Nov 11, 2019 | Constitution, Economy, Liberty Articles, Taxes
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
In listening to the 2020 Democratic Presidential debates or President Donald Trump’s many addresses to the American people, you would not know that we have exceeded 23 trillion dollars in debt and that to liquidate this debt $186,577 per taxpayer is due immediately (see, https://www.usdebtclock.org/). America cannot pay its existing bills.
Four trillion of this debt is from eight years of George W. Bush and nine from eight years of Barack Obama—the two biggest spending presidents in U.S. History. Obama alone doubled the national debt and accumulated more debt than all previous presidents put together. The major reason is government gifting to buy elections. Each election year more freebies are offered.
In the second democratic presidential debate held in Miami, June 28, 2019, Free healthcare . In other words, anyone in the world who comes to this continent and crosses our border, although it is against the law to do so, will be given free healthcare thereafter paid for by the American taxpayer. This one freebie, by itself, would bankrupt America, let alone free college and all the rest they have promised.
In late October, 2019, presidential front-runner Elizabeth Warren, released her Medicare For All plan. Its cost, 52 trillion dollars over ten years No such assets exist.
Democrats want everything free or subsidized— healthcare, housing, food, even free college. They can’t give away enough. Where will all that money come from?
So what is a trillion dollars? To begin with a trillion is the number one followed by twelve zeros. A trillion dollars is a thousand billion and a billion is a thousand million. This still means very little to students who count their money in fives, tens and twenties.
One mathematician gave us a more practical way to evaluate our outstanding debt. One trillion one-dollar bills stacked atop each other (not end to end but flat) would reach nearly 68,000 miles into space—a third of the way to the moon . If so, the debt incurred under President Obama alone, $9 trillion, would reach the moon and back and to the moon again. Moreover, if you like traveling atop this stack of ones, our total $23 trillion in debt today would take you to the moon and back almost four times (See CNN News Cast, Feb. 4, 2009).
Senator Mitch McConnell gave another illustration just as awe striking. He calculated that if we spent a million dollars every day since Jesus was born we still would not have spent a trillion dollars—only three-fourths of a trillion dollars (Ibid).
I ask students, “Who gets to go without so that this debt can be paid?” “Go without!!!?” That is a concept foreign to this generation!! They do not know, and neither do their parents and grandparents who laid it on their backs. When they are told that their share to liquidate this debt is $186,577 per taxpayer —due immediately. (see USDebtClock.org), they get angry. Someone should have told them that government handouts are not free.
The 13th Amendment ending slavery has been rescinded, they are America’s new slaves. Bondage was given them before their birth, or while they were in the womb, or before they were old enough to know what it meant to be sold into slavery. The past generation wanted nice costly programs for free and were willing to sell their children to have them. Worse, the older generation is still anxious to incur even more debt on our defenseless children and grandchildren. Are we not the most debt addicted, insensitive generation in U.S. History?
The favored method to deal with this problem is print more fiat money. But expanding the money supply just reduces the value of the money that you have in your pocket. Prices go up. My Camaro bought new in 1968 cost $ 2,700. Had I instead put the money under a mattress and tried to purchase a Camaro today it would cost more than ten times that much. In this instance money has lost 90% of its value since 1968 Those on fixed incomes are robbed as surely as if a thief had lifted their wallet or purse. Those on pensions cannot receive a raise to compensate for the value loss caused by their own government.
The last president to fully pay for his government was Warren G. Harding in 1922. Thereafter all presidents added to the debt by spending more than they received. Deficits from Ronald Reagan on exceeded a trillion or more (US Debt by President by Dollar and Percentage Who Increased the U.S. Debt the Most? Depends on How You Measure It. By Kimberly Amadeo Updated November 04, 2019).
We print whatever money we want to purchase whatever we wish. Neither party is serious about stopping the debt and removing the bondage that we have imposed upon our children and grandchildren. Who cares if our debt of dollar bills stacked atop one another can go to the moon and back almost four times, or that pensions loose their value, or that we haven’t fully paid our debts in 98 years, so long as the government fills our stomachs and the new slaves pay for it.
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.
Aug 5, 2019 | Healthcare, Liberty Articles, Taxes
By Harold Pease, Ph. D.
I met R. Sellner Reese about 9 years ago and found her story one of the most compelling and unusual ever; she lived under two of the most murderous socialist governments ever: Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin. “I was born under Hitler, grew up under Stalin and worked under communist dictators Walter Ulbricht and Erich Honnecker in East Germany,” she told me. Few had more practical experience under socialism than she.
She and her three children came to America in 1985 for political and religious freedom requesting political asylum. Her main message: “socialism never worked under these regimes and it will never work in America either.” Even then, under Obamacare, she saw America falling into the same trap of repeated lies and false promises that duped her German friends and neighbors.
She spoke to my classes when I got to the section dealing with socialism. I introduced her as having lived under two of the three biggest tyrants in world history, with China’s Mao Tse Tung being the third. She vehemently objected to my using the term communist instead of socialists. She made it clear that there was no difference and that the distinction only existed in the West. “We only used the term socialist.” I never made that mistake again. I had tried to separate the two as though one was tolerable, the other the more violent of the same thing.
“Hitler promised National Socialism but gave us tyranny instead,” she said. “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.” Some warned the people but the promises were so desirable and powerful. “My friend’s father told other people, that Hitler is a liar and will bring Germany down. One evening, two men came to his apartment and took him in for questioning before the police. Five days later, the wife received a letter that he has passed away with a heart problem. The family was told his grave was at the city cemetery. The family was so afraid to ask questions, and nobody knew what the Gestapo had done. No paper concerning his death was ever found. I personally know so many people who have suffered in the Nazi time.”
A second Hitler promise: “Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise.” The socialist promise that the government would take from the rich and give to the poor only made everyone poor and resulted in human suffering and death, and eventually war. “In my school class of 40 children, only 8 had a father after the war. Women had to take all the responsibility for family and their future.” So much for the socialist promises.
After the war the Soviets held the eastern part of Germany where she lived, (renamed East Germany) under socialism with Joseph Stalin. “We had to learn how wonderful the Red Army was and that socialism will take over the whole world to make all people free.” She remembered the fruitless promises of prosperity under Hitler. Socialism never delivered then or under Stalin. “We had little food and I never saw a banana, and chocolate was only a dream. We had to stand in long waiting lines for food. When I finally got to the counter, there might not be anything left. To buy a car, there was a 10-15 year waiting time. Of course, you must have cash!”
Still, even midst all this poverty, the message went out, “SOCIALISM IS THE ONLY TRUTH ON THIS EARTH!” But the real truth was that the people could not choose their education or occupation. “The government had control over your personal life, our work, living place, childcare, school and the ‘STASI’ (Socialistic Secret Service) constantly watched us. If you resisted you ended up in prison and your children could be taken from you and adopted.”
A visit to Russia, the motherland of socialism, in 1982 revealed the failure of the promise of socialism there as well. “The citizens of Russia were so poor. Bad housing, not enough food and clothing.”
In 1985 Reese was finally able to leave socialist East Germany and come to the United States under political asylum. What she sees here in recent years is too similar to the socialist worlds’ from which she escaped, Reese says, and it frightens her that we are taking the same path of forced sharing the wealth and socialized medicine and so many other things, and she is forced to watch tyranny return one more time.
When she sees Congress having its own healthcare plan rather than taking the same one forced on the people, visions of privileged healthcare for the socialist leaders in East Germany comes to mind. She experienced rationed healthcare when her mother was declared too old for an operation and died two years later because resources would be better spent on the young, but knew that such would not be denied a government official.
Reese then warned, .”It can happen in America!!” What is happening in America right now is scary! I’d like to tell everybody, socialism will never work in America either.”
What would she now say with the Democratic Party openly promoting socialism.
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
Jul 15, 2019 | Constitution, Economy, Liberty Articles, Taxes
Harold Pease, Ph. D.
As government controls more portions of the economy, democracy transcends to socialism. Sometime in this transition democracy ceases to be democracy although the term continues to be used, and no-one can identify that moment when it is too late to pull free.
So why should the dependent class, defined as the approximately 47% who pay no federal income tax and are largely those who benefit from food stamps, subsidized housing, healthcare and other assistance programs, fear socialism? Because socialism has a history of ending assistance programs. Democracy enables a marriage between the assisted class with their vote power and politicians wishing to empower themselves by, in effect, transferring wealth from those who have to the poor. Once established this marriage self perpetuates and amplifies. Try seeking office today on a platform that ends all governmental assistance programs—or, even just one, food stamps.
The brakes (limits) of the Constitution are powerful when observed but they cannot perform well once gifting (bribing the dependent class for their vote) has been introduced into the body politic. Once ingrained it cannot prevent itself from offering larger and more gifts until elections are bidding wars without constitutional restraints. This feeds an enlarging national debt that can never be paid. We see this today in the Democratic Party presidential debates: free college, reparations for the descendants of ex-slaves, a guaranteed income, and free healthcare for everyone in the world willing to cross our borders illegally. In exchange for your vote the socialist politician advocates that everything be free. This is his most powerful lure and works well on idealistic youth and the already dependent but it risks collapsing the economy, democracy, the Constitution and liberty.
Aristotle recognized this when he wrote, “Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotism.” The deadly virus of democracy is voter gifting by politicians willing to sell their souls for elected office.
King Solon of Athens created the governmental form a republic because the philosopher king believed that man should govern himself and, once he had the republic in place, left Athens to attend the University of Alexandria in Egypt never to return. The new idea, personal freedom, resulted in five major unintended consequences: a booming economy, a creative and intellectual surge, an ever enlarging voter base, an unequal distribution of wealth because not all were equally gifted or industrious and, finally, class envy because, although all who worked were comparatively better off from pre-republic standards, some still had more.
The ever enlarging voter base deteriorated into a democracy which had no brakes, no resistance to class envy and the marriage between the expanding less productive who could link their vote with unprincipled politicians willing to transfer the fruits of labor from those who produce to those who do not in exchange for their gaining power. Democracy degenerates into gifting but soon enough there does not exist enough money to sustain the gifting and it ends with an economic crash. Once despotism replaces democracy there are no constitutional checks.
Rome repeated the same experiment with a similar result about a century later. Bread and circuses (free food and entertainment) destroyed the noble idea.
The previous failures were known to the well-read Founding Fathers who wanted the burst in creativity and general prosperity for all as delivered in a republic without the class envy and voter gifting. What if the powers of government were divided and separated into three branches with each a check on the other two and each given a list of the things they could do with gifting excluded? What if all powers not specifically mentioned in Article I, Section 8, remained with the states and the people as stipulated? What if all taxes must be spent only on the items on the list? What if the federal government could not assume additional power without the consent of 3/4th of the states? The government could not take over the economy by confiscation or regulation and the poor could never destroy the rich or devour the middle class. We could never degenerate into democracy then to the most common form of despotism today, socialism—fathered by Karl Marx.
Not a single sentence in the Constitution gives a benefit to anyone, only an environment of equality where one can maximize his talents.
In our republic all votes are not equal. Under the Constitution as designed only the House of Representatives was democratically elected by the people. State legislators voted for U.S. Senators, an Electoral College selected the President, and he appointed supreme court justices for life confirmed only by the Senate.
We must apply the brakes of the Constitution to retain our republic. Otherwise in time the productive classes cannot provide the money that is demanded of them to feed and otherwise subsidize the less productive class. It already can’t. We exceed 22 trillion dollars in debt. Each taxpayer owes the federal government $182,881, payable today (See USDebtClock.org). Despite unrealistic promises, socialism gives only slavery and shared poverty.
Gifting must end. When the banks crash a new government will form and it will not honor the debt that destroyed its predecessor government, nor is it likely to fund social security, medicare, unlimited war , income security, federal pensions or any other program that contributed to it. Under socialism freedom does not survive.
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.
Jul 14, 2019 | Economy, Liberty Articles, Taxes
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, were not the first presidential candidates to introduce socialism into mainstream America. Previous presidents did so and it has been in our diet for most of a hundred years. All twenty Democratic Party 2020 presidential candidates, as per their recent debates, would make militant socialist Eugene V. Debbs, founder of the Socialist Party of America (1901) and five-time presidential candidate, look like today’s conservative republican. Why are many Americans accepting socialism? Because socialism promises everything for free.
Athenian democracy (the “great idea”) profoundly changed the world that was formerly ruled by monarchies; a king stayed in power and passed it on to posterity until removed. It gave ever-larger portions of vote power to the masses but democracy had no brakes. Should everyone have an equal vote? Are they equally informed, equally intelligent, equally gifted? No, but as it expands the next level wants everything as well. Once tasted it enlarges until all have equal participation despite their differences, gifts or ignorance.
Nearly 300 years after democracy was first introduced in Athens, Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC), wrote of democracy’s inherent weakness, that being, when every man is allowed to rise to the level his talent and industry permit him, some will become rich and others poor. The rich will always despise the poor, and the poor will always envy the rich. When the poor obtain the same vote power as the rich under a democracy, as they always will given their greater numbers, they will use that power to take from the rich.
It may take time for this to happen because democracy does initially encourage the profit motive, which stimulates everyone’s desire to get rich. This is good for society because to do so they invest, creating additional businesses, employing more people, and developing an ever-larger middle class. The middle class, Aristotle believed, should be the ruling class as it is closer to the poor and better understands its legitimate needs and, at the same time, it has enough of the world’s goods not to covet, thus destroy, the rich class. Still, in time the less productive will grow and become more politically powerful, especially as they learn to attach their vote to politicians who, to get elected, promise freebies.
Democracy self-destructed in both Athens and Rome because it had no brakes. Every western civilization history textbook speaks to the “bread and circuses” (free food and entertainment) of Rome.
Thus the Founding Fathers rejected democracy as our form of government in favor of a republic inserting, in their Constitution, the brakes democracy lacked. Today’s enemies of a republic intentionally favor the word democracy over republic because they despise the brakes.
At what moment is society democratized or socialistic enough? As things become freer for the non-productive part of society, more money must be confiscated from the productive middle and upper classes and it is the rich class and entrepreneurial middle class that risk their money to create the jobs making the republic successful. When has a poor man ever created a job for anyone?
In time the productive classes cannot provide the money that is demanded of them to feed and otherwise subsidize the less productive class. They are disincentivized, and then destroyed, by ever-higher taxes. All too soon the definition of rich is lowered until socialism devours the middle class as well—even until all are poor. Despite unrealistic promises, socialism gives only slavery and shared poverty.
Aristotle recognized this when he wrote, “Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.” The force to democratize more increases as voting becomes more universal which is what democracies encourage. Shouldn’t everyone have an equal vote? Those in Athens came to believe so. Wrote Aristotle, “Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.”
As voting becomes more universal vote power favors those who seek government favors as they, in time, become the majority. This process is accelerated, and corrupted, when politicians link government gift-giving with their election. As the less productive, as a class, always tend to favor financial favors from government to their benefit, and since all government money comes from the middle and upper classes through ever increasing taxes, (presently 47% of the adult population pay no federal income tax and a good share of these make up the less-productive class) they eventually destroy the productive base of society as government takes over more of the economy by confiscation or regulation. The overriding principle is, the more socialism the higher the taxes and burden on the producing class. Why? Because in exchange for the vote the socialist politician advocates that everything be free. This is his most powerful lure and works well on the idealistic youth and already dependent.
As government controls more portions of the economy, democracy transcends to socialism. Sometime in this transition democracy ceases to be democracy although the term continues to be used, hence Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s warning in 2009 to Fidel Castro, both devout socialists, “We have to be careful lest we become right of Obama.” It needs noting that all twenty of the 2020 democratic presidential contenders are far left of Obama, thus decidedly socialists.
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.
Jul 1, 2019 | Constitution, Liberty Articles, Taxes
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
A week before the 4th of July everyone dons patriotic symbols . A week later few do. The event comes and goes: colors red, white, and blue are popular for a day. One might be viewed as “super patriotic” (as though this were bad) were one to display the symbols too long.
The evening is filled with fireworks (the bigger the better) but few know why. When asked, the most common response is freedom. “Freedom from what or whom?” I ask. If a stare could kill, I’d be dead. But there is no real understanding behind the expression. It is rare when anyone answers correctly, “Freedom from excessive government.”
The cause of the American Revolution was excessive government. Some say, “taxation without representation” but this is but a part of excessive government. Every U.S. History text has a chapter dealing with the causes. It is filled with the rules and regulations that were most oppressive to the colonists: the Stamp Act, Tea Act, Currency Act, Iron Act, Molasses Act, Sugar Act, even the Hat Act. Such acts were viewed by the colonist as restrictions on their freedom to act independent of governmental permission. When they descended like rain, as they did prior to the Revolution, the colonists demanded to know why, when not satisfied, they resisted the rulings without success, then, “Where is my rifle?”
For one day of the year there is peace between liberals and conservatives. Each wear the emblems of the Revolution and demonstrate their patriotism by raising bigger flags, exploding bigger fireworks, eating bigger steaks and guzzling more alcohol. Parades too are non-partisan and show patriotism, but for what? The next day we ask the federal government to place more restrictions on our neighbor and give us more free stuff at his expense, totally ignoring the Constitution and the reason for the Revolution.
Few share with their children the reasons behind these symbols and still fewer tie the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution which essentially ended the need for a future revolution by restricting the federal government to a handful of areas in which they can constitutionally restrict our behavior (Article I, Sec. 8), freezing forever, if we adhere to the Constitution as designed, our legislative branch doing the same thing to us as had parliament to the colonists. If the two are not tied together then the American Revolution was just a revolution, rightly commemorated by having a longer weekend and an excuse to get drunk.
Lost in the translation and replaced by the blank stare previously mentioned, is your right to do most everything you wish without permission from a government, more especially one located hundreds, often thousands, of miles away. Outside the short list in Article I, Section 8, which, incidentally, has no restrictions on the individual himself, the Constitution left the individual to manage himself. When his behavior offended the right of others to also self-manage, his community, starting at the lowest level (cities, counties, and finally his state government), may regulate his behavior protecting the right of self-management for others as well. Please review this list with family and friends.
This is called freedom. And this is the end result of a 13-year transformative period from the Declaration of Independence through the Articles of Federation to the Constitution, which included the Bill of Rights. The federal government constitutionally could only increase its power through Article V, which required the permission of the states. Today it does so at will because legislators openly oppose these documents or do not care.
The collective view of the Founders was to never elevate to a higher level that which could be resolved at a lesser level. Resolving problems at the lowest level of government, the city for example, allows the individual access to his elected representatives for redress and the offended to those he has most directly offended. A more just outcome is likely.
The 4th of July and Constitution Week in September are our best opportunities to share the message of why the Revolution and the Constitution interconnect and are among the more important events in U.S., even world, history. These two events are our best opportunities to remember and convey to friends and family what liberty is and how and why it must be preserved. Do they know that the vast majority of all inventions on earth came from within the United States under this Constitution, from the clipper ship to moon landing technology? Liberty incentivizes creativity. Do they know that it was purchased by blood and if lost will remain lost until purchased by blood again? Have you told them that if just one generation fails to convey to the next these precious ideas, it will be lost to their posterity. Freedom is not free and never will be.
We are grateful to those who know the real meaning and significance of this event in history and are willing to share it with others. We are forever indebted to those who gave their lives for our freedom in the Revolutionary War and thereafter. We remain grateful for fireworks and parades as long as we do not forget that excessive government is the enemy of liberty, then and now, whether it is taken from us by a parliament, as then, or a Congress, as today.
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.
