How Much Is Enough?

The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy!

H. L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, 1926

The entirety of mass media has been focused almost entirely on the tragedy of the missing Malaysian Airlines flight. The number of hours dedicated to an issue for which there is achingly little information is staggering.

It is thus perhaps understandable that the aforementioned media has chosen not to focus its attention on more domestic issues. In this era of political gridlock and ridiculous claims of ‘unfairness’, there still remains some hard realities that must be addressed by our elected leaders.

To wit:

This nation is still far from a true economic recovery, and yet the body politic refuses to address the issues of debt, deficit and responsible budgetary restraint. There are continued cries for increasing taxes on the rich, and that more money is needed for this infrastructure or another.

In short, the electorate is bombarded daily with the message that the government requires more cash to continue fulfilling its purpose.

The reality is that government as a whole can longer manage its fiduciary mandate and as such has voluntarily relinquished its responsibility to America for no other reason that political cowardice and budgetary ineptitude.

For proof of that fact, consider this edited compendium of information from various sources relative to the budgetary madness currently in play in Washington. It should be of both deep concern and outrage on the part of the American people.

As they say, you can’t make this stuff up. The numbers do not lie.

Consider:

Inflation-adjusted federal tax revenues hit a record $1,104,947,000,000 in the first five months of fiscal 2014, but the federal government still ran a $377,379,000,000 deficit during that time, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement for February.

Each month, the Treasury publishes the government’s “total receipts,” including all revenue from individual income taxes, corporate income taxes, social insurance and retirement taxes (including Social Security and Medicare taxes), unemployment insurance taxes, excise taxes, estate and gift taxes, customs duties, and “miscellaneous receipts.”

In constant 2014 dollars, the $1,104,947,000,000 that the federal government collected from October through February in fiscal 2014 was $90,193,750,000 more than the 1,014,753,250,000 it collected in October through February in fiscal 2013.

Although the federal government brought in a record  of approximately $1,104,947,000,000 in revenue in the first five months of fiscal 2014, according to the Treasury, it also spent approximately 1,482,327,000,000—leaving a deficit of approximately 377,379, 000,000.

After the current fiscal year, the second highest federal tax intake in the first five months of a fiscal year occurred in the first five months of fiscal 2007, when the government collected 1,076,721,860,000 in 2014 dollars—or 28,225,140,000 less than in the first five months of this fiscal year.

At the beginning of 2013, Congress passed and President Obama signed “The American Taxpayer Relief Act.” While this act made permanent some of the lower tax rates enacted for ten-year periods under President George W. Bush, it also increased some tax rates.

The Congressional Research Service summary of the law said it: “Amends the Internal Revenue Code to: (1) revise income tax rates for individual taxpayers whose taxable income is at or below the $400,000 threshold amount ($450,000 for married couples filing a joint return) and increase the rate to 39.6% for taxpayers whose taxable income exceeds the threshold, (2) set the threshold for the phaseout of personal tax exemptions and itemized deductions at $250,000 for individual taxpayers ($300,000 for married couples filing a joint return), and (3) increase the top marginal estate tax rate from 35% to 40%.

The law also: “Increases the capital gains tax rate from 15% to 20% for taxpayers whose taxable income exceeds the $400,000 threshold amount.”

Bob Woodward And The Truth of the Sequester

The first and foremost fact about the impending created crisis that is in fact not a crisis at all – the so-called Sequester – is that it will not result in true budget cuts as the political and media class are currently claiming. What it will do is cut the growth of proposed spending increases. In the Looking Glass world that is Washington, increasing anything by seven percent instead of a planned ten percent increase is presented as a dire three percent cut that will undoubtedly wind up starving children, allowing terrorists to board planes and leave Grandma out in street to fend for herself as she struggles with healthcare being denied.

This is all nonsense – the federal government, WITH the Sequester, will spend more money this year than last, with almost a trillion dollars of it unfunded.

The Sequester is scheduled to take effect this week and so the Madison Conservative will await its outcome before discussing the absolute absurdity of it.

However, it serves a useful purpose to understand the idiocy that led to this manufactured crisis, and who is telling the truth about its proposal and planning.

The President is claiming innocence and attempting to foist sole responsibility onto House Republicans. They should indeed shoulder some of the culpability in this nonsense, but the following column is from Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, and neither Woodward nor the Post can be accused of being biased against the administration. Woodward has clearly sourced and documented the reality of the Sequester nonsense, and his reporting is both telling and worrisome on the nature of truth in government from a President who still claims to have the most transparent administration in history.

He is at the least obfuscating – at the worst he is outright lying.

Neither option should be accepted by the American people.

Please read the entire column from Woodward, published February 22^nd in The Washington Post. To wit:

“What is the non-budget wonk to make of this? Who is responsible? What really happened?

The finger-pointing began during the third presidential debate last fall, on Oct. 22, when President Obama blamed Congress. “The sequester is not something that I’ve proposed,” Obama said. “It is something that Congress has proposed.”

The White House chief of staff at the time, Jack Lew, who had been budget director during the negotiations that set up the sequester in 2011, backed up the president two days later.

“There was an insistence on the part of Republicans in Congress for there to be some automatic trigger,” Lew said while campaigning in Florida. It “was very much rooted in the Republican congressional insistence that there be an automatic measure.”

The president and Lew had this wrong. My extensive reporting for my book “The Price of Politics” shows that the automatic spending cuts were initiated by the White House and were the brainchild of Lew and White House congressional relations chief Rob Nabors — probably the foremost experts on budget issues in the senior ranks of the federal government.

Obama personally approved of the plan for Lew and Nabors to propose the sequester to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). They did so at 2:30 p.m. July 27, 2011, according to interviews with two senior White House aides who were directly involved.

Nabors has told others that they checked with the president before going to see Reid. A mandatory sequester was the only action-forcing mechanism they could devise. Nabors has said, “We didn’t actually think it would be that hard to convince them” — Reid and the Republicans — to adopt the sequester. “It really was the only thing we had. There was not a lot of other options left on the table.”

A majority of Republicans did vote for the Budget Control Act that summer, which included the sequester. Key Republican staffers said they didn’t even initially know what a sequester was — because the concept stemmed from the budget wars of the 1980s, when they were not in government.

At the Feb. 13 Senate Finance Committee hearing on Lew’s nomination to become Treasury secretary, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) asked Lew about the account in my book: “Woodward credits you with originating the plan for sequestration. Was he right or wrong?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Lew responded, “and even in his account, it was a little more complicated than that. We were in a negotiation where the failure would have meant the default of the government of the United States.”

“Did you make the suggestion?” Burr asked.

“Well, what I did was said that with all other options closed, we needed to look for an option where we could agree on how to resolve our differences. And we went back to the 1984 plan that Senator [Phil] Gramm and Senator [Warren] Rudman worked on and said that that would be a basis for having a consequence that would be so unacceptable to everyone that we would be able to get action.”

In other words, yes.

But then Burr asked about the president’s statement during the presidential debate, that the Republicans originated it.

Lew, being a good lawyer and a loyal presidential adviser, then shifted to denial mode: “Senator, the demand for an enforcement mechanism was not something that the administration was pushing at that moment.”

That statement was not accurate.

On Tuesday, Obama appeared at the White House with a group of police officers and firefighters to denounce the sequester as a “meat-cleaver approach” that would jeopardize military readiness and investments in education, energy and readiness. He also said it would cost jobs. But, the president said, the substitute would have to include new revenue through tax reform.

At noon that same day, White House press secretary Jay Carney shifted position and accepted sequester paternity.

“The sequester was something that was discussed,” Carney said. Walking back the earlier statements, he added carefully, “and as has been reported, it was an idea that the White House put forward.”

This was an acknowledgment that the president and Lew had been wrong.

Why does this matter?

First, months of White House dissembling further eroded any semblance of trust between Obama and congressional Republicans. (The Republicans are by no means blameless and have had their own episodes of denial and bald-faced message management.)

Second, Lew testified during his confirmation hearing that the Republicans would not go along with new revenue in the portion of the deficit-reduction plan that became the sequester. Reinforcing Lew’s point, a senior White House official said Friday, “The sequester was an option we were forced to take because the Republicans would not do tax increases.”

In fact, the final deal reached between Vice President Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in 2011 included an agreement that there would be no tax increases in the sequester in exchange for what the president was insisting on: an agreement that the nation’s debt ceiling would be increased for 18 months, so Obama would not have to go through another such negotiation in 2012, when he was running for reelection.

So when the president asks that a substitute for the sequester include not just spending cuts but also new revenue, he is moving the goal posts. His call for a balanced approach is reasonable, and he makes a strong case that those in the top income brackets could and should pay more. But that was not the deal he made.”

The Madison Conservative Platform - Part 3

The continuation of the Madison Conservative platform now turns it attention to those for whom the platform is being constructed. Previous blog posts have discussed the need for campaign finance reform and the debate on term limits. It is now time to thrash out who will be able to utilize these particular reforms.

There has been much bluster and blather centering on what is cynically referred to by the full political spectrum as ‘voters’ rights’. In the wake of President Obama’s choice to circumvent the Constitution and Congress by unilaterally deciding to legislate by executive fiat, the need to clarify voting eligibility is more critical than ever, given the need to flex democratic self-rule muscle in the voting booth before such freedoms are expunged by a singular political will.

{It is critical to note that is was during the 2010 election cycle that a democratic governor (Beverly Perdue, D-NC) suggested bypassing elections so that the congress could act and vote without fear of electoral consequence.}

The question thus becomes clear – who may vote and how, and what, if any, identification should be considered viable for entering the voting booth.

The important distinction is that this particular plank of the platform will only encompass federal elections; the rights for individual states to regulate their own electoral processes must be respected under the tenth amendment.

First, the constitution stipulates that only those citizens who have attained the age of eighteen may vote.

The intriguing question then becomes what constitutes a ‘citizen’. Felons may not vote; their convictions make them ineligible The Constitution is absent a description on this point, and the Articles of Confederation speak only of ‘free citizens’, excepting ‘vagabonds, paupers and felons’.

It thus then falls to the electorate as a whole by way of our elected officials to make the determination in a country of over 300 million inhabitants who may be classified a citizen eligible to vote, and who does not hold that specific status.

We may look to elective office requirements as a guide, but it must be remembered that the Constitution provides that only natural born citizens may hold the office of President, yet naturalized citizens may still vote.

It is with an eye to that particular ambiguity that the Madison Conservative proposes specific legislation to address this murky issue. It may be attained solely through legislation; a constitutional amendment is not a thoughtful option for this issue.

The law would proceed with language somewhat as follows:

Any individual who has attained the age of eighteen and has not been convicted of a felony is hereby eligible to vote in any and all federal elections. Furthermore, any individual who would be qualified to attain United States citizenship may be considered eligible to vote in any and all federal elections.

That would address the specifics of who is eligible to vote.

The next concern is how to maintain the integrity of Election Day itself. The political parties have in essence conspired to help muddy the basic electoral process by promoting various and sundry electoral schemes. Early elections, mail –in elections, same day registrations and their ilk have done nothing but to distill the inherent responsibility of every citizen to have their voice heard. By diminishing the solemnity of the vote, it has lost much of its significance and allowed mischievous political theater. Many need only to recall the imbecility and outright stupidity of American election officials attempting to discern the intent of any given voter by the interpretations of ‘chads’.

The American example of democratic self-rule should never be subjected to such folly ever again. The Madison Conservative thus believes that there should be an encompassing national methodology for casting federal election votes, even it be nothing more than putting an “X” in a box.

The most sensitive point in this particular debate centers on the legality of requiring photo identification in order to vote.

