the TelePrompter speeches written for him by master
manipulators.
Promising “change,” promising a government free of “lobbyists,” promising “transparency,” and generally promising a
new dawn of enlightened government, Barack Hussein Obama and his majority in Congress arrived on January 20, 2009,
and promptly began to bankrupt the nation, deprive Americans of access to its vast energy resources, and seek to
impose an insane law predicated on the belief that carbon dioxide, vital to all life on Earth, was a “pollutant” that had to
be reduced and, of course, heavily taxed.
Capping all this madness was a naïve effort to establish improved relations with the spawning ground for terrorism
around the world, the Middle East. He is determined to change the Islamic fanaticism that has spawned Osama bin
Laden and al Qa'ida, the Taliban, and decades of Islamist, or Islamofascist, terrorism from Bali to London, Manhattan
andMadrid, to Mumbai.
And it has taken barely four months to get to this point.
In the President’s own words during a C-Span interview, “We’re out of money.”
A recent Cato Institute Tax & Budget Bulletin by Chris Edwards, the Cato Institute's Director of Tax Policy
Studies, spells it out.
“Federal spending is growing by leaps and bounds,” wrote Edwards.
“The budget hit $3.9 trillion this year, double the
level of spending just eight years ago.”
“The government is also increasing the scope of
its activities, intervening in many areas that used
to be left to state and local governments,
businesses, charities, and individuals.”
To clarify what is occurring, it is necessary to know that the United States Constitution forbids the U.S. national
government from financially bailing out individuals or private industries. Such bailouts violate the Due Process
Clause of the Fifth Amendment, the federal constitutional provision that prohibits the national government from
depriving persons of their property without due process of law and denying them the equal protectiion of the laws
-- for example, deciding which U.S. industries or segments of the American population shall survive economically
and which shall not, determining who shall receive and benefit from taxpayer-funded bailouts and who shall not.
Moreover, the bailouts violate the General Welfare provision of the Tax Clause of the U.S. Constitution -- Article I,
Section 8, Clause 1 -- because the federal taxes levied to finance such bailouts benefit a small group, not the general
public. They benefit special interests, rather than the general interest -- narrowly-focused particular interests, rather
than the broadly-focused national public interest.
In short, the bailouts have turned the U.S. public treasury into a public trough for organized interest groups.
The Obama administration has given the United Auto Workers virtual ownership of Chrysler and is likely to do the
same with General Motors, if the courts do not intervene. The winners are the labor union bosses. The losers are
those who lent money to Chrysler and GM under contractual terms that put them first in line to be compensated, but
who have been left out in the cold, along with their fiduciary responsibilities to their investors. This arrangement is a
violation of the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, which provides federal constitutional protection for private
property rights, denying the national government the power, without just compensation, to take private property for
government purposes.
“In recent years,” wrote Edwards, “the range of federal control over society has widened as politicians of both parties
have supported nationalizing many formerly state, local, and private activities.” This has led states, in particular, to
spend well beyond the taxes they collected because they counted on the federal redistribution of funds to make up the
difference. In the process, they gave up control over their education, healthcare, and transportation systems, to name
a few.
Edwards cited the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance, a 2,205-page official compilation of all federal aid or
subsidy programs, including grants, loans, insurance, scholarships, and other types of benefits.
“There has been a large increase in the number of
agricultural programs due to bloated farm bills
passed in 2002 and 2008. There have also been
large increases in the number of Homeland
Security and Justice programs, which subsidize
local activities such as firefighting and policing.
While those are important activities, it would be
more efficient if they were funded locally because
Congress often steers such funds to projects of
dubious quality and little national security
relevance.”
The Founding Fathers fashioned a central, or national, government with specific constitutional limitations on what it
could or could not do. Most of these limitations have been violated since the last century’s increasing governmental
intrusion and acquisition of centralized power.
“It is very sad that a nation founded on individualism and limited government,” wrote Edwards, “has more people than
ever suckling at the federal subsidy teat.”
“President Barack Obama has proposed a wide
range of new subsidies in energy, health care,
and other areas. If enacted, they would take
America further away from the individual
reliance, voluntary charity, and
entrepreneurialism that made it so prosperous
in the first place.”
We should not be living in an America where the labor unions own the industrial corporations, where the banks are not
free to determine their own prudent loan principles, where local schools are governed from Washington, D.C., where the
kind and size of the automobile you drive is decided upon by politicians and bureaucrats, and where we are denied the
energy we need, a policy based on false accusations about “dirty” fuels that are, in fact, the life’s blood of the economy.
Much of what the government is doing and proposing to do is patently insane. It is most surely unconstitutional.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
American Politics, Political Competition, & the Control of
Public Policy: Elections, Political Parties, Political Factions,
Ideologies, & Special Interest Groups
American Government & the U.S. Presidency:
Presidential Politics & National Leadership
The American Political System:
Politics & Government in the U.S.A.
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
The U.S. Constitution & the American Economic Order:
Civil Liberties -- Private Property Rights
The American Political & Cultural Left:
Liberals, Statists, Socialists, Marxists, & Other Leftists:
The Democratic Party, Academia, & the Mainstream Media
Alan Caruba is a veteran business, science and political writer, a Public Relations Counselor, and Founder of the National
Anxiety Center, a clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns. Caruba writes a weekly commentary,
"Warning Signs," posted on the Internet website of the National Anxiety Center, which is located at
www.anxietycenter.com.
Caruba has a daily blog at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com.
Caruba’s most recent book, Right Answers: Separating Fact from Fantasy, has been published by Merril Press. Books
previously authored by Caruba include A Pocket Guide to Militant Islam, The United Nations Versus the United States: The
UN's Plan to Control Planet Earth, and America: A Nation Without Borders -- A Pocket Guide to Immigration Issues.
© Alan Caruba 2009
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic,
Cultural, Military, International, Strategic, & Geopolitical Issues
Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity