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New Year’s Day 2010 – A New Decade of Hope and Change

by Bill O'Connell on January 1, 2010

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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.  – Tenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America

 The Tenth Amendment

The Tenth Amendment of the Constitution is an interesting piece of work.  The way the Constitution is written is to explicitly state what the national government could do, and thereby exclude it from doing everything else.  When some of the Founding Fathers advocated a Bill of Rights the federalists strongly objected.  Why?  First, they thought it was redundant.  If, for example, the Constitution did not say the national government could regulate speech then having a First Amendment guaranteeing the Freedom of Speech made no sense.  The national government was only permitted to do precisely what the Constitution said it could do. 

 The second objection concerned having the opposite intent of the original writing of the Constitution.  You see, if the constitution has a provision that says what the national government cannot do (First Amendment barring free speech for example) it implies that the national government can do anything else that is not prohibited, which is exactly what the federalists did not want the Constitution to say.  It wanted to specifically enumerate the powers granted to the national government and no more.  So they compromised by adding the Tenth Amendment, which spelled out that distinction.  To quote Hamilton in Federalist 84:

 “Why, for instance should it be said that the liberty of the press should not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?”

The Federal Government’s Runaway Growth 

The federal government has expanded enormously particularly with FDR and the New Deal.  The Supreme Court has paid scant attention to the Tenth Amendment in curbing that expansion.  Perhaps it is time they gave it a closer look and more weight in their decisions.

 Below is what the Constitution says Congress has the Power to do.

 Article I. Section 8. The Congress shall have Power To:

  • Lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States;
  • To Borrow Money on the credit of the United States;
  • To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
  • To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
  • To coin Money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
  • To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
  • To establish Post Offices and post Roads;
  • To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
  • To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;
  • To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;
  • To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
  • To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two years;
  • To provide and maintain a Navy;
  • To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
  • To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrection and repel Invasions;
  • To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Apportionment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
  • To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards and other needful Buildings; — And
  • To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

 Does anybody see anything there about minimum wages?  miles per gallon?  housing subsidies?  urban development? education? energy?  James Madison summed it up thus in Federalist 45:

“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government are few and defined.  Those which are to remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite.  The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace negotiations, and foreign commerce;….The powers reserved to the several states will extend to all objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the state.”

To see how far we have come from Madison’s and the other Founding Fathers views can be seen in the New Deal era court case Wickard v. Filburn(1942).  Roscoe Filburn was a farmer during the Great Depression who was growing wheat to feed his chickens.  The Federal Government had imposed limits on how much wheat a farmer could grow based on acreage in order to prop up wheat prices.  The amount of wheat that Filburn was growing exceeded this number, however, Filburn intended to use the wheat entirely on his own farm.  Not only was the wheat not going to leave his home state, it was not going to leave his farm!  But the Supreme Court ruled that by growing more wheat than allowed, Filburn would not have to buy additional feed in the open market and by not doing so the lack of his consumption of wheat on the market would adversely affect the price of wheat, therefore he was violating the Federally imposed limits.  Now if that doesn’t set off Tenth Amendment alarm bells, I don’t know what could.

Federal Government Sprawl

Here are the cabinet level departments of the Federal Government.  Those in bold seem, in my opinion, to be consistent with the enumerated powers above.  Those in italics seem, again in my opinion, to be a national government overstepping its Constitutional bounds.  It is not that each and any of these things should not be done at all, but according to the Tenth Amendment should be at the discretion of the states or local government.

  •  Department of Agriculture
  • Department of Commerce
  • Department of Defense
  • Department of Education
  • Department of Energy
  • Department of Health and Human Services
  • Department of Homeland Security (Incorporate in Department of Defense) 
  • Department of Housing and Urban Development
  • Department of Justice
  • Department of Labor
  • Department of State
  • Department of the Interior
  • Department of the Treasury
  • Department of Transportation
  • Department of Veteran Affairs (Incorporate into Department of Defense)

 Federalism

 One of the brilliant ideas of federalism is the ability to vote in two ways.  One, is at the ballot box and the other is with your feet.  If my state puts forth a bad idea and the majority of the citizens of my state agree with the bad idea, I have the freedom to move to another state.  However, if we keep moving all these bad ideas up to the national level, my right to vote with my feet is taken away.  If states like California and New York choose to follow polices that lead to their bankruptcy, so be it, but let’s not force those policies on Texas and Florida or force the citizens of those states to pay for the mistakes of Californians and New Yorkers.

Since George Washington, who had four cabinet positions, we have added thirteen new cabinet departments and eliminated two and the ones eliminated did not go away, they simply became part of other government entities (e.g., Navy into Defense; Post Office into Postal Service).  In other words our government is telling us that they have not solved a single problem for which one of these agencies were created since 1789, otherwise why wouldn’t that cabinet department be shut down, after ceremoniously giving all the key players well deserved gold watches?  But Government encroachment marches on with the Obama Administration poised to devour one-sixth of the U.S. Economy into the Department of Health and Human Services.  They tell us they know how to solve that problem.  With their track record do you believe them?  Perhaps it’s time to dust off the Tenth Amendment, and start putting a scalpel to the federal government rather than tying a bib around its bloated neck.

Let’s look to 2010 as the year we start taking back our government.  Polls show how far out of touch our elected leaders are from the views of their constituents.  It’s time to retire them from office.  Let’s keep up the hard work and countdown to November 2010.

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Good Government, Bad Government

by Bill O'Connell on November 18, 2009

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If I asked you a simple question, what government organization works well, what would you say?  Let’s take a look at two government organizations and compare their effectiveness and motivation.

The Military

Whether you support our troops on the battlefield or want them to always stay home in their barracks, most Americans will say the military does a pretty good job.  Why? That is, why are they effective, not just why do people think so?  Well, they put a lot of investment in training and technology.  They seem to have solved the problem of integration, being based on merit rather than racial prejudice.  These are all important things, but I don’ t they get to the core of the issue.  The key question is, what happens if they don’t do their job?  They die…they die, the guy beside them dies, their buddies die, and depending on the size of the conflict, their families and country may eventually die.  With that kind of motivation, race is not even secondary.  If the guy next to me has got my back and I have his, I don’t care what color he or she is.  We do it right, we live;  we don’t, we die.

The K-12 Teacher

K-12 education comes under fire in this country, and rightly so, for failing to produce an educated workforce.  In New York, for example we spend over $14,000 per student, per year on education, far above the national average of around $9,000.  Are students in New York 50% smarter than the country in general?  Hardly.  Is the nation as a whole turning out well educated students?  Sadly, no.

Our K-12 public schools are a government run monopoly.  So what happens to a K-12 teacher if they fail to do their job?  If they have been in the job long enough to get tenure, nothing.  They will get a raise like everyone else.  So what motivates them to turn out outstanding students?  I’ll wait.

Let me be clear that I don’t want to lump all teachers together.  They are many teachers who, by having what  I suppose is a strong moral streak,  do a great job because they want to teach.  Okay, so let’s look at the teaching profession where there is a group that does their best because they get satisfaction from doing a good job.  Now, some studies come out that say the way to improve results is smaller classroom size.  The teachers’ unions get behind it and eventually push it through.  So what does that mean?  If you cut the size of the class in half, you double the number of classes.  If you double the number of classes, you have to double the number of teachers and thus have to go deeper into the labor pool to find them.  Before you took this step, we can probably assume that all the self-motivated teachers were already on the job.  So the additional teachers are motivated by what?

Co -conspirators

That brings us back to the teachers’ unions.  When government’s come under pressure to cut educational expenses, the airwaves are soon flooded with the heart wrenching commercials pleading to restore the funding “for the children’s sake.”  What you don’t hear is the trailer that says, “This commercial paid for by the PTA,” or “This commercial paid for by the Association of Concerned Parents.”  No, what you typically hear is, “This commercial paid for by the X Teacher’s union, Joe Blow, President.”

Who do the unions really represent…really? The students? or the teachers?  They want the funds restored so that their membership is not hurt and their dues are not curtailed.  If their true concern was for the students, why not support school vouchers and charter schools?  They fight the former with a vengeance and the latter, if it is not union organized.

Let’s Not Pick on K-12 Education

Let’s look at other government areas.  Government is the only area where union membership is growing.  How many people relish going to their Department of Motor Vehicles?  How efficient is the Post Office?  Amtrak?  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have a bonus compensation plan, which is a step in the right direction unless it leads to cooking the books and making extremely risky loans that lead to the near collapse of our economy.  How can we get this under control?

Controlling the Uncontrollable

Our government is trying to install a massive health care program that will cost a trillion dollars.  At the same time, tens of billions of dollars are stolen from Medicare every year and they can’t stop it.  Early this year, the Obama Administration passed a $787 billion stimulus package, spent $18 million to build a website to track it, and put Joe Biden in the role of watch dog.  How is that working out?  A recent report from ABC News, of all places, found that credit for creating jobs was given on the web site to Congressional Districts that do not exist.  A $1,000 grant was purported to have created 50 jobs.  The New York Times investigated and found that the $1,000 went to purchase a lawn mower.  It took from the time of the founding of the Republic until about the mid 1990s to accumulate $6 trillion in debt.  It has doubled since then, and it is projected to go from $12 trillion to $14 trillion by next year!