The voices against such a requirement point out correctly that the right to vote is a constitutional right and the only specifically delineated constitutional right that would require such a manner of photo identification in order to authenticate the identity of the voter; in other words it would be the only right that mandates identification. The claim is made that on that point alone requiring a photo ID is somehow an infringement and an unnecessary burden on the voter.

The specious nature of that argument is clear to those on the opposing side. There is little activity that today does not require a valid photo ID, be it to board an aircraft, cash a check or gain admittance to an arena hosting a speech by the President. The omnipotent nature of ID’s makes the burden argument fallacious on its face. The maxim held that it would be better for one hundred guilty men go free than for one innocent man be wrongly imprisoned.

This is the hard fact of voting in the twenty-first century. The ability for political mischief when a simple photo ID can solve much of the potential problems is a requirement in an era when voting has been made more accessible, albeit more so in a manner that almost mandates a security back up.

In other words, it would be better to inconvenience one hundred voters to produce an ID than for one voter to have his vote negated by any manner or cause.

It is that simple.

Fair - part two

Despite the fact that the nebulous and inherently imbecilic premise of governmental ‘fairness” is discounted by the American electorate on an almost quantum level, the hue and cry over it continues unabated by the full spectrum of the body politic to he extent that the argument continues around a ‘fair’ tax structure and ‘fair’ tax rate, so that certain Americans would be paying their ‘fair’ share, despite there being no substantive  evidence that suggests what the intent of ‘fair’ might be.

The founders and framers had a very specific concept with respect to taxation. The Constitution clearly stated what their firm conviction was to as to taxation; they understood a functioning government needed revenue by way of collecting taxes, but their methodology was specific.

Consider the relevant delineation within Article 1, Section 9

“No capitation, or other direct, tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken.”

Note the words ‘unless in proportion’.

That was what the constructors of our founding document believed to be the singular way of allaying the cost of government. There is little if any ambiguity; equally shared by all. No hint of ‘fair’, but only ‘equal’.

A subsequent Congress decided that there was a better way to be ‘fair’. They called it the sixteenth amendment and all it did was to use this phrase within its construct:

“without apportionment…and without regard to any census or enumeration.”

The supposition is that they felt the Constitution as originally written was insufficiently ‘fair’.

The Constitution was flawed from its inception; qualifying black folks as three-fifths of a whole person was a bad idea, and thus that clause absolutely needed to be excised from the document nby wayof amendments.

The principal governmental funding mechanism, however, was changed to make it more ‘fair’ and thus one of the true bedrock principles of a self ruling democratic republic was scuttled for nothing more than a short sighted political theater sense of ‘fair’.

The dictum of unforeseen consequences has now led us to the point where the tax structure, its rates, and the concept of a tax is being used to quantize society as a whole, depending on the perceptions of those who are in temporary control of the mechanisms of government.

Consider the current financial state of the economy. It can be argued that the housing bubble, the deficiencies of Wall Street, and a bloated national debt were the cornerstones of the recent debacle.

The housing market collapse was initiated by the inflated worth of housing, and that mortgages were given to folks who could not have conceivable repaid those loans. The foundation for such a process was governments’ belief that it was only ‘fair’ that the American dream be realized by everyone, regardless the cost.

Wall Street was made whole by the abused taxpayer on the premise that if it was not bailed out, the very being of the economy would be destroyed, plunging the nation into irrevocable despair. It was deemed the right and ‘fair’ thing to do, given the scope of the national interest. Consider that: the government providing financial relief for private entities, in the name of ‘fairness’.  A free market economy will not thrive if the government is intent on deciding who will win, and who will lose.

The national debt is an ever increasing monster simply because of the fact politicians of all stripes have never explained what the cost of government actually is;  its obfuscation has become an art form unto itself. They pledge tax cuts, promise to increase taxes on the wealthy, so that they pay their ‘fair’ share, without detailing what those audacious claims mean in true dollars and cents.

