"The crux of the Cantor-Goodlatte
position is that, in March 1995, if only the Congress had sent a federal
balanced budget amendment to the states for ratification, all of their
congressional overspending, their lack of personal and institutional
principle, their paucity of restraint, their blatant inability to
comprehend basic economics, their obsession for power over the less
worthy, their obscene vote selling and incessant influence whoring -- all
of these sins would have been washed away, instantly and permanently.
"The whole debate is moot, because it has been demonstrated from the
beginning that Congress has never met a law that it couldn’t ignore,
modify, or break, starting with the original Constitution."
Cut, Cap and Balance: A
Chicken Tale
by Karen Kwiatkowski
It is hilarious to observe the most recent preening and fluffing behavior
of the national bird in Washington. No, it’s not the bald eagle, or the
alleged choice of Ben Franklin, the survival-oriented wild turkey.
The national bird of the federal government, wholly dependent upon a
system that feeds it, conveyor-belt style, all the precious fruit of the
shrinking American working class it can eat, is the chicken.
And not just any chicken, mind you. The federal government, the elected
class in particular, is like the chicken grown in the poultry houses all
over the Shenandoah Valley and beyond. These guys and gals look all grown
up, but are amazingly immature, inexperienced and ill-informed about the
real world. They spend their entire lives closely shielded from the
outside world, exposed to little more than others like themselves, with a
water drip they take for granted, and a never-empty all-you-can-eat free
lunch dispenser. These helpless yet blissfully unaware chickens are a
testament to the predictable tendencies of applied central planning, and
they are the perfect icon for the government of the United States of
America today.
They start out running and chirping, but before a few months pass, these
guys are crippled by their own weight. By design, these chickens must be
harvested early, before they die of heart failure, or fall down and never
get up, trampled and pecked to death by their compadres.
Welcome to the Congress of the United States, analogy courtesy of Purdue,
Tyson, and Pilgrim’s Pride.
The latest spectacle of the chickens who run our country comes from the
so-called conservatives in the House – who are currently pushing for a
Constitutional Amendment to "balance the federal budget," as
part of a
"
Cut, Cap and Balance" package that doesn’t cut, raises the
borrowing cap, and continues the ongoing and unsustainable imbalance in
government spending. Little of what these Congressmen are doing today, or
have been doing for the past twenty years has been even remotely
constitutional, so it isn’t clear why amending the Constitution is ever
necessary. Most Congressmen haven’t completely read it, don’t understand
what they did read, and believe it is a prop best used during election
campaigns. Most don’t believe it is the law or binding in any way on
their votes and actions.
One side of the Janus-state – the so-called left side, is angry that the
Cut, Cap and Balance may interfere with their political base and agendas,
while failing to raise tax collections on that part of the country that
they do not claim. The so-called right side of the Janus-state believes
that as long as defense spending for the corporate empire is nurtured,
preserved and expanded, their proposal will appear
"conservative" and be welcomed as titillating foreplay for the
November elections.
It seems like they take us all for fools, but as usual it is the
genuflecting Congress and the emperor who are fooling themselves. While
the United States as a functional value has been calmly downgraded
(again!) to a C-minus and Americans rapidly seek alternative home
bases, passports, ways of making a living off payroll and out of sight,
conservatives recall the "glory days" of 1994 and 1995, and as
the
strutting feather-headed duo of Eric Cantor and Bob Goodlatte
proclaim, it might have been so different, if only.
The crux of the Cantor-Goodlatte position is that, in March 1995, if only
the Congress had sent a federal balanced budget amendment to the states
for ratification, all of their congressional overspending, their lack of
personal and institutional principle, their paucity of restraint, their
blatant inability to comprehend basic economics, their obsession for
power over the less worthy, their obscene vote selling and incessant
influence whoring -- all of these sins would have been washed away,
instantly and permanently.
The whole debate is moot, because it has been demonstrated from the
beginning that Congress has never met a law that it couldn’t ignore,
modify, or break, starting with the original Constitution.
