Click Icon To Follow!

Main Menu

Where is Mr. Smith When You Need Him?

Monday, 22 June 2009 09:14

By Frank J. Tamel

Mr. Smith goes to Washington When the founders established the vehicle by which the people would be governed, they were concerned about containing the size and scope of the government that they were creating. So they crafted a model with three branches; Executive, Legislative, and Judicial. Their greatest fear was that the Executive Branch would become too mighty and usurp power from the Legislative Branch. So they placed strict limitations on the executive’s powers with the understanding that the Legislative Branch would play an adversarial role to keep the executive in line. The Constitution was written to serve as a rule book by which all branches of government play the political game, with the Judicial Branch serving as the referee.

Bipartisanship is not healthy

During the George W Bush administration I kept hearing that we needed bipartisanship and cooperation between the congress and the presidency. There was also a push for both major political parties to cooperate in order to “get things done.” Bush openly consulted with the opposition party, and the likes of Ted Kennedy, to help draft the legislation that he supported, which lead to a spending spree that set the stage for Obama’s reckless budgetary mayhem.

But the founders intended that there would be less cooperation between parties and more adversarial thinking. That’s because they didn’t want government to act quickly. Instead they intended that government move slowly, with deliberation.

The adversarial approach is best

There are specific advantages to an adversarial approach. Most prominent is that it prevents government from changing direction on the whims of the people. Americans are fickle. We tend to prefer the flavor of the day. If the founders wanted government to change according to trends they would have created a true democracy, where majority rules on every issue. A fifty-one percent majority vote could mean that government immediately enacts every new law or regulation that is supported by most of the voters. Thomas Jefferson called the concept of a true democracy tyranny of the majority, a system which allows the heavily populated cities to run roughshod over sparsely populated rural regions.

Instead the founders formed the world’s only representative government, a form of democracy in which citizens elect people to speak on their behalf. It is the representatives' responsibility to debate every issue in both houses and to examine closely every regulation with the concerns and desires of those whom they represent in mind. Compromise was intended as only a last resort, a way in which stalemates were overcome, but only after a bill was thoroughly debated long and hard.

For the most part, the Executive Branch was left out of the legislative process, with the founders placing exceedingly strict limits on the President’s powers. The President can't pass any legislation or spend any money. That responsibility is left entirely up to congress. That’s because the founders were fearful that a charismatic, popular President could become too powerful and turn into a de facto monarch. Ultimately such a monarch could suspend the Constitution and become a despot.

When congress doesn't do its job the people suffer

That fear is being realized as this editorial is being written, because Congress isn’t doing its job. Our representatives are supposed to be the people's watchmen. They are the keepers of our freedoms. They are the guardians of our Constitution. But to date Congress has allowed Barak Obama to grab more power than has been afforded any president in history. It would take more words than are available to list all the ways in which Obama has overstepped the Constitutional limits that are imposed upon him, but here is one of them:

The Constitution states that, No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law. In other words, a law must be passed before any governmental entity can spend the people’s money.

Nevertheless, Obama has illegally used money drawn from the treasury to take control of GM and Chrysler, even though Congress has passed no law that allows or directs him to do so. Without legal authority he fired GM’s CEO and forced both companies into bankruptcy. He then forced the sale of Chrysler to Fiat. In addition, he violated the legal standard which protects bond-holder’s rights by forcing senior creditors to take a back seat to the unions when he gave the United Auto Workers more of GM than proprietary creditors.

Where is Mr. Smith?

Where was Congress when Obama grabbed the auto companies? Why didn’t members of both parties say, “Whoa, Buddy, that is a clear a violation of Constitutional law?” Instead Democrats applauded his actions and, for the most part, Republicans stood mute on the sidelines. And what’s up with Congress passing Obama’s trillion dollar spending bill that they hadn’t read? We elected them to know what is being voted on so that we wouldn’t have to. To support any unread bill is gross incompetence at best and political malpractice at worst. The least they could do is have an office grunt read the bill and give them the short Reader’s Digest version before they cast their vote.

I long for the days in which Congress broke out in fistfights over proposed legislation. I long to see an old-fashioned filibuster where some brave Mr. Smith takes control of the senate and forces them to roll out the cots for a long night’s lecture on the Constitution and the founder’s intent. I long to see just one member of Congress, of either party, stand up stand up and call Obama out for the despot that his is becoming.

Hey Congress! Do your job! Or step aside and make room for someone else who will.

Comments (0)

Write comment

Your Contact Details:

Name:

Email:

Website:

Comment:

Title:

UBBCode: