The Fuss About Gay Marriage is about the Children

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]