How do they promise to either cut some, or raise some, again, all in the name of being ‘fair’, without disclosing what their intended fiscal end game truly is?

In hard economic times, an electorate is more than willing to seek a scapegoat for their troubles, and are ill-served when their elected officials opt to build straw men and claim that it is the ‘unfairness’ of the system is to blame.

The system, as envisioned and constructed by the founders and the framers is fine; it is the ignorance and cowardice of the current custodians of our heritage that make it seem unfair, manipulating money for short term political gain and glory.

There is little ‘fair’ about the American people being abused in such a manner, and the American people, en masse, need to put it end to it in the only way Americans know how – at the ballot box.

That is fair.

One Million Million

As the budgetary debate continues unabated within the political class and their media flacks, there seems to be emerging a recurring theme that has somehow gone unchallenged.

In the context of finding additional funds with which to use for the operation of government, that new catch phrase being trumpeted has been for “millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share”

It is indeed true that the United States tax code does offer certain and particular tax breaks and advantages to a few select citizens and corporations. On that basis alone, the tax code should be completely overhauled and restructured to insure a truly balanced framework with which to collect revenue. The debate should not be whether or not the government needs to be properly funded; of course it does. The debate should be on exactly what the government should be doing with that specified funding.

The question of ‘fairness’ relative to those aforementioned millionaires and billionaires however is nothing more than class envy and class warfare. Is not America the land where the only limitation on a citizen is their own desire in the pursuit of the American dream? By charging unfairness to those who have worked hard and played by the rules by definition makes that effort seem somehow unfair , bordering on apparent criminality,  to the rest of  the populace who have chosen not to choose a sizeable financial fortune as their particular definition of success. This is as it should be in the world’s foremost democracy. Each man left alone by the government to his own pursuits.

The ridiculous part of this debate of fairness however is that no one seems to have actually done even the most basic of math relative to ‘fairness’ and the national budget.

To wit:

The proposed federal budget for fiscal year 2012 is for roughly 3.8 trillion dollars: to better understand that number, it is necessary to remember that one trillion is a million million.

With that fact, this is how the numbers would work if the millionaires and billionaires paid what some of the political class would deem to be their fair share.

It would be inappropriate to garnish 100 percent of either an individuals or business’ income, so we will ignore those whose wealth is just 1 million dollars. Since the argument holds that millionaires and billionaires should pay their fair share, let us use that million dollars as a benchmark, so let us consider a total wealth of two million dollars to be the threshold for this scenario.

It could be safely presumed that those whose wealth exceeds two million dollars would number at about one million entities -personal and corporate.

If we were to confiscate one million dollars from each of those million pocketbooks, we would only acquire ONE trillion dollars. The shortfall of almost three trillion dollars would need to come from the rest of the populace. That redistributed wealth would not fund the government for more than three months and pay nothing towards the national debt.

Of course, once the fact that one million dollars a year was being confiscated from ones wealth, what exactly would the motivation be to succeed and prosper? Those million picked pocketbooks would begin to shrink, putting an even greater responsibility on those who could ill afford to appease the governmental appetite for funds.

The budget process is broken; there are a million reasons why, but one inescapable fact; it must be fixed and brought into balance or the land of prosperity will dwindle and fade into the dusty pages of history.

The Fraud of the Balanced Budget Amendment

Amidst the flurry of imbecility and political cowardice that has become the debate on the national debt ceiling, one constant canard being bandied about is a constitutional amendment that would mandate a balanced budget. Proponents of such an endeavour claim that it is the only way to insure the future fiscal health of our nation.

While any successfully passed constitutional amendment is by definition constitutional, such a measure should best be described as being akin to prohibition; an idea that sounded popular for its time, but failed in colossal fashion in its implementation.

A balanced budget amendment would be anathema to the founders and framers. They created a framework within which the nation could prosper and flourish and become the hallmark of a free people, but it was contingent on the belief that those given the authority to govern would do so under the presupposition of doing what was best for the nation.

