The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people — Amendment X, United States Constitution

“I’m Mad as Hell and I’m Not Going To Take It Any More”

That quote from the movie “Network” popped into my head as I read about a legislator in Oklahoma, calling for legislative support for the 10th Amendment to the Constitution.  It passed the state assembly unanimously.  So what does this mean?  The sponsor of the bill, State Senator Randy Brogdan, explains:

The “federal government has been putting the screws on (the states) a little tighter and tighter each year” along with unfunded mandates of varying sorts.

And each time this happens, Brogdon explained, “We lose a little bit of our freedom and liberty.”

The federal government has been growing enormously and taking on more and more things that used to be handled locally, such as education, and welfare.  Other programs have not changed as the economy has, for example, as the percentage of the population that farms has decreased dramatically has the Department of Agriculture shrunk accordingly?

You Must Obey!

The way the federal government works around this is by saying, okay, you don’t have to do what we tell you, but you will get no federal funding if you don’t.  It seems like a Catch-22, no?  Since the 16th Amendment, which authorized the income tax, the federal government can decide how much to tax incomes and there is little that the states can do about it.  They take money from your pocket under threat of imprisonment, and will give it back to you only if you comply with their rules.

How Do We Fix This One?

It may require a constitutional amendment to fix as the 16th Amendment says:

The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration. — 16th Amendment to the Constitution

I’ll leave the legal mechanics to those better qualified, but I would propose the following.  That the federal budget shall include a breakdown of projected revenues derived from income taxes, broken down by source: individual, corporate, etc.  A state should then be allowed to refuse mandates and programs from, say, the Department of Education, and withhold from the IRS that proportion of tax dollars destined for the Department of Education from that state.

Certain departments should be deemed mandatory, such as Defense, State, Treasure, to name a few as these departments serve all citizens.

The legislation under consideration in Oklahoma will have little effect if the federal government can suck up as much money as it wants to from the states, via their citizens and then just keep the money if the states refuse to participate in the programs.  How do you determine which programs should be subject to the states discretion?  No money should flow from a state, to Washington, and then back to the state.  That is just plain stupid and wasteful, or a distribution of wealth, none of which is a government function. Paying for roads and infrastructure that does not cross state lines should be funded locally.  It is ridiculous that the federal government pays 90% of the cost of a highway that lies entirely within a city.  Look at the scandalous “Big Dig” in Boston.  Billions of dollars spent and parts of it are falling down.  Why should any of this be paid for by the people of Kansas, Oklahoma, Alaska, New York, Florida, et al.?

But the real answer is following the 10th Amendment.  It clearly states that the role of the federal government is spelled out in the Constitution.  If it’s not in the Constitution then that responsibility is left to the states or the people.  Show me where in the Constitution it says that the federal government is responsible for education.  It’s not in there and that department should be shut down tomorrow.

It’s Time to Reign the Monster In

The anger in the country is growing.  Those who acted responsibly are being told they have to bail out the irresponsible.  They are being told by “Buck a Day Biden” that it is their patriotic duty to pay higher taxes to help out.  Meanwhile half a dozen Obama appointees haven’t paid the taxes they owe, let alone paying more.  I give Biden the “Buck a Day Biden” moniker because that is how much this millionaire give to charity.  He doesn’t want to spend his own money on charity, he wants the government to take your money to fund government programs to do that.

If you don’t think the anger is growing take a look at this.  Rick Santelli

Did you ever watch a historical movie about how some fringe group ominously takes over the government and leaves everyone scratching their head wondering how it happened?  At the end of the movie you say, “Whew, I’m so glad that could never happen in the good ol’ USA.”  Then you watch the news and see things that are eerily familiar to the movie and you say, “Nah, that’s just my imagination running away with me.”  Until the next piece of news drips on your head.

A news story this morning gave me that uneasy, pit of the stomach feeling again.  It probably shouldn’t have since it was about Venezuela.  Hugo Chavez got the term limit restriction lifted in his country that will allow him to be president for life.  That measure had previously failed but now it passed by a wide margin.  So why am I feeling uneasy about our liberties and what is going on in this country?  Here are some of my concerns.

Bipartisanship

After all the talk of bipartisanship by candidate Obama and the need to change the tone in Washington, the reality was something completely different.  In a so called “stimulus package” that will triple the budget deficit and was rammed through the Congress with no one, and I repeat no one, reading it, one party was virtually shut out of the legislative process.  At the same time 44% of the American people, in a Rasmussen poll, said names picked at random out of the phone book could do a better job on the economy than this Congress.  This package is chock full of 40 years of liberal programs that could not pass muster on their own, but as Rahm Emmanuel says, “You never want a serious crisis go to waste.”  When  Republicans protested about being shut out of the process, the response from the other side was, “We won.”

Fairness Doctrine

In the movie there will come a scene when the incoming powers break into the newspaper offices and smash the printing press, overturn the typesetting table, dump papers on the floor and set them ablaze.  The message is clear, there will be no opposition press.  There is only one message and that is of the new dictator and the new news will be his indoctrination.

