May 20, 2019 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D.
Attorney Generals for both Presidents Barack Obama (Eric Holder) and Donald Trump (William Barr) received congressional contempt citations, the enforcement of either required action from DoJ personnel—their boss. So, with Holder nothing happened and with Barr nothing will happen. But there are big differences.
Many recall the refusal of Eric Holder to surrender 74,000 documents in his possession to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives, that would bring to light the alleged gunrunning scandal now known as “Operation Fast and Furious.” The House was left powerless when Holder obtained from Obama executive privilege freezing the documents from congressional or public view—thus the cover up charge.
Executive privilege, or anything like it, especially withholding potentially criminal activity, is not constitutional. When Richard Nixon argued similarly in Watergate the media rightfully was all over him but they were amazingly quiet on the gunrunning story as potentially it could bring down a president long supported by them. Ironically Holder used the Nixon argument in his request that Obama assert executive privilege (Attorney General Eric Holder Letter to Obama, June 20, 2012).
From the 6,000 documents released of the 80,000 requested by the House, this is what is known or believed to be true. The Obama administration’s contempt for the Second Amendment was well documented. Previous attempts to get Americans to give up their right to possess firearms had failed. Since Americans will not willingly do so, imagine someone in power plotting to create the rational that would turn most reasonable people against these rights and gun sales at gun shows.
Seemingly the intent was for the government, through the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Administration (ATF), to secretly sell illegal guns to the Mexican drug cartels, and then blame those sales on U.S. gun shows to discredit them. The administration had argued that 90% of the guns used by Mexican drug cartels came from gun shows in the United States. The ATF gun sales, if undetected, would provide the government rational and support to close down the gun shows making it more difficult for citizens to obtain a firearm. The story is full of government intrigue, lies, conspiracy, and the murder of hundreds of Mexican citizens and an American Border Patrol Agent, Brian Terry.
The transfer of illegal weapons to Mexican drug cartels was done without consulting U.S. law enforcement officers outside ATF or the Mexican authorities. The government would have succeeded with the scheme were not some of the illegal firearms found at the scene of murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, one of which actually the instrument of his death.
Among the 6,000 released Holder documents was found an email wherein Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke, charged with executing the “Operation Fast and Furious,” boasted to a colleague of the operation’s propaganda value, presumably to vilify gun shows. It read: “Some of these weapons bought by these clowns in Arizona have been directly traced to murders of elected officials in Mexico by the cartels, so Katie-bar-the-door when we unveil this baby” (“Will Holder’s Watergate Become Obama’s Waterloo?” Americas 1st Freedom, April 2012). They knew precisely what they could do with the propaganda value of their sales—destroy the gun shows.
Wayne La Pierre, Executive Vice President of the NRA, best expressed the seriousness of this illegal operation, apart from defrauding Americans of their constitutional gun rights, when he wrote. “In that ‘gun-walking’ operation, Obama administration operatives encouraged, bankrolled, and oversaw repeated felonies at gun stores and at border crossings with criminals smuggling at least 1,700 firearms into Mexican drug-fueled criminal commerce.” Regular citizens, doing the same thing would serve time.
What was disclosed reportedly suggested that U.S. gun shows were not the source of cartel firepower, as this administration had repeatedly contended, they, through their ATF agents were, and Holder intentionally lied when he told Congress he heard about “Fast and Furious” from the media, as did other Americans. “One Justice Department official claimed his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and refused to testify,” elevating suspicion that, so far, we may see only the tip of the iceberg.
The documents sought by the House could have shed light potentially on one of the biggest scandals in American history. including evidence planting—the placement of 1,700 guns in cartel hands. But if true it could also have brought down the Obama presidency.
Holder’s contempt of congress was bi-partisan, Barr’s was not. Barr turned over the entire Mueller document minus some redaction that, he said, would unlawfully disclose sources and methods. He also had the unredacted version housed in another room for members of congress to view. Reportedly no Democrat chose to look at it. His contempt of congress was because he refused to testify before the House Judiciary Committee because it had reportedly changed the rules allowing non-members of congress to ask the questions. The Constitution, and past practice, only allowed members of congress to interrogate. He insisted he would have testified, as he had the week before in the Senate Judiciary Committee, had they limited questioners to members of the committee.
