Category Archives: Congress

Vain Pursuits

It is a curious artifact of American politics that the showcasing of a soldier’s widow (as Trump did during his recent address of a joint session of Congress) has the opposite effect one might imagine. If little Johnny were brought before the class by his teacher to show them how he lost a finger playing with firecrackers, one might expect that frightful outcome would instill in the other children a sense that perhaps holding a lit firecracker in your hand is perhaps not a good idea. We would not expect the children to feel emboldened to engage in the same activity.

Likewise, shouldn’t parading the grieving loved ones of fallen soldiers instill in our “leaders” an instinct to be more parsimonious when using this scarce human capital? We would hope they would become progressively less inclined to engage in bellicose rhetoric that necessitates sending soldiers into harms way. But no, it has the opposite effect. In order ensure the recently departed have not “died in vain” and to defend the “honor” of the country, the leaders become even more inclined to retaliate or engage in new overseas adventures with the supposed goal of “furthering US interests” or “consolidating US power.” Why is that? Because for all the high-minded sounding rhetoric (equality, peace, freedom) and apparently “civilized” structure of the modern democratic state these political decisions still turn on raw emotions. The same emotions that drove primitive bands of hunter-gatherers to raid each other’s villages today drive men in suits sitting under gold domes to murder people half a world away. There is no logic, there is no thought, just raw, visceral emotions of revenge, anger, and pride, all wrapped up in some twisted nationalistic package we label patriotism and uniformly applaud like trained seals when shoved in our faces.

Patriotism, literally “love of one’s country” drives not just American leaders but every other country’s ruling elite to engage in the stupidest, most ill advised behavior – from hot wars to trade wars – all to advance the goal of autarky in an “us vs. them” board game. I suppose it is true what they say, “love is blind,” but in combination with political power this aphorism becomes lethal if love of country blinds one to reason and logic. In the war on terror reason and logic would dictate that blowback and the desire to control others is the proximate cause of virtually the entire problem of terrorism. Stop throwing rocks at the hornet’s net if you want to stop getting stung; beating it harder only makes the problem worse.

You’d think we all want no more widows and orphans resulting from pursuing inane policies. That should have been the point of shoving into the face of Congress the results of their polices. If we keep wasting these fine men and women in vain political pursuits, we will one day find no one left to defend us from an actual external attack.

Civil Wrongs

A few weeks ago house Democrats staged a “sit in” (with catered food no less – such sacrifice) in a transparent ploy to bolster their goals with civil rights movement era imagery. But like so many failed movie sequels, this one too falls flat on its face due to a poorly written narrative. These Democrat lawmakers would have had us believe that they were the underdogs, fighting the good fight against those evil Republicans who are part of the entrenched status quo. Nothing could be further from the truth. Civil rights protesters lacked political power; that’s why they were protesting, they had no other options. These members of Congress, however, are they very epitome of political power! They are the ones who are responsible for making the very changes they seek. They were in fact protesting their own incompetence, but with enough misdirected blame to make it look like someone else’s fault. Let us not forget it was the Democrats who controlled both the House and the Senate for the first 2 years of Obama’s presidency and yet they did nothing on gun control. It would seem procrastination is the better part of valor.

The civil rights movement stood primarily for the ideal that the government, whether local, state, or federal, should be in the business of guaranteeing equal rights for all citizens. Government should not be in the business of qualifying rights based on arbitrary criteria. So it is with rich irony that these “legislators” – including an actual participant in the original sit-ins (John Lewis (D-Ga.)) – were fighting to undo those very rights so dearly fought for in the 1960’s. Rights limitations based on race is really just rights limitations based on thought. Person A thinks X about Person B and so X becomes the reason to restrict rights. Thought X can be driven by anything: racism, sexism, fear, anxiety, or suspicion. But now they have the gall to suggest civil rights violations are only bad if “X” is driven by racism, but perfectly fine if driven by fear or suspicion.

Of what do I speak? That odiously Orwellian abomination known as the “No Fly” list. There is no greater threat to civil rights today. And yet they propose to make it more powerful by turning it into a “No Fly, No Buy” list, meaning those on the list can’t buy firearms. At face value this might make sense. Surely people on the list are just the sorts we don’t want flying or buying guns. Unfortunately the reality is that inclusion on this list has little to do with actual evidence of wrongdoing. Mere hunches based on nothing more than prejudices, similar sounding names, or Kevin-Bacon-game levels of guilt by association, are sufficient for inclusion. There is no process to be removed because naturally doing so would jeopardize “national security. The deprivation of rights without due process is an unambiguous violation of the 5th amendment. But those who peddle fear have no shame if they believe destruction of rights will keep them in office.

The gravest danger in adding gun rights to “The List” is the precedent it sets. How much easier will it now be to justify proscribing the right to drive, hold a job, have a bank account, or rent a home? In short, inclusion on the list could soon mean exclusion from society. If this happened to even one person in error, that would be one too many. How can I justify that sentiment? Easy, imagine you are the error.

Poison Pill

A “poison pill” is a clause added to a contract with the express intent of providing a disincentive for anyone affected by that contract to contest it. It is typically employed when one anticipates animosity or disagreement among the parties (such as a Will where a beneficiary might be dissatisfied with their inheritance). In other words, it’s a legal stick (as opposed to carrot) used to keep otherwise discordant individuals in line. Unsurprisingly the most contentious legal artifact in recent memory, Obamacare, contains just such a legal provision. Naturally political prudence demanded that the punitive measure remain carefully camouflaged. Otherwise the Feds ran the risk of their private beliefs becoming public knowledge, namely that Federal paternalism gives them the right to punish impudent states.

