Finally, a Victory for the Constitution on Nationalized Healthcare

May 23, 2016 | Constitution, Healthcare, Liberty Articles

By Harold Pease, Ph. D

A federal judge just ruled that Congress never appropriated the funding for the cost-sharing reductions in Obamacare. Judge Rosemary Collyer, citing Article I, Section 7, Clause 1, “All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives…” reminding the President that “Congress is the only source for such an appropriation, and no public money can be spent without one.”

Apparently, President Barack Obama realizing that his program to fund those unable to afford healthcare unless subsidized by the taxpayer, like food stamps, had not been appropriated by the House of Representatives, as required by the Constitution, defiantly looked for ways to do it anyway. That body denied his request that they do so in their fiscal 2014 budget. Rather than accept the fact that this is the only body that can approve expenditures constitutionally, the President began to pour billions into it, in effect raising revenue. Since the inception of nationalized healthcare the House had voted more than 70 times for its repeal so subsidizing what they considered a failed program was not going to happen. When, through executive orders Obama funded it anyway, House Speaker John Boehner filed a lawsuit challenging the executive branch’s ability to alter legislation once approved by Congress.

The judge’s ruling to stop further reimbursements to insurance companies who reduced health insurance for those thought to be unable to pay in exchange for the government’s promise to pay the difference out of tax funds, is delayed while the case is appealed to the D. C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Affected are approximately 57% of the people who signed up (estimated 5 million) for coverage through the federal exchange web page. Without the subsidies healthcare costs will rise substantially, although the taxpayer should get a break.

There are few parts of the Constitution more clear than, “All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.” This means that any law, which extracts money from the backs of the American worker, can only originate from the House.

So why should you care if the president defies this small part of the Constitution? For thousands of years, until the Constitution, governments taxed their citizens whenever and whatever they wished. The people had no say. If the Egyptian Pharaoh wanted bricks without straw from the Israelites, for instance, so be it. Rulers lived lavishly off the wealth extracted from their poor subjects with little or no mercy toward them—lavish physical structures and frivolous wars of conquest were too often the norm. The Founders wisely took this power from the rich and gave it to the poor themselves by requiring that the poor, then the majority, had to consent to any taxation over them. The power to tax is the only constitutional power exclusively given to the masses. The House of Representatives was the only branch of government designed to actually represent them as it is based upon population. The Senate was to represent the states, the people only indirectly.

As far as I know the United States is the only country in world history that had this protection from their government placing its tax base with the masses that pay the taxes. It is a priceless freedom. If we are over-taxed in the United States we have chosen to be and one body alone is responsible—The House of Representatives. And, if over-taxed, a correction by the masses can follow quickly as all members of this body come up for reelection on the same date—every two years.

No tax can constitutionally originate with the President or the Supreme Court, not even the Senate, although it can modify as on other bills once originated by the House. The House is also in charge of spending—even defunding something previously funded. The power of the purse (both taxing and spending) is one of the most important powers of the Constitution. We must not let this freedom dwindle or allow the line between the two legislative branches to be blurred into oblivion.

Addressing this subject James Madison, the father of the Constitution, observed, “This power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure.” The U.S. Constitution mandates that “the House of Representatives cannot only refuse, but they alone can propose the supplies requisite for the support of government.” This power alone he added, “can overcome all the overgrown prerogatives of the other branches of the government. They, in a word, hold the purse… (The Federalist 58).”

This may seem like a small thing but the people really do not want to surrender their freedom from excessive taxation, which, prior to this constitutional clause did not exist. No president should take this power unto himself by obligating the House through his defiant spending in opposition to existing law prohibiting such. Losing this is serious because, once gone, it is unlikely to be retrieved. Thank God Judge Rosemary Collyer understood this. Hopefully the D. C. Circuit Court of Appeals will as well when appealed to by the President.

Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College.

Will Presidential Candidates use Constitution in Problem Solving?

