Apr 16, 2011 | Constitution, Economy
Dr. Harold Pease
The paranoia with respect to a government shutdown is amazing. The hysteria peddlers using this terminology, and the media that purposely play to it, must know these two words emit such an extremist, emotional response. It appears designed to frighten the least informed either for or against the other party, thus the terminology and subsequent blame game.
So what does a government shut down look like? Do the president and vice president resign now that the government ends? No? Does Congress fly out of Washington D. C. the following day and cease to draw their pay, and the Supreme Court cease to deliberate on constitutional questions? Does the army come home and cease to protect us? NO, No, No! Do states, counties, and cities no longer function? No again, they have their own tax base and cops, prisons, and teachers remain in place.
There will never be a government shut down because none of these things will ever happen short of an overthrow of the government from within or a successful invasion from without. So cease the media frenzy and subsequent over-reaction.
How do we know this? Because we had a five-day shutdown between November 14 and November 19, 1995, and a second one of 21 days, between December 16, and January 6, 1996, and none of these things happened. No! Not even one. In fact, the public as a whole didn’t even notice. So what did happen? “The Federal government of the United States put non-essential government workers on furlough and suspended non-essential services…(Wikipedia).” Essentially all went on as before except some paychecks were a few days late. Apparently the federal government does (when forced to do so) know what non-essential services are after all, and is capable of closing them if it has the will.
So at worst a government shutdown is still really only a partial shutdown of non-essential services. So the federal government goes on a long overdue diet and gets back to the basics. This is precisely the Tea Party position (“cut it or shut it”) and the reason they do not fear such. If you have a budget of $3.7 trillion and you have taxes covering only $2 trillion simple math tells you that either you double taxes or cut half of your expenses. You simply can’t keep increasing the national debt, now nearing $14.300 trillion, which has been laid on the backs of our new slaves—our children.
When you have cancer you must surgically remove the infected tissue. Of course it is painful, but the longer you wait the more painful, drastic, and life threatening it becomes. Most of the programs cut in both shutdowns, were not areas of clear constitutional authority as defined in Article I, Section 8, so in time such cuts should become permanent cuts or be subjected to the amending process for appropriate authority.
Usually diets have some benefits in and of themselves. In the case of the federal government shutdowns of 1995 and 1996, both parties benefited: Democrats, under President Bill Clinton, because thereafter he was credited with “the first four consecutive balanced budgets since the 1920’s” and Republicans because they retained control of both houses of Congress largely because of the popularity of their hard line on the budget (Wikipedia).
So a government shutdown is really only a partial shutdown that may actually be healthy. Lets call it such in the future so that we don’t frighten the less informed?
Dr. Harold Pease is 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.
Mar 30, 2011 | Constitution
Dr. Harold W. Pease
Two years ago the nation was astounded to learn from a survey conducted of high school seniors in Oklahoma that 23% could not identify the first president of the United States. But wait, their parents apparently aren’t too bright either.
In a survey conducted earlier this year by Newsweek magazine of a random sampling of 1,000 adult Americans, summarized by Andrew Romano, 29% could not identify the name of the current vice president of the United States—Joe Biden. Nine percent could not correctly answer, “What Ocean is on the West Coast of the United States?”—The Pacific. Eighty percent did not know “who was president during World War I”—Woodrow Wilson, and 40% did not know who we fought in World War II—Germany, Italy and Japan. With respect to individuals, 59% could not identify what Susan B. Anthony did—women’s rights activist, and 23% were ignorant of what Martin Luther King Jr. did—civil rights activist (Newsweek, How dumb Are We? By Andrew Romano, March 28, 2011, pp. 56-63).
It gets worse. Seventy-three percent did not know what the main concern of the United States was during the Cold War—the spread of communism. The Cold War ended in 1989 only 22 years ago so most adults lived through it. This makes the ignorance here even more blatant and inexcusable.
Their most startling conclusion is that 38% of American adults would not qualify to be citizens of their own country were they required to pass the same test for U.S. citizenship required of non-citizens.
For me, what the sampling showed of our ignorance of the Constitution was especially appalling. Knowledge of it, and its imposed limitations on the federal government, are absolutely critical to preserving our liberty. So how did the adults do? Amazingly, a third could not identify the date of the signing of the Declaration of Independence—July 4th, 1776, and 2/3rds, 65%, could not identify what happened at the Constitutional Convention—the writing of the Constitution. Only 74% of adults could identify the first three words of the Constitution—“We The People.” Sadly, 61% did not know how long a U. S. senator served—six years, and 81% could not identify a single power of the federal government noted in the Constitution. May our Founders and others, who risked their lives for this freedom, forgive us for our ignorance.
Unbelievably, 27% did not know who was in charge of the executive branch of the government—the president, nor did 42% know who would next be in charge should both the president and vice president be unable to serve— the Speaker of the House. A whopping 63% did not know the number of justices on the Supreme Court—nine. Seventy percent were unable to answer, “What is the supreme law of the land?”—The Constitution.
With respect to the difficult three-year struggle to get passage of the U.S. Constitution, 88% could not identify even one of the three authors of The Federalist Papers making ratification possible—James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, or John Jay. Forty-three percent did not know what we call the first 10 amendments to the Constitution—The Bill of Rights, and 94% did not know how many amendments the Constitution has—27. Some 67% amazingly could not identify the economic system in the United States—free enterprise.
The study concluded that we are “imperiled by our ignorance.” How can anyone reason otherwise? As a nation are we constitutionally illiterate? Too bad the study was not done on the 535 members of congress or on the executive branch. Would we find a third of them not qualified to be citizens of their own country as well? Given their neglect in preserving this document as designed by the Founders, I think so.
Dr. Harold Pease is 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.
Mar 23, 2011 | Constitution
By Dr Harold W. Pease
We finally did what John McCain, a Republican Party Presidential candidate, said that we should do in Libya and it was Barak Obama, the Democratic Party Presidential candidate and ultimate victor, who then did it—enforce a no-fly zone on another country who poised no military threat to the United States. Are there any real differences between the two major parties on foreign policy? Where is the authority for a single person to approve military action against another country which action has always been considered an act of war?
Although I have no sympathy for Moammar Gadhafi, how would we feel if Libya was the super power and did the same to us? Of course, I realize that this was done by coalition forces (mostly France and Britain) through the power of the United Nations, but whose kidding who: it is mostly our aircraft, our pilots, our ships and our Mohawk Missiles.
I am concerned about the constitutionality of this action by either a Democratic or a Republican President. The making and funding of war were clearly denied the President in the Constitution because he “had the most propensity for war.” Only Congress has the right “to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water.” War requires the blood of our young warriors and this requires the permission of the people who are required to be the fodder in such. Only the peoples’ representatives can “provide and maintain a navy or make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces” and for “calling forth the militia…to repel invasions “ or “provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States….” Congress is directly responsible for any acquisition of property for military use. All of this is in Article I, Section 8 and belongs to the legislative branch alone.
Funding for war is yet another Constitutional concern and clearly left with the House of Representatives. The document says: “no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years.” Two years is the designated time that a member of the House is elected and authorized to represent his people. So, President Obama cannot expend monies to attack Libya, or anywhere else, without congressional approval. Article I, Section 7 requires that “all bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives…” As far as we can ascertain he did not consulted with Congress. No! Not even with his own party!
The only power the president is allowed to have is as “Commander in Chief of the army and navy of the United States, … when called into the actual service of the United States,” which is done only by Congress not by himself. Senator McCain and President Obama, and democrats and republicans, have no Constitutional authority to engage in war without a declaration of war—even if done by other presidents before them. And there is no authority to defer this power to an international government—the United Nations—to do it for us. To commit our young to potential death unilaterally is not within a presidents’ power and should be an impeachable offense.
By the second day of bombing, Moammar Gadhafi’s troops were targeted and civilians killed. In time an American pilot will be shot down and rightfully held as a prisoner of war. This justifies sending even more troops with, “We Must Support Our Troops,” signs and we will be at war with yet a third country in the Obama administration.
I, together with other Tea Party Patriots, recommend immediate defunding of this war by the House of Representatives and withdrawal. Any other course of action entrenches us further and violates two of our core values: constitutional limited government, and fiscal responsibility.
Dr. Harold Pease is 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.
Mar 17, 2011 | Constitution, Healthcare
By Dr. Harold W. Pease
On February 16, 2011, the Idaho State Legislature passed a bill by an overwhelming 49-20 vote nullifying, in its state, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act popularly referred to as “Obamacare.” Is it Constitutional to say no to the Federal Government when a state believes a Federal Mandate to be unconstitutional? Eleven other states appear prone to do the same thing. The Tea Party movement largely supports the nullification doctrine. Twenty-eight states have sued the federal government for having exceeded its Constitutional power, but Idaho is the first state to say, “no will do.” Can they do so?
Such has never been presented to the Supreme Court but the issue has two historical precedents. Thomas Jefferson in 1798 attempted to nullify The Alien and Sedition Acts created by his Federalist Party predecessors. These raised residency requirements for citizenship from 5 years to 14. Moreover, the law allowed the president to deport “dangerous” foreigners during times of peace and imprison them during times of hostilities. Anyone defaming or impeding government officials, including the president, was subject to heavy fines and/or imprisonment. Jeffersonians objected on the basis of the unreasonable empowerment of the president and the attack on the First Amendment, particularly freedoms of speech and press. They too said, “no will do.” The Supreme Court never took the case, largely because the bill was design to last only until 1801, (Federalists did not want it used against them should they lose the next election) thus the issue remained unresolved.