The Constitution gives broad but restricted powers to the three branches of government. The Congress was bestowed with, among other responsibilities, the obligation to manage the fiduciary needs of the nation. A democracy by definition will be a chorus of different voices, but abdicating ones part in the choir is unacceptable.

A federal government must protect and defend its people. Imagine a balanced budget amendment being in force in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Would we have opted out of all of the short term financial needs based solely on the premise that we could not afford it? National disasters are unable to be accounted for within a budgetary framework. Imagine an earthquake in California: would we opt not to provide the massive amount of resources such a catastrophe would necessitate by telling Los Angeles we had met our budget limit on disasters for the year?

There are nations that wish us ill and continue to attempt to do us harm. Were we to be attacked by a sovereign nation would we only fight until our yearly budgeted allotment of bullets were utilized, at which point we would ask for an armistice until we could afford to purchase additional armaments in the subsequent years budget?

Granted, such examples are ludicrous on their face, but such is the nature of unforeseen consequences. There are people of good conscience that believe we should immediately retreat from all foreign military engagements. If they were able to deal with these missions on a budgetary basis, the question must be asked if they would indeed do so.

The flip side of those scenarios is just as insidious in their creation. An insolent Congress could claim that they could find no additional ways to save funding to bring the budget into balance, and so there would be a need for tax increases due to constitutional mandates. It is rarefied air that contains tax increases that are subsequently reversed.

At the heart of the issue however is a precept more basic and fundamental that goes to the very nature of a free nation.

Millions of Americans balance their household budgets simply because they know they must, or face specific consequences.

Do our elected officials not have the individual self control and intelligence to properly steward this nation simply because they do not understand it is their fundamental responsibility? A balanced budget amendment would allow for some level of mischievous misinterpretation by one political faction or another.

The best example of this is campaign finance reform, heralded by Congress as the way to ‘clean up’ the election process and remove the corruptive influence of money in politics.

The ink was not yet dry on the legislation before the first Political Action Committee (PAC) was formed, thereby effectively sidestepping the entire issue.

We cannot allow our elected officials to abdicate their responsibilities, or to allow our posterity to pay, literally, for the lack of courage on our part to protect their future.

The Budget Debate (Again) July 2011

…“to ourselves and our posterity"…

As the churlish and childish wrangling continues unabated over the configuration of the debt ceiling legislation, it is time to once again look towards the founders and the framers for proper guidance and wisdom to resolve the infantile political logjam.

There is no single solution that can be provided by either political extreme; as always, the proper course must be guided by pragmatic compromise.

That solution is easily at hand.

A look at recent history, however, shows the folly of blind compromise, a solution that was no solution at all but rather nonsensical gibberish that has done nothing but fuel the current financial distress. Moving the problem forward in time has been the prevailing option for the past several decades; such choices must end.

To wit:

There are those who claim that the balanced budgets and surpluses of the late 1990’s were squandered and plundered by subsequent administrations. This is ridiculous after even the most cursory examination of the reality of those budgets. The balance claim is supported only by accounting gimmickry that a fourth grader with an abacus could easily discount. The surplus, based upon the budget claims could also be disproved simply by noting that such assertions were based upon cuts that were scheduled for a future date uncertain.

If we accept that a balanced budget and surplus could be realistically attained simply by promising to cut future spending, no rational American who needs to balance their checkbook monthly would ever pay their debts; they would merely send out IOU’s and promise to send in the money later, once they cut out the unnecessary parts of their household budget.

The American public can no longer accept this type of fiduciary mismanagement.

The founders have provided us with the framework of a reasoned and acceptable compromise for those who claim that only cuts or only raising taxes are the solely acceptable solution. Neither option is realistic or financially sound.

Given that the political class always seems to enact the income side first, with cuts scheduled for later, the debt ceiling legislation can be easily worded to accommodate all sides, and rejected only by those who are either imbeciles, politically cowardly, or both.

