Tag Archives: entitlements

Economics, Governance, Representation, Taxation

ARTICLE v. AMENDMENT

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If there were, finally, a convention of the States under article 5 of the Constitution, there are many concerns that people across the political spectrum would like to “fix,” and some of these are appropriately “Constitutional.”  Care must be taken to control the content of the hundreds of proposals that will likely inundate the convention.  Still, here are a few problem areas that are the result of either inadequate institutional structure for today’s technologies (communication, globalism, trade and warfare), or the result of the infusion into federal responsibility dozens if not hundreds of matters that are the appropriate business of sovereign states within a federal system.  Here is a list as seems Prudent:

Lifetime Sinecures – Senators and Representatives are in office too long.  The basic mechanism of election and re-election has become anachronistic in the age of, first, widespread and rapid communication, and, now, virtually instant and digitized communication and data analysis.  The control of data and virtual control of news/information, results in mostly “safe” seats, quantified as 94+% re-election rates.   If each were motivated by purity of public service and statesmanship, longevity in office might be laudable.  Unfortunately, we see over recent decades, that federal office-holders not only tend to ignore their constituents, preferring to deal with and respond to their confederates at the next Senate or House desk, but they become wealthy while in office, leading them to focus on pleasing those Congressional associates so that re-election is made more likely.  Once the first re-election is accomplished, relationships with lobbyists and interest-group advocates of all stripes become more and more crucial and consuming.

This means that change #1 should be Term Limits which, most Prudently, should be stated in terms of continuous service.  That is, being a past Senator or Representative should not preclude running for that office at some future date.  The issue is: How many terms must pass before an individual can run again?  Prudence suggests that one full Senate term and two House terms are appropriate periods.

Administrative Statism – For many reasons we are devolving into a national, rules-based control system, rather than a willing federation of semi-sovereign states, based on laws and shared cultural mores.  Since the Great Depression, the many Congresses and 13 more or less feckless Presidents have overseen massive growth in administrative departments and programs.  Erstwhile “representatives” have successfully divested themselves of most of their governing responsibilities, save two critical ones: Expanding the scope of issues that must be federalized, and Debt Creation.  This massive, unelected, regulatory bloat must be reversed, and the only way to do so is to regain control over federal budgeting.

Federal Budgeting – Of the three key covenants the federal government holds with the citizens of the several states and with the states, themselves, how tax monies are spent is the one that affects everyone, every day.  For the past 50 years, or so, there has not been a “budget,” in fact, for a budget would limit expenditures to match, virtually, the revenues raised.  Moreover, the revenues raised would, in an honest federal system, be expended only by vote of the two houses of Congress and agreement of the President.  We are told this is the case, still, but in truth, most of the budget is “entitlements,” and these are rarely, if ever, considered as manageable by Congress, and if some slight study of them is attempted, the result is generally to increase them by increasing the indebtedness of the United States.  That is, we have outlived our means for decades – a most mendacious process.

By itself, the failure of a string of Congresses to debate, analyze and produce an expenditure plan that is honest with the citizenry, and affordable through taxation, is proof of the utter failure of political leadership since the inception of the Great Society.  These failed potentates of promiscuous promises get re-elected at a 90+% rate, while their “work” product becomes smaller and smaller.  They receive automatic pay raises.

So, correcting the budget process will solve multiple losses of freedom.  There should be an amendment that requires that the “budget” of EVERY Department, Agency, Program and Title within them, shall be approved separately by the Congress through legislation.  In short order this will be seen as “impossible,” and the impossibility of financing more “line items” than can be understood or even counted, should become clear.  The redundancy and overlap of purposes for the thousands of expensive programs, must be cleared away and reduced to fewer than one hundred.  The federal government must get out of much of the peoples’ business that it is in.  Some of it is best managed by States with overarching direction by federal laws that ARE APPROVED by Congress, not by relatively hidden agencies and functionaries.  Americans deserve REPRESENTATION in all matters lawful and budgetary.  This brings us to another section of this amendment.

Legislation – There shall be no “omnibus” bills or laws.  That is, no bill shall be brought forth the content of which is not directly related to a single purpose clearly described in its title, nor should the text of any section be longer than 250 words, with budgetary supporting statements of account allowed, nor should any bill in its entirety contain more than 2,000 words.  Prudence would dictate that unrelated attachments to “must-pass” legislation should be banned.

Further, no new policies or expenditures may be included in any “budget” or taxation legislation without a separate bill that shall be studied and approved by committee and brought to a vote by the whole Congress.  Legislation for such “new” federal activities must contain provisions for financing said actions or policies WITHOUT causing any increase in the indebtedness of the United States.

Balanced Budget – Having established over many decades that Congress is incapable of limiting or cutting virtually ANY expenses other than by shifting expenses from the Defense Department toward domestic expenditures, elected Representatives and Senators shall establish a balanced budget.  However, a limit must be set as a percentage of, what?  Gross Domestic Product?  Some percentage of all taxable income?  Can any “federal” metrics be even trusted?  Some clear standard of measure must be set, else the habitual connivance of re-election interests will modify and obfuscate the intention of this amendment.  Further, no budget shall be passed that increases the indebtedness of the United States except in times of national emergency  or declared war.

Citizenship – No person shall be counted among the census, nor be part of any apportionment of Congressional representation except he or she be a naturally born or legally naturalized citizen of the United States.  No person may be considered a naturally born citizen unless one or both parents shall be a legal citizen at the time of birth.

Sanctuary – No state may interfere with legitimate and proper execution of federal laws, nor with the proper functions and procedures of federal law enforcement personnel.  No law passed by any state or subdivision thereof shall be deemed enforceable if it shall interfere with execution of federal laws or attempt any form of nullification of federal laws.  Federal law enforcement agencies may withhold financial support from those state or local law enforcement agencies that attempt to inhibit, delay or interfere with proper federal law enforcement procedures and personnel.  Interference with proper and appropriate federal law enforcement and personnel shall be adjudicated in federal courts.

Prudence tells us that once a Convention of the States has come to pass, the prospects of another are much greater.  The actions of the organizers and participants of the first such convocation will form crucial precedents that may, one hopes, set a pattern similar to the traditions of the supreme Court, the membership of which has been only discussed, never changed.  Consideration might be given to yet another amendment that limits the frequency  of Article V. conventions.

Economics, Governance

Borrowing for Welfare?

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Nearly every day there is some article or letter in the newspapers that decries the fact that the United States’ “defense” budget is larger than the next 7 nations’ defense budgets, combined. Moreover, that “bloated” defense budget could be reduced significantly so that the “savings” can be used to feed the hungry and house the homeless right here in our own country, for Heaven’s sake.

None of these heartfelt concerns is based on the right perspectives or even the right data. That’s the trouble with statistics.

For example, 65% of fiscal 2017’s Federal Budget is committed to entitlements, pensions, health-care and education. From a Constitutional standpoint, most of that 65% is not the business of the federal government, whereas defense, now 16% of the budget, categorically IS.

Years ago welfare was strictly local… and recipients were a little ashamed of having to ask for it. Many, your grandparents or great-grandparents, and many of your parents, would do the most menial jobs to AVOID being on welfare and to get “off” of it as quickly as possible. Children learned this reaction and revulsion. Welfare was a handout when you needed it, as temporarily as possible.

Soon after World War II, though, states took over welfare from cities and towns, mainly under pressure from cities, which were buckling under the northward migration of blacks from the deep south. Almost immediately, states began prevailing on Washington to take the burden off of their backs. After all, weren’t the new Northerners crossing state lines because of “national” conditions in the economy?

After 13 years of the “New Deal,” we could have seen where this was going. There were votes to be gained in the impassioned cries for better – federal – welfare: codified compassion.

Truman blazed integration trails, Eisenhower enforced anti-segregation in schools, Kennedy hemmed and hawed but crawled toward full integration and voting rights legislation, Johnson, riding a wave of sympathy for his murdered predecessor, got civil rights legislation done, and then carried on further to create some wildly expensive – reckless – new “rights”: federal, unaccountable, politically charged, easily defrauded, vote-attractive welfare.

Smartly, though, Johnson couched the new largesse to which people were now entitled – not ashamed-of, in wonderfully sympathetic terms and names. Names like: Aid for Dependent Children (AFDC), Women, Infants and Children (WIC), Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP, ie. Food Stamps), Pell Grants (free college), Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), Rental Voucher Program (Section 8), Federal National Mortgage Administration (“Fannie-Mae”), Child Nutrition (School lunch, breakfast, dinner!), Head Start (very, very expensive day-care), Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), and, the granddaddy of them all: MEDICAID.

Current spending on these and more than ONE HUNDRED other federal “anti-poverty” programs (who could be PRO-poverty?) is nearly 900 BILLION dollars. That means that our virtually bankrupt federal government is BORROWING money to provide welfare.
Well, say unionized federal social workers and sympathizers, our defense budget is larger than the next 7 nations’ combined, let’s cut that, first!

Except… it isn’t.

When China, for example, builds sand islands in the South China Sea, and puts military airstrips and naval “bases” on them, and claims 200-mile territorial waters around these extensions of “China,” it’s not a military expenditure, but something else. For example.

When Russia directs a manufacturer to produce engines for new IRBM’s and ICBM’s, they aren’t military expenditures – they’re developments in space exploration. All peaceful. And subterranean military bunkers for both armament manufacture and survival are certainly construction projects… and expensive, but military? Not so you’d know.

And no other country carries the degree of personnel costs and benefits that are packed into the “Defense” budget of the United States. Simple ledger numbers are not comparable with other nations’ budgets.

Actually, under the Obama administration, defense has been cut a few times. One of his first steps was to fold tens of billions of retirement costs into the Defense Department budget. Logically, the cost of military retirements should not be measured as part of the Pentagon’s war-fighting / force-projection budget, should they? They certainly don’t threaten anyone but us.

Next, Obama forced the Congress into the “sequester” process, of which a large fraction of restrictions were imposed on defense – to be “fair.” Big cuts.

Finally, he walked out of Iraq, abandoning the very bloody, very costly gains we had made there. We are now paying to regain what had been won. His frothy, fraudulent Iran anti-nuclear “agreement” (cunningly not a treaty), will cost us many billions going forward – billions that need not have been spent had there been a different foreign policy.

The new president sees significant weakness that exists now or very shortly will, as normal refitting and reconditioning of hardware takes larger and larger fractions of critical military systems out of service. Warplanes are becoming antiques as our most experienced pilots are retiring; it is our phenomenal pilots who keep last-generation fighters useful in their 30th year of service. Now our latest fighter platform is too expensive to buy enough of!

If anyone thinks that McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried chicken are going to convince our potential enemies to not work – and fight – to destroy us, it is time for him or her to wake up. Maybe unrestricted immigration will make everybody love one another, but so far it is weakening the “West” and confusing our Constitutional rights with national suicide.