Quote:
Originally Posted by Nebe
Charley Reese's final column for the Orlando Sentinel... He has been a journalist for 49 years. He is retiring and this is HIS LAST COLUMN.
Be sure to read the Tax List at the end.
This is about as clear and easy to understand as it can be. The article below is completely neutral, neither anti-republican or democrat. Charlie Reese, a retired reporter for the Orlando Sentinel, has hit the nail directly on the head, defining clearly who it is that in the final analysis must assume responsibility for the judgments made that impact each one of us every day. It's a short but good read. Worth the time. Worth remembering!
545 vs. 300,000,000 People
-By Charlie Reese
Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?
Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?
You and I don't propose a federal budget. The President does.
You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.
You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.
You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.
You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.
I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.
Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.
What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits.. ( The President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.)
The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House?( John Boehner. He is the leader of the majority party. He and fellow House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want. ) If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to. [The House has passed a budget but the Senate has not approved a budget in over three years. The President's proposed budgets have gotten almost unanimous rejections in the Senate in that time. ]
It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.
If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.
If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.
If the Army & Marines are in Iraq and Afghanistan it's because they want them in Iraq and Afghanistan ..
If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.
There are no insoluble government problems.
Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power.
Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.
Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible. They, and they alone, have the power.
They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses. Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees... We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!
Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device
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What Reese describes is the Administrative State. He mentions the Constitution as the supreme law of the land, but doesn't mention that it is so in name only. Most of the problems that arise in the Administrative State would not be possible if the Constitution were actually followed rather than merely nodded to in token and deceptive interpretations.
He absolves the Federal Reserve of blame because Congress (a progressive one) created it by, as he admits, an unconstitutional delegation of power to it over monetary policy.
He absolves regulatory agencies of blame because Congress created them and has the power to dissolve or defund them. But he does not mention that their creation was also an unconstitutional delegation of powers which were to be exercised solely by Congress, not by unelected bureaucrats with plenary powers. And one of the very reasons that such powers were to be exercised by Congress and it alone is that it would be responsible for the results rather than pretending innocence, and would be held accountable at election time. So now, though Reese still wants to hold Congress, not the bureaucrats, responsible, this is the reason why neither Congress, nor the President, nor the SCOTUS are willing to get rid of them. They are the cover, not only against culpability for regulations, but as a reason for much of the high taxation and fiscal deficits needed to fund the operations and regulations of those agencies.
He lays the responsibility, per the Constitution, for tax and appropriation bills on the House, but doesn't mention that it is not only the President's veto that the House must override, but also the Senate with whom it must reconcile any bill. So the House is not solely responsible for budget bills, even as he demonstrates by saying that it passed a budget which didn't make it past the Senate--dead on arrival. Nor does he mention that another progressive Congress created the 17th amendment which divorced the Senate from fealty to their States and State Congresses who had appointed them by allowing them to be elected directly by the people, thus making them, contrary to the founders conception of a lesser power in the congressional branch, to a power even greater than the House. If the House cannot have either the Senate or the President, one or the other or both, in agreement with their legislation, it cannot be passed. The House was intended to be the most powerful branch, but standing alone, it is now the weakest--against constitutional intent. This weakening of the "People's House" was a necessary change in diminishing the constitutional separation of powers over time and eventually creating an all-powerful central government.
Nor does he mention the most powerful resource of the Administrative State created by the same progressive Congress that gave us the 17th amendment and the Federal reserve--the direct income tax. Without the income tax to siphon massive amounts of money from the private sector and an agency such as the Federal Reserve from whom it can "borrow" trillions, both of which allow the Federal government to borrow more trillions from foreign entities, so much of the problems Reese wants to put at the feet of the 545 politicos would not be possible.
He may believe the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, but I doubt it. He doesn't want to name the real culprit, or is too ignorant to understand that if the Constitution were the supreme law, the 300 million would be at fault, not the 545. If the Constitution were the supreme law, the people would be sovereign, and the government would be the servant. Perhaps, he does not realize that he has described the ultimate class system--the ruling class and the masses who serve it. That class system, which the ruling class disguises by referring to, as Reese puts it disembodied mystical forces such as the "economy" "inflation" and "politics," that class system also includes mythical forces such as "the middle class" for whom it "fights" and the implication that there are lower and higher classes. Just who it is "fighting" is not directly mentioned.
This is exactly, the Administrative State which has replaced the Constitutional Republic. If the 545 were to "fix" the problems, it could only do so by relinquishing power. If they did that, they would not be the ruling class.
Reese says that "Their are no insoluble government problems." And he almost does a 180 by saying that the problem can be solved if We The People vote them out of office. That is, we ultimately do have the power, from which it should follow that it is the 300 million who are responsible--but he somehow doesn't want to go that far. He insists that it is the 545 who are solely responsible.
But only a people who are engaged in politics, and in self-government, in responsibility--a responsibility, a self-government, a civic duty which the founders and their Constitution gave us and in turn demanded from us--only such a people can have the power that is legally theirs. But if that legality is replaced by an administrative government that grants rights and accepts responsibilities, the people are stripped of their power. If the people allow, by their choice, to give up that power for the so-called "effective liberty" and security granted by an Administrative State in place of the "legal liberty," and the natural rights, and the unalienable rights granted by a creator, then they choose to be ruled by men, not by law. They choose to be administratively regulated rather than legally free. And the administrators will not be others in a classless society envisioned by the Founders, but will be the ruling class. Such a people will be dependent on that ruling class, and only with a courage not displayed in the last few decades by the 200-300 million will they vote out the ruling class that "provides" and replace it with temporary servants from the people, and accept the responsibility for their own lives.