With Barr hundreds did not lose their lives, thousands of documents were not withheld from a House committee, and no laws were broken. Very big differences.
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 taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
May 20, 2019 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D.
The Robert Mueller Report has been released in full outside legally required redaction that would compromise sources and methods. It’s over. The Deep State and their media outlets temper tantrum against Attorney General Bill Barr because he feels the need to investigate the beginning of the Trump-Russia Collusion Hoax, now documented, will continue for a time but eventually will dissipate as new documents are declassified supporting Barr’s need to review. The infamous insurance policy to hide FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, and other accomplices to the alleged coup d’e’tat to unseat a president of the United States, failed leaving them exposed to treason.
By the time newspapers print this column Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will have resigned. One of the things that Barr may wish to review, with respect to the coup, was the intent to use the 25th Amendment in their failed plot. In this, outgoing Rod Rosenstein takes center stage.
This was confessed on 60 Minutes by former deputy director of the FBI Andrew McCabe who identified Rod Rosenstein as an accomplice having discussed with others removing the president using the 25th Amendment. This Rosenstein denies. Look for Rosenstein to be put under oath again before the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding this and his offer to wear a “wire” while in meetings with President Trump to entrap him.
They needed Trump to look crazy. This was planned before he was inaugurated. Reportedly Rosenstein told “Mr. McCabe that he might be able to persuade Attorney General Jeff Sessions and John F. Kelly, then the secretary of homeland security and now the White House chief of staff, to mount an effort to invoke the 25th Amendment” (New York Times, “Rod Rosenstein Suggested Secretly Recording Trump and Discussed 25th Amendment,” Sept. 21, 2018).
But the 25th Amendment was never designed to undo an election. Even a casual look at it should end that issue. Deep Staters and their media outlets hated Trump and feared his exposure of their influence in the election. The amendment requires evidence of his mental or physical incapacity. The population had just voted that he was fit and was their best choice of many contenders.
The amendment created the temporary office of acting president which is filled by the elected vice president serving under the president in one of two ways. First, Section 3, by the president’s voluntarily removal of himself as before surgery which might result in death or second, involuntarily by his cabinet and vice president.
Section 4 is what Trump’s alleged conspirators sought to use. It begins “Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore [currently Charles Grassley] of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives [currently Nancy Pelosi] their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”
Notice the word acting assumes a temporary status, which will automatically be returned to him when he submits to the above named authorities a “written declaration that no inability exists,” that he is fit. He resumes his duties “unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department … transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
Should that happen Congress (both houses) is required to assemble within 48 hours to deal with the issue and is given 21 days thereafter to vote on the matter. If Congress “determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.”
This amendment is designed to handle a president incapacitated by a stroke, as in President Woodrow Wilson, or a botched assassination attempt leaving a president incapacitated to do his duties, or in a disease like Alzheimer's for instance. This is not to be used to impeach a president as such is clearly outlined in Article II of the Constitution or to overturn the results of an election—more especially one just occurring.
At this point it might be well to review 18 U.S. Code 2385, Chapter 115, p. 2-6 on what constitutes Treason, Sedition, and Subversive Activities in Advocating an attempted overthrow of Government. This list includes activities respecting: “prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays.” In the coming weeks and months we may wish to review this law.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein looked mighty uncomfortable standing expressionless and statue-like behind William Barr when Barr announced the results of the Mueller Report as no collusion and no obstruction. Since he had much to do with the investigation and is the last standing original senior executive officer in the Department of Justice, he may have much to worry about. At least the Russian collusion focus will no longer be on Trump.
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 taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
May 6, 2019 | Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D.
The Mueller blockade is ending. There was no Trump collusion or obstruction of justice. The real Russian collusion story is, and will, take center stage the remainder of the year. Investigative reporter Sara Carter told Fox News, “Avalanche of indictments are coming. People are already turning on each other. Throwing colleagues under the bus in order to save themselves.” These coming indictments are on those who fabricated the Russian Collusion Hoax—the coup to overthrow an elected president.
