During last years budget negotiation meetings. President Barack Obama told House leader John Boehner, We dont have a spending problem. When Boehner responded with But, Mr. President, we have a very serious spending problem. Obama replied, Im getting tired of hearing you say that. In one sense, the president is right. Whats being called a spending problem is really a symptom of an unappreciated deep-seated national moral rot. Is it moral for Congress to forcibly use one person to serve the purposes of another? I believe that most Americans would pretend that to do so is offensive. Think about it this way. Suppose I saw a homeless, hungry elderly woman huddled on a heating grate in the dead of winter. To help the woman, I ask somebody for a $200 donation to help her out. If the person refuses, I then use intimidation, threats and coercion to take the persons money. I then purchase food and shelter for the needy woman. My question is this: Have I committed a crime? If I manage to get three people to agree that I should take the persons money to help the woman? What If I get 100 to agree, 1 million or 300 million people to agree to take the persons $200? Would it be theft then? What if, instead of personally taking the persons $200, I got together with other Americans and asked Congress to use Internal Revenue Service agents to take the persons $200? The bottom-line question is: Does an act thats clearly immoral when done privately become moral when it is done collectively and under the color/guise of law? Put another way, does legality establish morality? For most of our history, Congress did a far better job of limiting its activities to what was both moral and constitutional. As a result, federal spending remained 3-5% of the gross domestic product from our founding until the 1920s, in contrast with todays 25%+. Close to three-quarters of todays federal spending can be described as Congress taking the earnings of one American to give to another through thousands of handout programs, such as farm subsidies, business bailouts, welfare, food stamps and EBTs etc.... During earlier times, such spending was deemed unconstitutional and immoral. James Madison, the acknowledged father of our Constitution, said Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government. In 1794, when Congress appropriated $15,000 to assist some French refugees, Madison stood on the floor of the House of Representatives to object, saying I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on object of benevolence, the money of their constituents. Todays Americans would crucify a politician expressing similar statements. There would even be those who would say That James Madison guy forgot about the Constitutions general welfare clause. Madison had that covered, explaining in a letter. If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite on. Thomas Jefferson agreed, writing; Members of Congress are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare...It would reduce it (Constitution) to a single phrase that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and , as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please. The bottom line is that spending is not our basic problem. Weve become an immoral people demanding that congress forcibly us one American to serve the purposes of another. Deficits and runaway national debt are merely symptoms of that larger problem. A problem signed into law and put into place by none other than Lyndon B Johnson 50 years ago and built upon by politician after politician more interested in keeping each other in office than for the morality of a once great nation. Just sayin....... Walter Williams----July 13, 2014
Posted on: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 19:24:33 +0000
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