The legislation could be so structured to first provide the government with a proper audit of the operating, or direct overhead, costs required to run the government, to be completed by a date certain, perhaps three months hence. This can be the first place to discover cost savings and provide a blueprint to begin required budget cuts.  The second tier would be cuts that both sides seem ready to accept, apparently in the area of two trillion dollars.

Once these cuts have been fully enacted, the legislation could then provide for eliminating non essential tax breaks for corporations and other entities that are being supported on the public dole.

The last part of the legislation would be revenue increases. They would be mandated by discovering the cost of government. If there are budgetary increases needed, the American electorate could at least be assured that such revenue increase are as a last resort; all the outstanding waste and frivolity has been eliminated. The American people could then accept the deal because all other options have been explored and utilized.

The founders trust in American democracy and self-rule for themselves and their posterity would be well founded and well deserved and we could continue to pass along a nation financially secure for ourselves and our posterity.

The Buck Stops With Congress.

“..and secure the blessings of Liberty…”

The nonsense and ignorance continues in Washington D.C. amongst the political class and their commentator flacks in all form of media as the budget issues continue to escalate. There seems to be a propensity towards outright stupidity in the absence of true leadership and honest statesmanship. The honest debate, once the proud hallmark of American democracy and self-rule is being replaced by an appalling and shrill shrieking lack of knowledge.

It is becoming embarrassing to those who respect the document upon which this nation was constructed; the United States Constitution.

The latest salvos in the ongoing fiscal war are being fired as our elected officials worry more about keeping their positions of (temporary) authority and (granted by the electorate) power and less about the short term and long term financial health of our nation.

Sadly, many commentators of both political extremes are doing their part to help obfuscate and cloud the real issues and are growing successful in their attempts to drown out the rational and reasoned arguments being brought forth to address an issue, that if left unchecked, will plunge this nation into financial chaos..

They blather on about ‘constitutional crises’ over the budget and with their most desperate vocal tones worry aloud on the presidents’ authority to address these monetary issues by executive fiat. These proposals are floated by the wily sycophants of both major political parties and the American electorate should be outraged.

The constitutional language is precise and wholly unambiguous on these matters, so the language of ‘constitutional crisis’ begs the question – have those in elected office ever read our founding document, or at least even perused the section that relates to their official governmental offices? A ‘crisis’ would ensue if there was no constitutional authority bestowed upon any branch of government to deal with a given situation. That may happen one day, but it does not exist for this situation.

Article two of the United States Constitution clearly spells out the duties and responsibilities of the chief executive. It does not mention, in any form, the power or responsibility to be directly involved in any budgetary framing issue.

The founders constructed this nation that way for a reason. They did not want one person to hold that much power and authority within their newly formed government. The Constitution does, however, state the following within Article One, Section 8:

“The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes…”

“The Congress shall have the power to borrow money on the credit of the United States…”

“The Congress shall have the power to coin money, regulate the value thereof…”

Therein lays the power and the responsibility for the financial health of the nation. There is no doubt as to the interpretation of the founders on this point. There may some doubt within the cowardly heart of many a politician, but the Constitution is clear where lies the responsibility for maintaining the fiduciary integrity of the United States of America.

As a body, Congress has failed miserably, and their oath of office requires that they protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

It appears they have collectively failed in their jobs.

They must be held accountable and the electorate must demand that they stop attempting to place blame and shirk their constitutional mandate.

If the people do not, this nation will indeed perish from the face of the Earth.

Debt

As the debate begins anew in Washington on the federal budget, it may be an appropriate time to revisit and clarify the more salient points that are driving the issue: the debt limit, the deficit, and the national debt.

Politicians are making self serving public statements that they will not support raising the national debt limit without some manner of nebulous budgetary  concessions and so the question arises what exactly is the national debt limit, and why would our elected officials choose to either raise the limit or allow the nation to go into default.

The national debt ceiling is exactly like the credit limit on a bank issued credit card. The amount you are allowed to spend is a predetermined number and you are not able to spend more than that without the issuing bank raising your credit limit. You must show the bank that you are of a sufficient credit risk with sufficient collateral resources to warrant elevating your limit.