It cannot be controlled.  It is impossible to control.  The only solution is to cut the federal government down to size.  Take out the Constitution and read what the true functions of government are supposed to be.  The military, absolutely;  the Post Office, yes it’s in there; coin money; establish patents and copyrights; establish the courts; control the District of Columbia; regulate interstate commerce; make treaties; give the State of the Union address.  That pretty much sums it up and everything else should be left to the states and local government or the people.

We should jettison all the rest and cut this government down to size and get out of debt.  Department of Labor–gone;  Department of Health and Human Services–gone; Department ment of Housing and Urban Development–gone; Department of Transportation–gone; Department of Energy–gone; Depatrment of Education–gone; Department of Veterans Affairs–gone, rolled into the Department of Defense;  Department of Homeland Security–gone, rolled into the Department of Defense; Department of the Interior–gone; Department of Agriculture–gone.

The amount of money saved would be enormous.  Selling all the real estate and buildings would bring in more money.  We could then cut taxes to jump start the economy and run a surplus to cut the debt.  The next step would be to make it illegal for unions to organize government workers without a referendum approved by all the voters.  Side benefits would be less campaign money because there would be less government to influence.  Government would be more accountable to the people because it would be closer to the people, that is, at the state level or local level.  We can do this proactively, or wait until the government is bankrupt and we have to sell off the parts to the Chinese.

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Dumb and Dumber — Healthcare Goes Postal

by Bill O'Connell on August 22, 2009

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Dumb

Of all the analogies that he could have picked  to sell his idea of a public health care option, President Obama chose the U.S. Postal Service. See video ( UPS and FedEx are Doing Fine).  “UPS and FedEx are doing fine, it’s the Post Office that’s always having problems.”  Okaaaaaaaaay, so that is supposed to convince us that creating a health care system modeled on the post office is a good idea.  The interesting thing is that he prefaced that dumb statement by describing a public option that was “self sustaining.”  In other words, it was on an equal footing and not running deficits.  Excuse me, Mr. President, but the Postal Service is on target to lose $7 billion this year and the head of the postal service is in line for an $800,000 bonus.  Brilliant!

It also has appeared to escape the President’s notice that UPS and FedEx came into being to address the shortcomings of the postal service and the postal service has been struggling to be more like UPS and FedEx.  Express Mail, Priority Mail, does anyone believe those products would exist if FedEx didn’t exist?  The postal service was the problem, UPS and FedEx were the solution.  So Barack Obama wants to spend $1 trillion to create a problem to compete with the solutions.

Are there ways to improve healthcare? Absolutely.  Increase competition across state lines, outlaw frivolous lawsuits… hey, there’s an idea.  How about setting up a panel to decide if a lawsuit is real or frivolous?  If it is ruled frivolous hit the law firm that brought it with 3x the expenses of the other side.  You would kill two birds with one stone.  Sharply curtail or eliminate frivolous lawsuits and dry up donations to the Democrats who are dead set on having government run every detail of our lives.

Dumber

Just when you thought President Obama and the main stream media in his pocket could downplay the Biden-like  postal gaffe, along comes Jesse Jackson, Jr., to explain what Barack Obama really meant.  See video here (Jesse Jackson, Jr. explains).  How more scary can it be to think that someone so ignorant of the world around him and economics gets to vote on a government takeover of 1/6 of the U.S. economy.  Let me take it point by point.

  • “The public option is a stamp, it’s e-mail” – the last time I looked e-mail was private, not public, perhaps that’s why everyone uses it and it work’s exceedingly well.
  • “Because of e-mail and because of the postal system, it keeps DHL from charging $100 for an overnight letter” — er, no.  First of all e-mail, which is private Congressman, is a complementary service to overnight. You can overnight a cell phone to some one, you can’t e-mail it to them.  If you are legally required to have a handwritten signature, you can’t e-mail that.  Got it?  Second point, the lack of performance from the postal service is what created a market for DHL, UPS, and FedEx.  The stamp doesn’t keep DHL form charging $100 for an overnight letter, it is UPS and FedEx that keeps DHL from charging $100 for an overnight letter by charging less.  That is called competition, it is called capitalism, it is called a free economy.

He also said this, which is not in the video:

“The post office is universal. It reaches the rural areas. It reaches the urban areas. It reaches where DHL, and UPS, and Fedex will not go. And so in the barrios and the ghettos and the trailer parks of our nation…”

We don’t know if DHL, and UPS, and FedEx would go there because it is ILLEGAL to compete with the post office for first class mail.  Doesn’t he know this?  When facing more competition companies in a free economy tend to cut prices, but what has happened to the price of a first class stamp?  The price of a first class stamp has increased 440% since 1975.