As much as Robert Mueller wanted collusion and obstruction of justice to be so, so that he could assist in the removal of his hated president, he had to admit in his report that neither existed. In fact, those still purporting what has now been shown to be a hoax cannot even identify an actual crime committed by candidate or President Trump, so deceived were they by the now discredited New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, and CBS—the primary globalist news mediums. Democrats have to accept the fact that these mediums deceived them twice in three years; first with the deception that Clinton could not lose the election of 2016 and second with theTrump Russian conspiracy.
But none of this information is new to Q’Anon followers who were told 18 months ago, October 2017, that Mueller knew then that he had nothing. So why was his report delayed? Q posts before the midterms made it clear that the Mueller Report would be delayed by Trump enemies until after the 2018 elections so as: to allow Democrats to retake the House, end numerous House Intelligence Committee investigations into Obama Administration FBI and DOJ efforts to deliver Hillary the presidency, and allow plenty of time to manufacture evidence to impeach Trump. All went just as Q said.
Delaying the report would make it difficult for Trump to unmask and release documents that incriminated them. It would also safeguard their base and provide fake news to keep the country divided and “riot ready” should they be exposed. The Mueller Report was a great diversion from their coup to change an election and remove a seated president. It would also put on notice foreign governments that the “OLD GUARD,” the globalists, “still pull strings” as Q put it. The globalists won this round.
The delay of the Mueller Report findings allowed Trump enemies to feel safe, confident they could avoid detection, and in control which accentuated the possibility of their making more mistakes enabling authorities to gather evidence needed to expose the Deep State more fully. Again, this is total war and if readers do not know this they will be duped.
For those yet unfamiliar with Q posts The Washington Post, a critic, fairly accurately described the movement August 1, 2018. Q is “an anonymous user claiming to be a government agent with top security clearance, waging war against the so-called deep state in service to the 45th president. ‘Q’ feeds disciples, or ‘bakers,’ scraps of intelligence, or ‘bread crumbs,’ that they scramble to bake into an understanding of the ‘storm’ — the community’s term…— for the president’s final conquest over elites, globalists and deep-state saboteurs.” Q’Anons are those attempting to decode the vague messages found on the 4chan and 8chan message boards.
Q posts are designed to provide hints or thought suggestions that lead discussions. These may include lesser known published articles or news clips that come close to the “truth.” Followers come to their own conclusions. Q is fast gaining followers because it allows those who know there exists a real war between freedom and globalist advocates (the establishment) to have hope that we can possibly overcome the grip the globalists have on the U.S. and the world society. It effectively allows the masses inclusion in what is happening to them.
Last October we introduced Q to our readers in an article, “A Ray of Hope in the present civil war on information” this followed last December in “‘Q’s’ Big Drop Landed, indictments to follow.” We reported that most of the corrupt members of the DOJ and FBI had by then been fired. Some of these people will now face indictments. Those who follow Q get information sometimes months before it is common to news sources. Those who include Q’Anons as a news source, such as Lori Colley and Prayingmedic, find Q predictions reliable but his timing sometimes months late as in the release, for merely political purposes, of the Mueller Report.
So what does Q tell us is coming now? Q posted in early April that Rod Rosenstein will be gone soon [such was announced publicly April 29, to be May 11], that “attempts to prevent public release of the TRUTH” will continue, that OIG will release its findings, and that House intel will launch “more fake investigations in attempt to retain FALSE NARRATIVE and claim POLITICAL ATTACKS if investigated/prosecuted themselves.”
What will happen thereafter? The Mueller blockade/shield will fade followed by more “Declas[sification], Uranium One prosecution, treason/sedition prosecutions.” Remember this is total war and justice obstructionists can delay an outcome but Q tells us that coup exposure can no longer be stopped. Now that the Mueller blockade has been removed “DECLAS-DECLAS-DECLAS,” which Trump promises to do, will reveal all. Indictments and prosecutions will follow, some very big.
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 taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Apr 29, 2019 | Liberty Articles
Harold Pease, Ph. D.