May 17, 2016 | Constitution, Liberty Articles

By Harold Pease, Ph. D

It is indeed pathetic that a constituent has to remind Trump, Clinton and Sanders of basic Government 101 constitutional principles of separation of power. None have established confidence with the people that they revere, understand, or will use the Constitution in problem solving. Sadly, none have given any evidence that they have read the document to which one of them, the President Elect, with right hand placed on the Bible, the other raised to the square, will promise the following: “I do solemnly swear … that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

It is even more pathetic that the people, after having experienced two presidents, Barack Obama and George W. Bush and 15 years of little regard for the Constitution, would elect candidates demonstrating the same. But it is also pathetic that few Millennials have had to read the Constitution in any class of study at the college or university level. So let me outline the basic principles of this document to which every elected person in this country is bound.

First, we have federalism, shared or dual government, the federal government to handle primarily foreign policy and the states to handle domestic policy. Like a good marriage neither ruling over the other—two separate and equal entities. All power not listed in Article I, Section 8, or elsewhere in the document, or added by way of amendment to the Constitution thereafter, is a state power. This concept was so important that it was even more strongly defined in Amendment 10 of the Bill of Rights. “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.”

Any change in the Constitution necessitates the two governments reassembling and the affirmative vote of three-fourths of the states as per Article V. As such, most Trump, Clinton or Sanders campaign promises are outside Article I, Section 8 or are state prerogatives, thus cannot be implemented constitutionally without state permission. Duel government was the principle concept housed in both the Articles of Confederation (our first national government) and thereafter under the Constitution. None of the three federal divisions of power created later, executive, legislative or judicial, can alter this first division of power—only with the permission of the states as provided by Article V.

Second, federal power was then divided into three separate entities, the legislative to make all the federal law that was constitutional, the executive to execute that law, and the judicial to adjudicate that law when challenged, according to the Constitution. Each was restricted in its sphere.

The Legislative branch was limited to only four areas of law-making power: to tax, to pay the debts, to provide for the general welfare and to provide for the common defense. These are laid out in Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 prior to the first semi-colon, so essential to the proper interpretation of Section 8. To tax needed one qualifier that such must be “uniform throughout the United States” but in the same article, Section 7, Clause 1 the power to tax had already been given to the House of Representative to originate. To pay the debts needed no qualifiers. But no one in the Constitutional Convention trusted Congress with a free hand in deciding the two other powers, general welfare and common defense. Either could mean anything to a power grabbing federal congress. Each of these needed eight additional qualifiers so Clauses 2-9 were the law-making powers of Congress with respect to what general welfare is and Clauses 10-17 what common defense is.

The long 18-paragraph sentence (yes, sentence) ended with Congress having the power “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers…,” those listed. Congress was never given power to make any law they thought desirable but only within four perimeters and 17 qualifiers. Nor was there power given them to create bureaucracies to legislate for them such as the EPA and BLM or a hundred other such agencies.

As the Congress was not permitted to make any law they liked, the Executive Branch, the president, was also limited in Article II, Sections 2-3 in what he could do. Already noted is his primary responsibility “to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution….” Unfortunately, Barack Obama has become a principle violator of the Constitution. As reported in a previous column, simply stated, the president has two supervisory powers over existing organizations and two shared powers with the Senate; otherwise he pardons, recommends, appoints and entertains. That is it!  Notice the absence of power to make any rules and regulations on us.  This is the job of Congress alone. The president can only persuade Congress to agree to his proposed changes.

The Judicial Branch, Supreme Court, was limited to only nine areas of adjudication. Two of which, those affecting public ministers and when a state is a party, they were given complete, called original, jurisdiction. In the other seven, appellate jurisdiction, “both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as Congress shall make.” The Supreme Court cannot adjudicate wherever they like, only in two areas and the other seven areas only at the permission of Congress.

And, of course, there are areas forbidden to government intervention mostly listed in the Bill of Rights as for example the Second Amendment. If any of these basic principles sound strange or foreign it is because educators and the media have failed to transfer knowledge of the Constitution to our Millennials. In any case, it is doubtful that any of the presidential candidates left will use the Constitution in problem solving.