Next to use the Nullification Doctrine was South Carolina with respect to the 1828 “Tariff of Abominations,” believed by them and neighboring states to be unconstitutional. Opponents to it declared it to be “null and void” within their border and threatened to take South Carolina out of the Union if Washington attempted to collect custom duties by force. President Andrew Jackson prepared to invade the state. A compromise Tariff of 1833 gradually lowered the tariff to acceptable levels and the issue faded away; again with no Supreme Court ruling.
When the Founding Fathers created the Constitution they recognized two co-existing governments known as Federalism: one, the federal government, to function primarily externally, the other, the states, to manage internal functions. Like a marriage they functioned—neither being master nor slave. Of the two only the federal government was restricted in its functions by a list of 17 specific powers found in Article I, Section 8. The Founders knew that all national governments like to grow. The states were left unrestricted. To make doubly sure that this limitation on the federal government was permanent the States insisted on having a Bill of Rights included in the Constitution as a condition of their acceptance of it. Amendment 10 reads, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution…are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”
Unfortunately for power-hungry federal politicians, the word health is not in Section 8, nor has it been added to the Constitution by way of amendment through Article V, which is the process for “change that you can believe in,” and thus it is devoid of Constitutional authority. If we are to follow the Constitution as intended, and not make a mockery of it, health related question are state functions at best and cannot be moved to a Federal jurisdiction without a 3/4th affirmative vote of the states as per Article V of the U.S. Constitution. Idaho has every right to say, “no will do” and more states should do the same.
Dr. Harold Pease is 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.
Mar 10, 2011 | Constitution, Healthcare
Dr. Harold W. Pease
“We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi March 8, 2010, before the passage of the National Health Care legislation. It turns out that buried deep within the 2,700 page bill there exists funding to the tune of $105 billion dollars built into it to the year 2019, including five billion for this year alone. Is funding beyond the length of time a member is elected to serve constitutional? Definitely not!!
Why would they do this? The planners knew that given the length of the bill (more especially the several hundred pages injected the night before the final vote) that it would not be read. They also knew, given the massive Tea Party rejection of ever more government in our lives, that it was not popular and that they might lose control of the House in the November 2010 elections making possible the refunding of Obamacare. Whether Americans are in support of the Bill or not this has to go down as the most deceitful piece of legislation in American History. Every lawmaker who did not read it fully should be fired in the next election and everyone who did, and let this kind of hidden funding pass, rejected as well.
What is wrong with it outside the massive indebtedness passed to our children and grandchildren who are already slaves to a debt of over 14 trillion dollars? It also seriously damages the Constitution as well. Article I, Section 7, requires that “All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.” All spending is also taxing. Spending necessitates taxing or inflating the currency which is also taxing. This was placed in the Constitution to insure that the people were never over taxed as it is the nature of all governments to grow and doing so necessitates taking more money from the people. All taxing bills would also have clarity and transparency as such. The idea of hiding a tax measure, more especially guaranteeing funds for eight years into the future (literally added in the middle of the night as mentioned), would have been foreign to the Founders.
Section 8 of the same Article, Clause 12, defines a spending limit of two years for money financing war. “To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years.” The reason for the two-year limitation on this, and everything else, is that members of the House of Representatives are elected for two-year terms renewed only if they continue to reflect the will of the people. They have no constitutional legitimacy to force the extraction of tax monies past the time they legitimately represent the people—two years.
The $105 billion assures the implementation of the 159 new federal bureaucracies created by the bill no matter what the people or any future Congress feels about it. This appears to be intentionally designed to bypass Congress’s normal appropriations process and to keep the next Congress from undoing their work. Once these bureaucracies are in place it is nearly impossible to undo them, as the thousands of new bureaucrats in place will be highly motivated and vocal to prevent their dismantlement. The 112th Congress, the House of Representatives in particular, must act immediately specifically identifying and defunding each program one-by-one before any already allocated funds are spent and before moving on to any other business. This is that critical. Goliath grows bigger everyday and will forever eat increasingly more out of the taxpayer’s pocket.
For the 111th Congress to extend its’ jurisdiction for an additional eight years, in effect reducing the power of the next four Congresses, is unconscionable. By not challenging this precedent, established by a Constitutionally rogue Congress, it could be used by other Congresses in the future. This must not be permitted. This may well be the most corrupt Congress in U. S. History—certainly one of the most damaging to the U. S. Constitution. The 112th could be second if it does not reassert its power and return to the constitutional appropriations process.
Dr. Harold Pease is 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.