Candace Owens, a Democrat and black victim of a hate crime, was on fire when she addressed a House Judiciary Committee hearing designed to expose the hate crimes and the rise of white nationalism in the Donald Trump era. What she said could derail the Democratic Party were it covered on Democratic media outlets. She certainly derailed this hearing. The power of her remarks was that every black person in the room knew she spoke “their” truth. It was a Rosa Parks moment!
She condemned the hearings as “not about white nationalism or hate crimes,” as projected by her party, “it’s about fear-mongering, power, and control. The goal here is to scare blacks, hispanics, gays and muslims, helping them censor dissenting opinions… helping them regain control.” But none of this is new, “the biggest scandal in American politics is that Democrats have been conning minorities into believing we are perpetual victims, all but ensuring our failure.”
“White supremacy, racism, white nationalism, words that once held real meaning,” she continued, “have now become nothing more than election strategies. Every four years the black community is offered hand outs and fear!! Handouts and fear!!! Reparations and white nationalism this is the Democrats preview.”She persisted, “There isn’t a single adult today that in good conscience can make the argument that America is a more racist or a more white nationalist society than it was when my grandfather was growing up. And yet we are hearing these terms sent around today because what they want to say is that brown people need to be scared, that seems to be the narrative that we hear every four years right ahead of a presidential election.”
Owens spoke of her grandfather seated behind her. “He grew up on a share-cropping farm in the segregated South. He grew up in America where words like racism and white nationalism held real meaning under the Democratic Party Jim-Crow laws.” My grandfather “also had experiences with the Democrat terrorist organization of that time, the Ku Klux Klan, that regularly visited his home and would shoot bullets into it. They had an issue with his father, my great grandfather.”
So what of Candace Owens charges that the Democratic Party fathered the Jim Crow laws of the South and founded the terrorist organization, the Ku Klux Klan, that so terrorized her father and grandfather? Any U.S. History text will confirm these facts. Perhaps Democrats will argue that even if they began as a racist political party and originated the KKK to frighten and control blacks, this organization had no place in the party the last 25 years. Not true!
Omitted in their efforts to decry “white nationalism,” Democratic Senator Robert Byrd, the acknowledged mentor of Hillary Clinton, was the most famous white nationalist in twentieth century history having been unanimously elected to the rank of Exalted Cyclops in the Klu Klux Klan. As president pro tempore of the U.S. Senate this acknowledged Democratic Party klansman was third in line for the presidency after Vice President Joe Biden and Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the Obama Administration. No nationally elected Democrat opposed his being there. He once told a fellow Klansman, Senator Thodore Bilbo “No man can leave the Klan. He takes an oath not to do that. Once a Ku Klux, always a Ku Klux” (Robert L. Fleegler, "Theodore G. Bilbo and the Decline of Public Racism, 1938–1947",The Journal of Mississippi History, Spring 2006).
Ms. Owens continued, “Here are some things we never hear. Seventy-five percent of black boys in California don’t meet state reading standards.” Few in the inner cities were proficient in math or reading in 2016. “The single motherhood rate in the black community which was about 23% in the 1960’s when my grandfather was coming up, reached a staggering 74% today. I am guessing there will be no committee hearing about that. There are more black babies aborted than born alive in cities like New York and you have Democratic Governor Andrew Como lighting up buildings to celebrate late term abortions.”
“I could go on and on. My point is that white nationalism did not do any of those things… Democratic policies did. Let me be clear! It's not about white nationalism or hate crimes it's about fear mongering, power or control. It’s a preview of the 2020 election strategy, same as the 2016 election strategy.”
If the House Committee “actually were concerned about white nationalism,” Owens thundered, “they would be holding hearings on Antifa, a far left violent white gang,” who had accosted her. “If they were serious about the rise of hate crimes they would perhaps examine themselves and the hate they [Democrats] have drummed up in this country.” She viewed Antifa, supported by the Democrats, as the modern KKK.
She concluded, “I believe the legacy and ancestry of black Americans is being insulted every single day. I will not pretend to be a victim in this country…. I want to talk about real issues in black America. I want to talk about real issues in this country and real concerns. Racial division and class warfare are central to the Democratic Party platform. Getting blacks to hate whites, the rich to hate the poor, and soon enough, it will be the tall hating the short.”