Suppose you have automatic payments registered with that credit card account – if you exceed your limit and the bank does not raise it, you will not be able to meet those financial obligations and you will go into default. Should you default on enough different accounts, or default an excessive amount of times, your credit rating will suffer, making any further borrowing almost impossible. If you are able to secure financing, the interest rate will almost border on the usurious.

This is the situation facing congress at this moment – raise the national debt limit or risk default. It is irresponsible for lawmakers to threaten default; insuring budgetary restraints and responsibility are necessary, but allowing the credit rating of the United States to slip into that of a third world potentate is absurd. The United States must honor its financial obligations; the debate must center on how to do so, not if to do so.

The first step in that debate must center on the deficit, the annual number that delineates the negative budgetary shortfall discrepancy between what the government takes in on receipts and what it expends in the course of its business. This is where a balanced budget must be written  and passed. Those politicians who cry for a constitutional amendment mandating that congress pass a balanced budget are abdicating their most basic fiduciary responsibilities. There are several valid and responsible reasons for having a budget deficit - war, national disaster, economic downturn, etc.- but  altering the constitution to avoid doing so may sound popular but is inherently dangerous for the future financial health of the nation.

What ultimately may be of the greatest harm to the country is the national debt, which in a thumbnail description is the accumulation of all current and previous budget deficits. Included in the debt are such things as Treasury bonds and other such monetary instruments, so the reality is that there will never be a zero sum of national debt. The crushing aspect of the debt however is the interest that must be serviced upon it, which at its current rate makes it impossible to properly manage. Simple arithmetic demonstrates that, if left unchecked, one hundred percent of the money the government receives in tax receipts will go not to bring down the debt but merely to pay the interest on that debt.

The reality is that such inevitabilities are unsustainable and so the hard choices must be made in managing the national debt ceiling, the deficit must be eliminated by a balanced budget, and the debt must be brought into a manageable format so that this nation can thrive and flourish without the debilitating financial strains put upon it by our current leaders and their unwillingness to act in the national best interest.

The Budget Process - how much are the paper clips?

And so begins again the nonsensical annual practice known as the congressional budget cutting process, an oxymoron if ever there was one. It ultimately does little more than demonstrate and highlight the absolute ineptitude and chicanery inherent in the officials currently entrusted with the nations purse strings. Only in government would a program that was intended to receive a ten percent increase have that endowment cut to only a five percent increase would it be trumpeted as a five percent cut. Members from all facets of the political spectrum gravely intone in front of an array of microphones that cutting entire programs would result in various stages of Armageddon for that programs recipients. The final budget proposal is then heralded as a triumph of responsible spending, and that the hard choices have been made to put the nation on the road to financial health.

As the saying goes – hardee har har.

This process has now resulted in a fourteen trillion dollar debt. Obviously, changes need to be made, and the changes are both easily attainable, and ultimately practical. Just ask any small business owner.

There is little doubt amongst the electorate that there is sufficient income generated in this country to provide for the essential processes of government. What no elected official has yet to present, however, is the actual operating cost of government. Any small business owner can tell you exactly what their operating costs are, from their utility costs to how much they spend on paper clips. This critical information is what affords them the opportunity to achieve the intended goal of being profitable. Any business that does not know their operating costs is not long for the yellow pages. Yet nobody in government looks at what it actually costs to run the government. The budgetary process merely looks at cutting or adding to each year’s allocations, without looking to see the true bottom line. Politicians talk of budget surpluses; how can there be a ‘surplus’ when there is debt to be paid, interest on that debt to be serviced? The actual concept of a budget ‘surplus’ should be an affront to the electorate; it is THEIR money. Any money the government does not need to function should be returned to that electorate. The budget can easily be brought into balance, but what that balance truly is must first be determined by obtaining the facts relative to the operation of the bureaucracy.

The government needs to know what it is spending in paper clips.

It is the peoples’ money; not the governments.