Posted on 05/29/2010 4:19:47 PM PDT by sten
I’m afraid you’re approaching the problem from the wrong direction. I don’t know whether you remember the financial crisis in New York City in the 70’s, but there was thought that the city might go bankrupt, it needed a federal bailout, and there was a big flap about it.
The entire time New York was digging itself into that hole, the city was required by law to have a ballanced budget every year. And New York had a balanced budget every year. On paper.
Welcome to the wonderful world of creative accounting.
I doubt that any law will restrain congressional spending. We’ll just put this on the budget, take that off the budget, and “deem” last year’s tax receipts to include the last three months of receipts from the previous year. If we can’t build a serious budget when we can at least acknowledge the problem, it’s likely to be even harder when Congress has to pretend that the budget is ballanced.
The only solution to government overspending is to elect members of congress who don’t want to.
This deends, ultimately, on the voters. The reason the members of congress spend money we don’t have, is because they believe that people will vote for them if they do, and vote them out if they don’t. It’s not because those guys can’t add—they do this to stay in office. If enough people vote for fiscal responsibility, even congressmen who don’t believe in it, will start voting for it. The TEA parties are a start in this direction.
There are at least a half-dozen amendments I’d like to see made to the Constitution — but right now, I don’t want ANYTHING or anyone meddling with it! Until we RESTORE the government to the original understanding and intent of the Constitution, NO MORE changes. PERIOD.
How about any legislator presiding over any legislative term that runs up a deficit in excess of 2.5% of GDP in a single year must step down at the end of that Congressional term and is not eliglble to run for office for four years.
2. The power to regulate commerce among the several States shall be used as a negative and preventive provision against injustice among the States themselves, and not for any positive purpose of the Federal Government.
Therein lays the rub. The Constitution (and any law for that matter) only means anything if the people in charge actually obey it. Currently they don't. There's plenty of places where the Constitution forces a particular branch of government to do something and the branch in question refuses to act.
The massive debt our government has run up is due entirely to purposeful ignorance of the restrictions imposed by the Constitution.
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¹James Madison
13 Feb. 1829 Letters 4:14--15
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_3_commerces19.html
Section One: Except as provided in Section Two, any action by the government, or its agents or employees, which is in violation of this Constitution or laws as described in Article VI is illegitimate, and all citizens have a right and duty to regard it as such. The Supreme Court has no authority to issue any ruling which contradicts the Supreme Law of the Land; such rulings are illegitimate and should be disregarded.
Section Two: The only time it may be necessary and appropriate for a government agent to go beyond the clearly-delineated scope of the Constitution would be when effecting a remedy for previous illegitimate activities by government agents. Such actions, to be legitimate, must be done overtly, with the nature of the previous illegitimate actions and the proposed remedy plainly spelled out. Citizens have a right and duty to scrutinize all such claims and actions.
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