Count on the Democrats suppressing this Democratic voice.
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 taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Apr 21, 2019 | Immigration, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
As a young man I observed that those who saw racism in everything were usually the most racist. That analysis has proven itself over time. Today the accusation is so frequently made on Democratic Party media outlets, very recently by Beto O’Rourke against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that it’s now difficult to know who is not a racist. If a Jew, the most persecuted race in modern world history, is racist as O’Rourke says, then who is exempt? But the term is used several times a night on MSNBC, NBC, CBS, and ABC news outlets. Presumably everyone is racists except Democrats who decry everyone else as such.
As a result white Democratic presidential contenders are apologizing for and fleeing from their whiteness. Joe Bidden and Bernie Sanders, are “old white men,” we are told. The party seems intent on purging the stain of whiteness from itself. Sanders, thus far ignores it while instead apologizing for his great wealth and use of “tax breaks.” Biden recently apologized to Anita Hill for the "whiteness" of the Senate Judiciary Committee he once chaired.
Beto O’Rourke, formerly Robert Morris, (name changed allegedly to attract hispanic voters) recently admitted having benefited from what he called “white privilege.” He told a group, “Absolutely undeniable. I have been arrested twice. But that didn't come to define me or narrow my options in life. A lot of it has to do with the fact that I'm a white man.”
Democrats also see everywhere “white nationalism,” a form of racism, and attempt to attach the label to anyone who wishes to enforce existing, longstanding, immigration law, the same law enforced by Barack Obama. Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar recently tweeted, “Stephen Miller is a white nationalist. The fact that he still has influence on policy and political appointments is an outrage.” This, coming from probably the most anti-jewish (and therefore racist) member of congress. Unable to show clear documentation for the charge, supporters acknowledged that although they could not X-ray for “racist bones,” even so, Miller (and by extension President Donald Trump his boss) is still guilty of “soft-core” white nationalism. In other words, they are white nationalists because they are white, the majority, and in power.
Since whites participated in slavery in our early history thirteen Democratic Presidential hopefuls attending the Al Sharpton founded National Action Network’s annual conference April 3, committed to sign Congresswoman Jackson Lee's recently introduced bill creating a commission to study reparations for African-Americans. Most saw it as a way of addressing the persistence of racism and white supremacy today. Cory Booker said, “It will begin to right the economic scales of past harms.”
Senator Kamala Harris, “Justice means recognizing domestic terrorism, including white nationalist extremism,” which she noted, “should be considered a national security priority.” Senator Bernie Sanders said he would sign, then returned to his racist central theme, "We have a president who is a racist, who is a sexist, who is a homophobe, who is a xenophobe, and who is a religious bigot.”
Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand would sign as would Congressman Beto O’Rourke, Governor John Hickenlooper and Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Indeed no presidential candidate at the gathering opposed it. All supported “racial restitution,” whatever that means.
The problem with such legislation is no white person now living had anything to do with slavery 154 years ago. Even then, it was almost entirely the whites of the north that gave their lives to free the slaves. It was whites that established and maintained the Underground Railroad at considerable risk to themselves and it was white author Harriet Beecher Stow in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, who brought attention to the moral issue of slavery. Even today, race baiters need to be reminded that it was whites that elected the first half-black president, Barack Obama.
Of course, there were abuses of the past. Indians, Chinese, Germans, Japanese, Quakers, Jews and Mormons can all make cases. Race baiters want whites to acknowledge that they are racist and oppressive by nature and should have what they call “white guilt.” The only remedy they seem to accept is compensation, but this is never enough.
But their focus is almost entirely on the blacks and slavery and the then perpetrators and victims are dead and today’s descendants, many generations later, were not wronged. How do they make the case for their receiving compensation for wrongs committed to their ancestors without committing an injustice to those now living—even if it were their ancestors who committed the injustices mentioned? Would they not be the source of new injustice?
Why should I pay for the injustices of my ancestors, even worse, when they may not have been the perpetrators? And why should my black neighbor receive a benefit forced from me without creating an injustice to me? Under this logic his posterity will need to atone to my posterity. Could not the same arguments be used against them in a later century?