A poison pill provision in Obamacare was recently unearthed in the wake of a ruling early last week by a D.C. Circuit Court (Halbig v. Burwell) which stated that contrary to an IRS rule and the Obama administration’s contention, the plain language of the Obamacare statute says that subsidies for health insurance were limited to STATE-run health exchanges (and therefore subsidies are not possible in exchanges created and run by the Federal government). There was of course an immediate howl of objection by the administration and those on the left. They said that this was silly, clearly that is not what Congress meant – even if they used very simple and unambiguous language to the contrary – of course they meant to include federal exchanges as well, silly rabbit, only some backwards troglodyte would think otherwise. Funny thing how selective memory works; anything that might contradict your current position is conveniently forgotten. So it was rather embarrassing indeed when it was found that in 2012 (long before this suit was initiated), a Jonathan Gruber (an MIT economics professor who played a key role in drafting Obamacare) was recorded (twice) unequivocally endorsing the very core of that ruling – that only state exchanges were eligible for subsidies. But it wasn’t that admission that was the most telling, but rather what followed.

 

“What’s important to remember politically about this is if you’re a state and you don’t set up an exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits—but your citizens still pay the taxes that support this bill. So you’re essentially saying [to] your citizens you’re going to pay all the taxes to help all the other states in the country. I hope that that’s a blatant enough political reality that states will get their act together and realize there are billions of dollars at stake here in setting up these exchanges.” Jonathan Gruber, 1/18/2012

 

He clearly admits that this circumstance (no tax credits) is intended to influence state behavior in order to compel them (get their act together) to carry out the demands placed upon them by this legislation. This language was no mistake, no typo, no oversight; it was clearly intended to act as poison pill to keep the contentious “red” states in line. But then something unexpected happened. Overwhelming civil disobedience. A majority of states (34) chose to swallow that politically poisoned pill anyway. Uh-oh, now what to do we do? Establish federal exchanges and pretend that the poison pill language was a typo. Nothing to see here, move along, move along.

Even if one is inclined to believe it’s all just a big misunderstanding and perhaps only Gruber thought it had this purpose, then that still means the law as plainly written diverges from the intentions of Congress. So how do we fix bad law in this country? Apparently now we allow the executive branch (the President) to unilaterally change it to fit his own subjective interpretation. Extend this deadline, remove this penalty, change the rules, all at his whim.

It certainly is much easier to rule and get things done if you don’t have to deal with a pesky Congress that would never permit such a change without also compelling other, less ideologically palatable, changes. Who needs the slow and incremental rule of law when you can have the fast and instantaneous rule of man? As Mel Brooks said, “It’s good to be the King.”

One Banana, Two Banana …

As the political pundits and state apologists breathed a sigh of relief over last week’s deal in Congress to end the government “shutdown” a subtle wrinkle in this deal went largely unnoticed. But this wrinkle, like the proverbial butterfly whose flapping wings results in a hurricane, sets the stage for the transformation of the American Empire into a banana republic and with it the ultimate collapse of that empire. How could this go unnoticed? As with all new government initiatives it is cloaked in the innocence of being “temporary.” As the astute observer of history Milton Friedman once observed, “there is nothing so permanent as a temporary government program.”

The deal that was rushed through Congress last week is, like Obamacare, now withering under the light of public scrutiny of those very details our overlords wished to keep hidden. Although laced with several “special deals” in order to buy the votes of particular congressmen, this deal carries with it something far more sinister than the usual run of the mill horse trading. It carries with it the “temporary suspension” of the debt limit until February 7, 2014. What does that mean in practical terms? Quite simply that the US Treasury may issue an unlimited amount of debt between now and February 7. They could issue treasury bonds for tens of trillions of dollars if they wished and it would all be nice and legal. Now is it likely they will do that? Not really. That is not the source of the hidden danger. The real danger lies in the fact that this “temporary” suspension of the debt limit will never end. This is because through procedural gamesmanship this component of the deal was added in such a way that it will take a two-thirds (!) majority of both the house and senate to reverse it. Considering both sides of the aisle are too craven to face the hard choice of reducing spending or increasing taxes you can lay down good money on the fact that they will never vote against something that would require them to ultimately face that quandary of a decision.

So although there will still technically be a debt-limit on the books, it will for all intents and purposes not exist since all who are bound by it have agreed to simply ignore it. Once this new reality becomes the status quo there will be absolutely NOTHING holding back Congress from spending as much as they desire. As they further inflate the currency through more and more debt creation, prices will rise year after year. This will further devalue the purchasing power of the dollar. Eventually, one day soon the United States’ largest creditors (foreign governments) will decide the US dollar is simply not an asset worth holding (would you continue to own a stock whose price dropped every year?) and will cease buying US Treasury debt and will also begin selling the debt they do own (further plunging the value of the dollar). Once that happens it will be declared a “crisis” by those in power who will once again clamor for a “temporary” suspension of even the most tenuous of rules that support the façade of separation between Fed and State. Currently it is illegal for the Federal Reserve to directly purchase US Treasury bonds (although they can do so indirectly through “the market”). However if no one is willing to buy our debt that leaves just one customer standing: the customer that has the legal monopolistic right to create counterfeit money out of thin air – the Federal Reserve. Once the Federal Reserve is “temporarily” permitted to begin buying US Treasury debt, that will be the last nail in the coffin of the American Empire. History has taught us clearly time and time again that once a government starts printing its own currency with no restraints of any kind, hyperinflation is not very far behind.

Perhaps this might seem like hyperbole to some, however if we combine the lessons of history along with our current government’s unwillingness to cut spending and face the economic failures of their socialist inroads into our economy (i.e. subsidization of ANY economic activity) there is simply no other plausible outcome. So get ready, the roller coaster is poised to plunge straight into the ground. And it all begins not with a “bang” but a mere unnoticed whimper.