Attacking Our Nation’s Founders

May 9, 2016 | Constitution

Walter E. Williams | Apr 13, 2016

During Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign visit to Liberty University, he told the students that our nation was created on racist principles. Students at a Christian-based university, such as Liberty, do not often hear the founders-as-racists argument. But it is featured at many other universities, as well as primary and secondary schools. Most often, the hate-America teachings are centered on the fact that slavery is a part of our history. What is left untaught is: Slavery was a routine part of human history. Blacks were the last people to be enslaved. Plus, our Founding Fathers struggled mightily over the issue of slavery. Let us look at some of that struggle.

George Washington said, “I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it.” Thomas Jefferson, John Jay, Patrick Henry and others were highly critical of slavery, describing it as a “disease of ignorance,” “an inconsistency not to be excused” and a “lamentable evil.” George Mason said, “The augmentation of slaves weakens the states; and such a trade is diabolical in itself, and disgraceful to mankind.” James Madison, in a speech at the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, declared, “We have seen the mere distinction of color made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man.” Benjamin Rush said: “Domestic slavery is repugnant to the principles of Christianity. … It is rebellion against the authority of a common Father.”

In their effort to create a union, the delegates at the Constitutional Convention had to negotiate many contentious, deal-breaking issues. Slavery was chief among them. Southern states made clear that they would not vote to ratify a constitution that abolished slavery or ended the slave trade. Northern delegates wanted to end slave trading and did not want slaves counted at all for congressional apportionment. Southern delegates wanted slaves counted as whole people. That would have given the South greater political power in the House of Representatives.

Convention delegate James Wilson offered a compromise whereby each slave would be counted as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of determining the number of representatives a state would have in the House. This rule applied only to slaves. Freemen, whether black or white, would be counted as whole people. Another compromise was to set 1808 as the year to abolish the slave trade.

Contrary to what academic hustlers teach, the Three-Fifths Compromise was not a statement about human worth; it was an attempt to reduce the pro-slavery representation in Congress. By including only three-fifths of the total number of slaves in congressional calculations, Southern states were actually being denied a greater number of representatives in Congress and hence electoral votes for selecting a president.

There’s little question that slavery is an abomination and a gross violation of human rights, but the founders had to decide whether there would be a union or not. Had morality been their sole guide, they might have taken a hardened, nonnegotiable stand against slavery, but then the Constitution would have never been ratified and a union would not have been formed.

A question that we might ask those academic hustlers who use slavery to attack and criticize the legitimacy of our founding is: Would black Americans, yesteryear and today, have been better off if the Constitution had not been ratified — with the Northern states having gone their way and the Southern states having gone theirs — and, as a consequence, no union had been created? I think not.

Ignorance of our history, coupled with an inability to think critically, has provided considerable ammunition for those who want to divide us in pursuit of their agenda. Their agenda is to undermine the legitimacy of our Constitution in order to gain greater control over our lives. Their main targets are the nation’s youths. The teaching establishment, at our public schools and colleges, is being used to undermine American values.

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2016 CREATORS.COM

Why We Should Fear a President Trump, Sanders or Clinton

May 9, 2016 | Constitution, Liberty Articles

By Harold Pease, Ph. D

In listening to the three remaining presidential candidates Trump, Sanders and Clinton, one would think that each actually has the power to do what he/she says will be done. Trump will nullify and replace Obamacare, build a wall along our southern border stopping illegal immigration that Mexico will pay for, send back the 11 million that already illegally crossed, end Common Core and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), ban most foreign Muslims from entering the US, open to surveil mosques in the US, create a database of Syrian refugees, bomb ISIS, target and kill the relatives of terrorists, shut down parts of the Internet to prevent ISIS recruitment, reintroduce torture (waterboarding) to extract intelligence, to name a few.

Bernie Sanders also has his “pie in the sky” promises notably free tuition at public universities, universal health care coverage, legislation to change the climate, and he opposes trade deals that take advantage of the poor labor of other counties. He would end income inequality, establishing a $15 minimum wage, and close the gender pay gap. He advocates investing a trillion dollars over five years to rebuild our infrastructure, and will drastically reform the campaign finance system. He calls the free market a “rigged economy.” At least he is honest in labeling his proposals a “political revolution.” “Today … we begin a political revolution to transform our country economically, politically, socially and environmentally,” said Sanders.

Hillary Clinton has vowed to continue the Barack Obama agenda. She speaks of a more inclusive society; early childhood education and child-care accessibility, and higher education reform, student debt relief, universal automatic voter registration. She also will focus on substance abuse, and mental health issues, campaign finance reform, breaking down barriers of race, gender, and sexual orientation in America. She promises to break-up banks “if they deserve it,” work to end racism, sexism and discrimination against the LGBT community and welcome immigrants overnight.

The list for each is long and candidates add to it on a whim. Unfortunately most, if not all, of these things the president has no constitutional power to implement. His powers are listed in Article II of the Constitution and have not been expanded by way of amendment as required in Article V of that document, thus they are totally unconstitutional for the president to do without congressional, and some times state, approval.  Some few may be constitutionally forbidden even with permission of the legislative branch.

Presidents, in their thirst for power and /or proclaimed expediency, have empowered themselves to the point of “kingship” with their worshipful, unchallenging, party followers (whether democrat or republican) quite willing to look the other way as government grows beyond its ability to be constitutional or efficient.  At any time a president could remind the people of his real constitutional powers but he will not as that would drastically reduce his perceived power that is beginning to look limitless.

Under Article II of the Constitution the president has but eleven powers.  Let us identify them: 1) “Commander in chief of the army and navy of the United States” including the militia when called into actual service of the United States; 2) supervise departments (cabinet), each presumably established by the Congress (George Washington had but four); 3) grant reprieves and pardons; 4) make treaties with the help of the Senate; 5) with Senate help appoint positions established by law such as ambassadors, ministers and judges; 6) fill vacancies “during recess of the Senate;” 7) make recommendations to Congress on the state of the union;  8) convene both houses on special occasions and handle disputes with respect to convening;  9) receive ambassadors and other public ministers; 10) make certain that “laws be faithfully executed;” and, 11) “commission all the officers of the United States.”

Simply stated the president has two supervisory powers over existing organizations and two shared powers with the Senate, otherwise he pardons, recommends, appoints and entertains. That is it!  Notice the absence of power to make any rules and regulations on us.  This is the job of Congress alone.

Thus a prospective president sets his constituency up with unrealistic expectations and eventual disillusionment. When unable to implement promised changes he quickly becomes unpopular as has happened to his predecessors. Since he has NO law making powers he must persuade Congress to agree to his proposed changes. When they do not, as in the case of Barack Obama, he is tempted to make law himself to keep face with his promises and constituency. The practice is a most serious violation of the Constitution and is impeachable. In the case of Obama, Congress is afraid to pursue the blatant offense to the Constitution. Unchallenged it opens the door for future power grabbing presidents to do the same and the president replaces Congress as the major law making branch of government. All three of the remaining presidential candidates will resort to executive orders rather than disillusion their expecting followers.

The term executive order, used by presidents to make law, is not found in the Constitution. Executive orders were initially nothing more than inter-departmental communications between the President and his executive branch with him requesting some action on their part.   Constitutionally they have no law making function. Congress must reign-in any executive that uses them to make or alter law. Article I, Section I gives only Congress law making power. Impeachment is a proper response for any president who subverts or threatens the separation of powers doctrine, as his oath requires that he “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.” I advocated such for the last two presidents and will do so again whichever party, or whomever candidate, does so.

Trump Advocacy of Enhanced Interrogation Still Feels Wrong

May 2, 2016 | Constitution, Liberty Articles

By Dr. Harold Pease

Presidential candidate Donald Trump has made no secret of his intention to use enhanced interrogation techniques in order to collect intelligence the government considers critical to protecting the United States. “The enemy is cutting off the heads of Christians and drowning them in cages, and yet we are too politically correct to respond in kind,” he has repeated numerous times. Polls show that perhaps two-thirds of America agrees. Perhaps they should rethink this view.