Today most white Americans are of many races and not racist. Insisting that all whites should have “white guilt “ because of presumed ancestral injustices or confederate association only exacerbates racism, the very thing race baiters insist they wish to end. Then, are not race baiters the “real” racists? That the news gives their racism so much attention should be objectionable to everyone.
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 taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Apr 15, 2019 | Constitution, Economy, Liberty Articles, Taxes
Harold Pease, Ph. D
As a nation under the U.S. Constitution we are 230 years old. It may surprise readers to learn that for the first 124 of these years we had no federal income tax and handled our expenses quite well. Today the 55% who pay federal income taxes (77.5 million do not), pay nearly a fifth of their income to the federal government. Prior to 1913 one kept what is now taken from them.
How would you spend it if not taken? You would spend the extra fifth of your salary on thousands of items that are made by others as well as services you might like. This not only would enrich your life but it would provide jobs for others making those items or providing those services. Many middle class folks could purchase a new car every other year with what they are forced to give to the federal government.
Would you spend it more wisely than the federal government? Certainly! Most of the money taken from you by the federal government is spent on perpetual war, foreign aid, grants to privileged portions of our society, and endless unconstitutional subsidized programs; the last two categories of which basically take the money of those who produce and redistribute it to those who do not. Even some non-tax payers get income tax refunds—so corrupt is the system.
Of course, those receiving and benefiting from these programs will defend them. But the fact remains that tax monies provide largely government jobs, which are almost entirely consumption jobs (jobs that consume the production of society but produce little consumable). Such jobs cannot produce for public consumption a potato, a carton of milk, or even a can of hair spray. They bring another person to the table to eat, but not another to produce something to eat.
What largely brought about the give-away programs of the Twentieth Century was the now 106-year-old 16th Amendment—the federal income tax. All three 1912 presidential candidates Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson, and their respective parties, wanted this financial water faucet that they could turn on at will. With it they could purchase anything—even people.
Prior to 1913 the federal government remained mostly faithful to her grants of power in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, which left them with only four powers: to tax, pay the debts, provide for the general welfare, and provide for the common defense. Because the federal government has the inclination to maximize their authority the last two power grants, general welfare and common defense, each had eight qualifiers to harness them more fully. Outside these qualifiers the federal government had no power to tax or spend.
General welfare then meant everyone equally (general), as opposed to “specific welfare” or “privileged welfare” as it is today, targeting those to forfeit and those to receive monies. The Constitution did not deny states, counties, or cities from having such programs, only the federal government. But politicians soon learned that the more they promised to the people, from the money of others, the easier it was to get elected and stay elected.
The problem with the federal government going off the list and funding things clearly not on it was that each time they did so the stronger the inclination to do so again. One minor departure begets another until one notices that what the federal government does has little or no relationship to the list. I ask my students what would happen if they took to kindergarten a lollypop and gave it to one child? What would the others say? Where is mine? Try taking away long provided benefits from a privileged group, as for example food stamps, and see how popular you are with that voting group in the next election.
So why does the government now need a fifth of everything you make and it is still not enough? Answer, because we went off the listed powers of the Constitution and every departure required more taxpayer funding. The solution to less tax is less government. A side benefit is more freedom. The productive classes would not be hurt. Seldom do they qualify for the federally subsidized programs anyway.
The fifth taken from the productive classes would be spent by them creating a haven of jobs for those who wished to work. The cycle of dependency would be drastically reduced. The federal government would no longer be an enabler to those not working. States would decide for themselves what assistance programs they could afford with some states offering more and others less as the Tenth Amendment mandates.
So, how did we cover the expenses of the federal government—even wars—our first 124 years? Products coming into the country were assessed a fee to market in the U.S. called a tariff. We got product producers in other countries to cover our national expenses and thus we were able to spend on ourselves every cent of what the federal government now takes, which inadvertently stimulated the economy. No one should be able to argue that our exceeding $22 trillion national debt is fair, has really worked for any of us, and is a better plan. I personally like the idea of being able to purchase a new car every other year.
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 taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
