What
Government Shutdown?
By David L. Miner
Where is Congress given the power to shut down the
government? Where does the Constitution give the feral government
the option to stop doing its job? Where does Congress get its power
to violate the Constitution and still remain in power?
I submit that those powers simply do not exist. I
submit that as soon as Congress shuts down the federal government,
Congress no longer has any authority.
According to America's Declaration of
Independence, all authority comes from God. Some of that authority
is given to mankind. And some of mankind's authority is delegated to
a government that We The People created in and by that Constitution.
The Constitution is a contract created by two
parties – the existing thirteen States and the existing people of
those States. That contract created the central government with
limited powers and responsibilities. When the central government
violates that contract and willfully fails to live up to its
requirements, then all the power and authority vested in that central
government dissipates into thin air. Each and every elected official
within that central government has no job, no salaries, and no
benefits. They must vacate their offices and give up their
government limousines and plush government housing. They cannot
violate the Constitution and still claim authority delegated in that
Constitution.
Please remember the reason America was created,
and the safeguard included for such a time as the government might
violate this reason for which it was created.
We
hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
rights, that among these are life, Liberty, and the pursuit of
Happiness, – That to secure these rights, Governments are
instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of
the Governed, – That whenever any form of government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or
abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on
such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them
shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Notice the obvious: We The People created the
Constitution and, through that very Constitution, We the People
created the federal government. We the people are the owners and
rulers and bosses of this Great Nation.
The Constitution was written to control the
federal government and NOT to control We The People.
And the Constitution gives the federal
government no authority to stop doing its job. Quite simply,
Congress does its job or it has no job.
Knowing of the potential of the abuse of power by
the government, the first President of this Great Nation addressed
the issue of power clearly and specifically.
The
power under the Constitution will always be in the people. It is
entrusted for certain defined purposes, and for a certain limited
period, to representatives of their own choosing; and whenever it is
executed contrary to their interest, or not agreeable to their
wishes, their servants can, and undoubtedly will, be recalled.
[George
Washington]
It is the express responsibility of the House of
Representatives to produce legislation to raise revenues for the
government to spend.
All
bills raising Revenue shall originate in the House of
Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments
as on other Bills. [Constitution,
Article 1, Section 7]
It is the responsibility of the House of
Representatives to produce an annual budget under which the federal
government must operate. Please note that the BUDGET is to be
produced by the House with no approval or even feedback from the
Senate. The Senate can agree or disagree with AMENDMENTS TO THE
BUDGET, but the budget itself is the sole responsibility of the
House. The budget itself, when completed, must be approved in an
up-or-down vote by the House and then by the Senate. When approved,
it must be sent to the President for approval or rejection.
THIS HAS NOT OCCURRED IN RECENT MEMORY.
Clearly, the House and the Senate have neither one
done their jobs in many years. Why are they still in office?
What instead happens each and every year is just
the opposite of what is required in the Constitution. Some sort of
generic proposed and intentionally totally inadequate budgetary
outline is drafted by the House. Without voting on it, the House
passes copies of this generic proposed and intentionally totally
inadequate budget to the Senate. Much of what is needed in the
budget is intentionally left out by the House, allowing the Senate to
produce a long list of specific amendments to that budget. Then the
House and the Senate bluff and posture and negotiate and squabble on
the bulk of the budget. Elected representatives are bought and sold
based on what they will propose and approve during the many debates
over these many proposed amendments. And the House refuses to
produce and pass a budget unless and until negotiations over the many
amendments are finally approved.
Sooner or later, the generic proposed and
intentionally totally inadequate “budget” gets coupled with the
HUGE appropriations contained in the many amendments, and Congress
approves this monstrosity, sending it over to the President for his
signature.
Please note that the House DID NOT create a budget
to address the needs of the federal government or the needs of the
people. The House DID NOT approve a budget. The House merely made
copies of a small budget clearly inadequate to fund the country for
the next year, and it shared that intentionally inadequate “budget”
with the Senate so Congress can spend most of the year negotiating
and arguing and squabbling.
The House of Representatives has not produced a
complete and adequate budget and voted on that budget and passed that
budget to the Senate in at least a generation.
So what is this threatened government shutdown all
about?
Quite simply, the House prepared its toy budget,
which was never intended to be a serious budget but was, as always,
intentionally inadequate and incomplete The Senate wants a long list
of amendments added, funding all sorts of projects, few of them being
Constitutional. And the House and Senate squabble and negotiate
until they come to an agreement. And one Party or the other, almost
always the Democrats, holds out for some financial padding or payoff
without which they will not approve the budget.
Again, there was no real budget prepared by the
House and voted on. Issues that stand in the way of approval, as
always, are pet projects of the minority Party.
And the holdout is so serious that these Liberal
Democrats will not allow a vote on the budget unless and until
funding for several unconstitutional appropriations are included.
Liberal Democrats in the Senate demand that
socialistic programs get funded by a Congress that is
constitutionally forbidden to pass socialistic programs. If not
passed, these Liberal Democrats will allow the federal government to
run out of money and default on payments and salaries remaining from
the last budget sham.
We The People are the owners and rulers and bosses
of this Great Nation. If elected representatives within either
party, violates the Constitution, then they have violated their Oaths
of Office and must be removed. And if they are voting on projects
and expenditures that violate the constitutional limits on Congress
and that promote Socialism, they are guilty of treason and must be
put in prison.
It
is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard
the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in
all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They
promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters. [Daniel
Webster]
A
well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.
[James Madison]
I
know of no safe depositor of the ultimate powers of [a] society but
the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to
exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not
to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.
This is the true corrective of abuses of Constitutional power.
[Thomas Jefferson]
Those who make
peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable.
[President John F. Kennedy]
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