Techniques to extract information from an enemy are not new. An acquaintance shared with me what was required of him to extract information from the enemy in the Vietnam War. If the enemy did not disclose the information requested he was thrown from a helicopter in flight. His friends, riding with him, watched with horror until it was their turn to be thrown. My acquaintance, whose job it was to throw them, said that they usually had the information needed before the last prisoner. But the Vietnam War ended 41 years ago.

What is enhanced interrogation today?   According to ABC News, the CIA has used the following techniques: waterboarding, hypothermia, stress positions, abdomen strikes, slapping, and shaking. In waterboarding the prisoner is “bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Material is wrapped over the prisoner’s face and water is poured over it, asphyxiating the prisoner,” who believes that he is drowning.

In hypothermia the prisoner is “left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius), while being regularly doused with cold water in order to increase the rate at which heat is lost from the body. (A water temperature of 10 °C (50 °F) often leads to death in one hour).” In stress positions the prisoner is forced to stand, handcuffed and with his feet shackled to an eyebolt in the floor, for more than 40 hours, causing his “weight to be placed on just one or two muscles. This creates an intense amount of pressure on the legs, leading first to pain and then muscle failure”(ABC News, CIA’s Harsh Interrogation Techniques Described, Brian Ross, Nov. 18, 2005). Violent abdominal strikes, slapping, and shaking are self-explanatory. A bipartisan Congressional Report issued December 2008 added forced nudity and sleep deprivation up to 40 hours to the list that we have used.

The George W. Bush administration, which engaged in enhanced interrogation, did not define these techniques as torture. The rest of the world did, however. In two separate pronouncements the United Nations “denounced the U. S. abuse of prisoners as tantamount to torture” on Feb. 16, 2006, and on May 19, of the same year it viewed “the U.S.-termed enhanced interrogation techniques … as a form of torture” (UN Calls for Guantanamo Closure, BBC, Read the Full UN Report into Guantanamo Bay, February 16, 2005).

Only one man in Congress actually knows what torture is and that is Senator John McCain and he opposes the practice as the information extracted is unreliable (the victim will say anything to ease the pain) and it is just plain wrong.   He says that we should be on a higher plain. He was shot down over Hanoi, Vietnam sustaining two fractured arms and a broken leg sustained in the fall, then was bayoneted and beaten by villagers who first found him. Although these wounds were not torture inflicted they were not treated for some time thus they became torture related. His beatings and interrogations lasted periodically for five years and included two years in solitary confinement.   At the height of their attempt to break him he was bound by tight ropes in very painful positions and beaten every two hours for four days, breaking teeth and bones (Politics in America, by Thomas R. Dye, 2009, p 280). He finally broke.

In regards to our locating the secret courier leading us to Osama bin Laden by enhanced interrogation—it never happened. McCain asked CIA Director Leon Panetta if that were true and he said: “The trail to bin Laden did not begin with a disclosure from Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times. The first mention of Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti — the nickname of the al-Qaeda courier who ultimately led us to bin Laden — as well as a description of him as an important member of al-Qaeda, came from a detainee held in another country, who we believe was not tortured. None of the three detainees who were waterboarded provided Abu Ahmed’s real name, his whereabouts or an accurate description of his role in al-Qaeda” (CIA Director Leon Panetta to Sen. John McCain: “Torture Not Key to Finding Bin Laden” by Joan McCarter, May 16, 2011, Covey Views).

With such controversial results enhanced interrogation should not be considered. Even if enhanced interrogations were the reason that we found and removed Osama bin Laden, I cannot imagine any of the Founding Fathers endorsing such practices. This argument is countered with theirs was a different time and culture.

But there exists natural law that proclaims, “Vengeance begets vengeance.” Yes, each can do terrible things to the other and follow this with even more horrible, unspeakable things such as punishing the relatives of terrorists, which has already been suggested by Mr. Trump. But why degenerate to their level and further accelerate the degeneration? Some of us still want God on our side. How can that be if we are no different than they? Fortunately the Constitution prohibits the “Corruption of Blood” practice (punishing relatives for the behavior of one of their own) in Article III, Section 3, Clause 2, but perhaps “the Donald” does not know this.