It is also moot because these congressmen assume that ¾ of the several
states would approve such a balanced budget amendment, then, now, or in
the future. The states well understand their fundamental relationship to
the federal government, that unwritten law of federalism. States exist to
bring home the goodies, ideally paid for by other states or by a
collective accumulation of shared debt owed by future voters and future
taxpayers, again mostly residing in other states. The very idea of a
demand to pay the federal bill in a given fiscal year (even 18 months
later, as the proposed language has it, allowing time to
"measure" the GDP) would be simultaneously laughable and
repulsive to state governors and to the people, because they intuitively
understand that it would mean both fewer goodies and higher taxation, for
the wealthier states first and eventually for even the poorest and
smallest of states.
The states would overwhelmingly reject this amendment, even if it had
teeth and claws, which it does not. This proposal is the rohypnol in the
Constitutional martini, following the tradition of federal government
boorishness of the 16th Amendment and the 1973 War Powers Act. Cap, Cut
and Balance should be nicknamed the Roofie Amendment.
Given that most prudent states would immediately just say no, I can
envision a contrarian movement among some states to consider the risk and
actively support the Balanced Budget Amendment. Counting on staying
competitive for business and productivity as people flee ever more
federally "owned" states, certain governors might support the
Roofie Amendment in order to eventually weaken the DC loyalists and set
the stage for real secession. North Dakota,
with its
questionable legal statehood status may want to go slow in correcting
their constitution. A balanced budget amendment, if passed, would bring
economic slavery to the more federally integrated states of the union,
and place North Dakota in a super-cool position of pre-existing
independence from Washington. Republic of Texas flag wavers, Hawaiian
revolutionaries, and Vermont secessionists, take note!
American states, of course, cannot print their own money. A smaller group
of states, with interests in allowing alternative hard currencies, or
even those with a tradition of creative community currencies, might join
with the hopeful independents in supporting a Balanced Budget Amendment
as a means to ultimate monetary freedom from D.C. Utah's sound money
movement and upstate New York community business vouchers, gold and
silver holders everywhere, upon ratification of a Balanced Budget
Amendment, would become even more valuable, reasonable, popular, and
useful.
There are many ways to critique and chuckle at the proposals by Cantor
and Goodlatte to somehow rein in federal spending by making a law, but
there is one staring God-awful gap in the proposed amendment. No version
of the law, past or present, deals with or even mentions the existence
and processes of bank of the federal government, the Federal Reserve. For
the liars in Washington, D.C., both on the left and right, this failure
to address the Federal Reserve is a very good thing. Running out of
money? We’ll "do you a favor" and print more!
In 1994, the Federal Reserve Chairman
Alan Greenspan
was the bank’s
Bifrons. Feared
and powerful, moving corpses here and there, scaring all the chickens. It
is unthinkable that a balanced budget amendment in 1994 would have
addressed the Fed. Only Ron Paul, writing of gold and liberty and
transparency, boldly spoke of the Bifrons, then and now. Today, a less
impressive Bifrons exists, and Dr. Paul chairs the financial services
subcommittee. He routinely
takes on the corpse carrier – but still, Cantor and Goodlatte and the
rest of the chicken-hearted, bird-brained "conservatives" in
Congress cannot bring themselves to address the Fed in the language of
the Cut, Cap and Balance Amendment.
Our feathered friends in Congress do enjoy their water drip and their
never-ending free lunch. There is a solution, and it starts by not
listening to dim-witted chickens trying to buy you one more drink before
the bar closes. End the Fed and its interest rate fixing, repeal the 16th
Amendment, repeal the 17th Amendment, bring the troops home, end the
empire. Start with just these things, and watch the country’s economy and
its attitude soar, the young delighted that they actually have a hopeful
and peaceful future, the old embraced and cared for, the middle
generations employed and empowered. In parts and pieces, we can take back
our country, and most of us will survive when the empire ends. I find
myself oddly reminded of Hoover’s purported campaign promise, and FDR’s
four freedoms. I, too,
see chicken on the menu.
http://lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski271.html
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