Analyst's note: Absolutely must read article here with a number of realistic and practicle solutions. If our nation is to survive, a number of federal agencies need to simply go away along with their budgets. Let our U.S. Constitution be the guide. We can either do it the easy way or the hard way. If the realities of the world outside the United States cause it, life will be much more harsh in the days to come.
May I suggest you hear William J. Dell in action on this topic and other related national security issues, by listening to the 2/16/2011 broadcast of "Dialog: East Coast - West Coast." The radio show is now available 24/7 for streaming to your computer or download to your MP3 player.
"My last posting was about No New Taxes and how the politician’s lies were affecting my own personal fixed-income budget as a disabled military retiree on social security. I would like to clarify my position.
I realize that our nation is drowning in red ink. Because of this I also understand that We the People, as individuals and as a nation, ALL are going to have to tighten our belts. By ALL I mean every citizen – Social Security recipients, military retirees, veterans, federal employees, Congress, the White House, Cabinet Departments, schools, state and local governments, food stamp recipients, unemployed insurance recipients, etc. Beyond this lobbies, trade unions, special interest groups, etc. are going to have to put aside many of their “pet concerns” for the good of the entire nation.
Everyone receiving any payment from the federal government, including ALL the social-justice programs recipients, is going to have to do with less. We have to cut up the “national credit card” and stop spending what we do NOT have. We must stop the Federal Reserve’s printing press. Our nation is no different than a family that is in over its head. We the People must realize that the “not in my rice bowl” attitude, concerning cuts in the federal budget, has to go out the window if we are to survive as a nation.
My REAL problem with Washington, our elected politicians and bureaucrats, is that they don’t have the “GUTS” to tell their employers, We the People, the truth. It is past time for the “spin doctors” to go home. It is time for frank, truthful, open discussion and debate of the debt problem or we will go the way of all debtor nations as recorded by history.
Perhaps our President should take a page out of history and re-institute “fireside chats” not to “spin” the problem but to coach us through the truth and the “hard times” confronting We the People, as a nation. But then how can this work when President Obama is an ideologue who believes in the destruction of our Constitutional Republic in favor of the tyranny of the Welfare Socialist State in the name of social-justice?
Perhaps the Congress should take a page out of history and re-institute the “Committee of the Whole.” This committee was used to have “non-binding” debates in secret to formulate the Constitution prior to holding “binding” votes for the record. But then in 1787, we had honorable Statesmen rather than Politicians. In the 21st Century is it even possible to have such debates and negotiations in secret without the interference of lobbies, special interest groups, or leaks? Especially LEAKS! With Benjamin Disraeli, this writer agrees, “The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.”
They, the politicians, talk about cutting spending across the board to 2008 or 2006 levels. The truth is that is a drop in the bucket. Let’s roll the budget back to 2000 levels for a start. Let‘s cut the federal payroll in the same way the private sector has to cut their payroll in tough times. You cannot get out of debt by hiring more government employees. In fact many of the federal employees that we have must be let go. We need a MUCH LEANER federal government if we are to pay down the debt and correct the badly listing ship of state.
We, as a nation, have a debt problem that is threatening the stability of the dollar, our way of life and our very survival as a nation. We, as a nation, must clean up our own mess or the world will clean it up for us. I assure you it will be much better for us, as a nation, to clean up our own financial mess! It will be painful, but less painful than if the world does it for us.
Any raising of the “debt ceiling” MUST be coupled with VERY SERIOUS cuts in the budget. Many will undoubtedly perceive some of these cuts as draconian nevertheless they are needed. These cuts should include:
1. Reducing the budget to 2000 year levels, as a start.
2. Reducing total federal employees by a minimum of 10%, as a start, including Congressional, Cabinet, White House and particularly the First Lady’s staffs. With regards to the First Lady, how did so many before her do so much with one-sixth the staff? The only legitimate exception I can see in this policy is the military because we are in a war.
3. Pass a Balanced Budget Amendment with a war clause exclusion for war costs only.
4. Repealing the Seventeenth Amendment thus restoring the vertical separation of powers granted by the Founding Fathers. Senators would then again be responsible to the States [Governors and Legislatures] rather than the voters. I am sure that such a move would seriously limit “unfunded mandates” upon the States and restore to the States the authority of the Tenth Amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
5. Over a four year period transfer ALL education, environmental and social-justice programs, including the control and operation of them, back to the several States. This is where they constitutionally belong according to the Tenth Amendment; and, simultaneously eliminate every vestige of the federal bureaucracies and draconian regulations they created. This reduction in the federal workforce should include the following Cabinet departments [Energy, Education, Health & Human Services, Transportation, Housing & Urban Development, Labor, Commerce, Agriculture and Interior] and ALL the bureaucratic positions and regulations they created to justify their existence. Under the Tenth Amendment these issues and challenges belong to the several States, respectively, and what may work for Rhode Island, Ohio, Alabama or Kansas may not be effective in California, Pennsylvania, Texas or Alaska.
6. Have the Congress voluntarily cut Congressional pay by 25%, as a token of their sincerity. After all, they caused the debt problem by failing to exercise constitutional “checks and balances” and growing the federal government beyond the constitutional limits of the Tenth Amendment through social-justice and entitlement programs; e.g., the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Frontier, the Great Society and now Obama Care.
This employer, of the federal government, recognizes that these Politicians, our elected servants, need an INCENTIVE or they won’t do a @#$%&* thing. Unless there is something in it for them, they will continue the “spin” and the “rhetoric” and DO NOTHING of substance to correct our debt problem or for that matter ANY problem; e.g., immigration. Without an INCENTIVE they will do nothing to restore our Constitutional Republic to within constitutional limits. Perhaps an INCENTIVE should be a clause appended to the end of the 27th Amendment so that it reads:
No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of representatives shall have intervened and the federal budget remains in balance.
Because they are Politicians rather than Statesmen, history has shown that they are only concerned with retaining power and their own re-election. They care nothing about our Constitutional Republic or We the People that hired them as our servants. That is why they need an INCENTIVE! On the other hand if they were Statesmen, We the People would not have such justifiable concern because REAL STATESMEN ARE ONLY CONCERNED ABOUT WHAT IS BEST FOR OUR CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC!