Public Reaction

These two “sales pitches” alone should have you run screaming to the nearest town hall meeting or tea party event.  Pelosi says these town hall meetings are organized events?  Well I guess they are.  They are organized by the colossal stupidity of Pelosi, Reid, Frank, Schumer, Dowd, Obama, Jackson Jr., thinking they could slip this by unnoticed by the American people.  The American people are fed up with them and they are not going to take it anymore.

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The Doctor is In. Would You Like Some Stamps With That?

by Bill O'Connell on August 12, 2009

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Barack Obama went off the teleprompter again yesterday.  He gave the analogy that a public health care option would be like the Post Office.  Yikes!  Since 2000 the cost of a first class stamp has risen from 33 cents to 44 cents, a 33% increase.  Is that health care you can believe in?

I believe the point he was trying to make is that there are private delivery options, which he named, UPS and FedEx, and they are doing just fine.  This is true, but remember how they came about.  It was because the postal service was such a dismal option.  It was a government monopoly that didn’t care about service because it didn’t have to.  When businesses got as fed up with that government option, they created a private one that has thrived.  What President Obama wants to do is take a working private option and create an inefficient government bureaucracy, chock-a-block with heavily unionized workers, and accountable to us through whom?  Our Congressional Representatives who cannot respond to a simple question other than by grabbing a poll tested, pre-packaged, talking points memo and sending it out.  They are tone deaf.  That is why they are so shocked at the angry crowds at their town hall meetings.

Real Reform

Here’s what we should really look at doing:

  • Get the consumer of health care actively involved. How?  It’s being done today with high deductible health care plans coupled with a Health Savings Accounts.  The insurance company negotiates lower treatment costs and pays them only after a hefty deductible has been paid that year.  The patient is then in a position of shopping for the best health care and deciding on what treatments and tests, in conjunction with their doctor they will or will not have.  The Health Savings Account is where the patient can put funds, pre-tax, and then use those funds to pay the expenses not covered by the insurance.
  • Tort Reforms.  Get the Lawyers out of the Examining Room. Too many doctors, in my opinion, are practicing defensive medicine.  They think of every possible test so that if something does not go perfectly with the treatment they won’t get sued for the test they didn’t perform.  Let’s follow the British System — fixed fees for the attorneys instead of a percentage of the settlement, and loser pays.  There are too many cases of people getting a $12 million settlement or judgment for something stupid (think of the woman at McDonalds who spilled coffee in her crotch and sued McDonalds because the coffee was too hot).  In these cases the lawyers typically ask for no money unless they get a settlement and when they do they get 1/3 ($4 million in this example). And now Arlen Specter has introduced a bill to allow these same tort lawyers to get a tax break for their expenses while they wait for their ship to come in.   It’s like buying a lottery ticket.  Who wouldn’t take a free lottery ticket on a jackpot of millions?  But who really pays for all these law suits and settlements?  That’s right you and me in insurance premiums we cannot afford now.
  • Increased Insurance Competition. Right now most insurance is regulated by the states and in many cases policies available in one state are not available in others.  Let’s open up the competition.  If we have more insurance companies competing for our business, we are likely to get better and more creative policy choices.
  • More Tailored Insurance Policies If my wife and I are beyond the point of having children, then let me buy a policy that does not cover childbearing, birth control, well baby care.  If I am young and starting out and I want those things, there are other coverages that pertain to older people that I may not want at this stage in my life.  Let’s allowed tailored policies that reflect my actual insurance needs.
  • Immigration Control.  The same people who are pushing socialized medicine are, for the most part, the same people who favor open borders.  However, where do all the illegals go for the health care needs including having babies (new citizens)?  They go to the only health care provider they know, the local emergency room.  This is also probably the most expensive form of health care delivery and since they are illegal, they’re not paying for it, the rest of us are.  I think immigrants built this great country and almost each and every one of us can point to our forebears who came here as immigrants.  I am in favor of immigration now and in the future.  I believe these are hard working and basically good people.  BUT, they have to come here legally and follow the process.  If they are not here legally, they should be deported.
  • Medicare Reform.  You probably want to sit down for this one, but shocking as it may seem this massive government programs loses billions upon billions of dollars every year to fraud.  Who pays?  Right!  You and me.  In higher payroll taxes, and in higher health care costs as doctors and hospitals have to make up the shortfall somewhere else to stay in business.
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