Today, there is more and more talk about reviving the Fairness Doctrine.  Here is what former President Bill Clinton said:

“Well, you either ought to have the Fairness Doctrine or we ought to have more balance on the other side,” Clinton said, “because essentially there’s always been a lot of big money to support the right wing talk shows and let face it, you know, Rush Limbaugh is fairly entertaining even when he is saying things that I think are ridiculous….”

Liberals tried to bring balance to the discussion with Air America and it failed dismally.  Why?  People didn’t want to listen to left wing rants all day.  But face it, the main stream media overwhelmingly votes liberal.  So although no one will be smashing printing presses and torching newsrooms, the objective is to stifle the conservative point of view.  Once you do that the only voice that is heard is reinforcing the new ruler.

What the First Amendment says is:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for the redress of grievances.”

Congress shall make no law…so what are they doing? The line between news and opinion has long been crossed.  It used to be you couldn’t tell what Walter Cronkite’s politics were, because he kept his opinions, for the most part, out of the news.  But today there is little difference.  For a great example see this piece by Russ Roberts. (They Report. I Edit. You Decide). They will defend the Fairness Doctrine by saying it is not censorship, but here’s the dirty little secret.

Let’s say you are a radio program manager and you put on three hours of Rush Limbaugh.  Great show. Great ratings. You make lots of money.  Now along comes the Fairness Doctrine.  You don’t have to touch Rush’s show because that would be censorship.  What you have to do, however, is give three hours over to Air America to be “fair”.  Three hours of Air America hate <fill in the blank: Bush, religion, gun owners, pro life> rants.  Ratings for those three hours go in the tank.  No revenue. You’re making no money.  Listener’s start complaining.  So what is a station manager to do?  It’s what they used to do when the Fairness Doctrine was here before, tell Rush he has to close up shop, dump the Air America crowd and play Top 40s songs all day long.  The fact that it wasn’t censorship doesn’t matter, the effect is the same.

The Census

The census, conducted every ten years, is important in two regards.  One, it helps allocate how money from government programes is distributed, and it determines how the number of Congressional seats will be apportioned among the states.  Based on current estimates states like New York (Blue) will lose one or two seats and states like Texas (Red) will gain seats.  That could mean a shift in power from the Democrats to the Republicans.  Uh oh.

The scene in the movie shifts to a darkened office with a light over the conference table.  “We cannot allow the oppostion to gain any strength back, we have to consolidate our power.  What do we do?”

“Comrade, we can take control of the census.  Under our control we can count homeless people and illegal immigrants in Blue states and ignore them in Red states.”

“Brilliant!  You see that the census is directed out of your office rather than in some Department.”

You chuckle only for a minute, when you realize that Rahm Emmanuel will be overseeing the census, operating out of the White House, rather than handling it in the Commerce Department as it has been done for years.  Suddenly, the scene seems very real.

The Stimulus and ACORN

In the so called “stimulus bill” there appears to be about $4.1 billion for “neighborhood stabilization activities.”  The money was initially limited to state and local governments but later changed to include non-profits, such as ACORN.  ACORN is surrounded by allegations of vote fraud.  It doesn’t take much of an imagination to understand how close races can be tipped by an organization that perpetuates voter fraud.  Now think about how your tax dollars are being funneled to them to do it.

We Need More Votes in The House.  So Let’s Add a Representative

In consolidating power, what better way than adding votes where you need them.  One way is to add a representative in the House for the District of Columbia.  It is a heavily Democratic district, so why not?  The Constitution? Ignore it.  Just go ahead pass a law.  If the Republicans object, just crank up the racist machine.

Handouts

Of all the tried and tested methods for turning around an economy in trouble, the Democrats seem to be picking all the ones proved not to work.  If you want to stimulate the economy through tax cuts, you cut marginal tax rates.  Instead the Democrats want to give rebates to people who pay no income taxes.  That’s welfare not tax cuts.  But the goal is not to turn around the economy.  The goal is to consolidate power.  What better way than to make sure more than 50% get something from the government and less than 50% are stuck with the bill.  Majority rules.  We won.  Once that threshold is crossed, the majority can start jacking up taxes on those evil rich, so that the “working and middle class” get checks from the government.  Comrade, it from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.

Calling Dr. Mengele

In the movie a sinister doctor approaches the “patient” and plans how he is going to improve life for all of us.  For the “patient”, not so much.

Another provision in the stimulus bill is to establish a new bureaucracy that will “compare drugs, medical devices, surgery and other ways of treating specific conditions.”  This organization will take a role in your medical treatment that was formerly between you and your doctor. “Supporters of the research hope it will eventually save money by discouraging the use of costly, ineffective treatments.”  Isn’t that what medical journals are for?  Isn’t that why the AMA has conferences, to share such information?

“I’m sorry Mrs. Jones, we think you child has Down’s Syndrome, therefore you really must have the abortion, or your medical bills for your childbearing treatment won’t be covered by our national health care.  And you know the costs run into the hundreds of thousands.  What would you like to do?”

Do you really want some bureaucrat in Washington playing with a statistics program  telling your doctor what treatment he can and cannot perform to treat you?

Is This Real?

As you leave the theatre you laugh nervously that this couldn’t happen here.  But every time you pick up a newspaper, the similarity about how a dictator seizes control and then consolidates his power is just too eerie.  But as we have seen in the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and now in Venezuela, it can happen and once it does it may be decades before it can be undone, if at all.  The Founding Fathers were very wary of a strong central government.  They believed that the only powers that the Federal goverment should have are limited and they went to the trouble to spell them out in the Tenth Amendment:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Where does it say in the Constitution that education is a federal function? I’m not against education by any stretch of the imagination, but how can the federal government do a better job than the local school board?  Why is the federal government putting cops on the street?  Shouldn’t each municipality handle this? The Federal Government has gotten too big and too powerful.  It is so vast no one can manage it.  We keep pushing so much up to the federal level we are almost begging for a dictatorship to form.  And with everything they take, and they will take all they can grab, your liberties go with it.

We better wake up, people, and start cutting this monster down to size.  Otherwise it will either consume all of us leaving nothing but a wasteland, or we will be reading our founding documents and see that they are telling to prepare for the Second American Revolution.

“marked by or involving cooperation, agreement, and compromise between two major political parties” — Miriam Webster Dictionary

The talk about bipartisanship and the accusations about a lack of bipartisanship are flying back and forth with such intensity, who could blame the casual observer for throwing up their hands and wishing a pox upon both houses?

President Obama and Bipartisanship

I believe that President Obama is sincere in his desire for bipartisanship.  His willingness to meet with and listen to conservative columnists, and Republicans is indicative of his desire to change the tone in Washington.  On the stimulus bill, I think he just painted himself into a corner by letting Nancy Pelosi write the bill while he held those meetings.  Listening to the other side is a start, but it falls short of the definition.  It remains to be seen if President Obama recognizes where this approach fell short or if it really is just window dressing.

Democratic Leadership and Bipartisanship

The Democratic Leadership has a very different view of bipartisanship.  Their view is, “we stake out a position and you (Republicans) agree with it and that’s bipartisanship.”  If they don’t agree, they are rabid partisans, doing it strictly for future political gain.  But if you look at the definition of bipartisanship above, the Democratic Leadership is just not interested.  The stimulus bill was put together solely by the Democrats and when asked by a reporter if the bill was bipartisan Nancy Pelosi responded, “That depends on how the Republicans vote.”  That’s pretty much it in a nutshell.

When President Bush came into office, he brought with him his experience in Texas where he worked very successfully with the Democrats in the legislature.  However, the Democrats in Congress were so angry with the outcome of the election in 2000 that they never gave him a chance, voting against anything he proposed.

Republicans and Bipartisanship

The Republican leadership has expressed their appreciation to President Obama’s efforts to reach across the aisle.  However, as genuine as the gesture was they were still pretty much excluded from the legislative process.  They fully understand that elections have consequences, but they want to be heard, they want to offer alternatives, they want the opportunity to persuade.  If denied that by the Democratic Leadership, they will take their case directly to the American people and in 2010 get the public’s decision.

Is Bipartisanship Possible?

Is there such a divide that bipartanship is just not possible?  Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is trying to tackle that issue through a non-profit organization called American Solutions.  That organization polled Republicans, Democrats and Independents to find areas of widespread agreement.  The key to bipartanship is to first find areas where you agree. Then look for areas where you differ but not so significantly that there is not room for negotiation and compromise.  Lastly, is to recognize those areas where the difference is so wide that you simply have to agree to disagree.  This is a list of ten initiatives that a majority of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents agree on.

1. English should be the official language of government. (87 to 11)
2. We want our elected leaders in Washington to focus on increasing the energy supplies of the United States and lowering the costs of gasoline and electricity. (71 to 18)
3. The option of a single rate system should give taxpayers the convenience of filing their taxes with just a single sheet of paper. (82 to 15)
4. Every worker should continue to have the right to a federally supervised secret ballot election when deciding whether to organize a union. (79 to 12)
5. Keeping the reference to “One Nation Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance is very important. (88 to 11)
6. Congress should make it a crime to advocate acts of terrorism, violent conduct, or the killing of innocent people in the United States. (83 to 12)
7. We should dramatically increase our investment in math and science education. (91 to 8 )
8. We believe that if research indicates we could build clean coal plants in the United States with no carbon emissions, it would be important to build such plants as rapidly as possible. (71 to 8 )
9. Illegal immigrants who commit felonies should be deported. (88 to 10)
10. We support giving a large financial prize to the first company or individual who invents a new, safer way to dispose of nuclear waste products. (79 to 16)

As you can see by the percentages, the support for each of these ten measures is rather substantial.  Bipartisanship on any one of these issues should be very easy to obtain.  You just have to ask yourselves: how many of these are supported by the Democratic Leadership or President Obama?  You can see that a number of them are not only not supported, but adamantly opposed.

So what is your view of bipartisanship?  Is it where you surrender your principles and fall in line with your opponent?  Or is it trying to find common ground amoung all Americans and not pushing a partisan agenda where government runs the smallest aspect of your life?