We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our calling and our creeds…[we will] have no time to think, no means of calling our miss-managers to account but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers… And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for[ another]… till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery… And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.
-Thomas Jefferson
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess of the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship…. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from great courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependency back again to bondage.
-Sir Alex Fraser Tytler (Scottish jurist and historian) or Benjamin Disraeli. (British Prime Minister) (Both -Unverified)
Socialism in America will come through the ballot box.
-Gus Hall (Former Candidate for President –American Communist Party)
In this article I will not presume to tell you who to vote for in this election. Indeed most of the Republican Party for most of the past 70 years with the possible exception of the first Reagan administration has been utterly complicit with those who wish for the destruction of the constitution. I will only describe the current state of affairs our Republic finds itself in and will leave your voting decision to your own conscience.
The three quotes at the beginning of this article are in someway coming into reality. This transformation did not start under the present administration or congress like many of Republican friends will try to make you believe. They are correct only in the fact that this transformation has now been accelerated at a fanatical pace over the last four years. Just as in the famous Charles Dickens story a “Christmas Carol” where Scrooge is visited by his dead business partner in which he reveals the unseen “chains” of Scrooge’s misdeeds that are still growing and will carried by him after his death. The American people may finally be realizing their fiscal future and indeed their personal freedoms are in jeopardy in the near future. The chains of debt and the demands of an overreaching Federal government have been growing over the last 70 years and will be soon too much for the republic to shoulder. The national Debt is almost 14 trillion Dollars, an increase of 5 trillion dollars since 2007. The US economy cannot continue to sustain this massive increase which is expected to reach approx 150% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product-The total of all goods & services produced by the US in a year) by 2030.
Will Increased Taxation & The Federal Reserve Save the Day?
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernake
In order to service this debt there are two options in which the current administration and congress seem to resorting to. The first is taxes will have to be raised to confiscatory levels. The opening act will be next January 1st when the Bush era tax cuts expire which will be the biggest tax hike in US History. This will affect everyone who pays income taxes regardless of income. Most taxpayers in the higher income brackets will soon have a combined tax rate of well over 50%. What would our founders think of us? The tax burden imposed on the American colonists by the British crown that helped spark the American Revolution were approximately 11 times less than it is on the current citizen today. The second option will be to inflate the currency by excessively increasing the money supply and paying our foreign debtors with devaluated currency. This will cause inflation and rob the American citizen the value of their savings. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is soon expected to announce a program of U.S. Treasury bond purchases in which some analysts estimate of up to a total of 750 billion dollars over the next year. This amounts to purchasing our own debt. This is expected to cause inflation and I predict will eventually cause hyper-inflation of 15-20% or more in two to three years time. Chinese officials have started to complain that we are pumping money into circulation irresponsibly. The Chinese after all they have a vested interest since they have brought a substantial part of our debt. The dollar the world’s reserve currency is in the process of being devaluated and made worthless.
The Record of this Congress and the Administration:
The current congress that has been in power since 2006 and the current administration has used the financial crisis as an excuse for a government takeover of the economy. This takeover has been accomplished through bank bailouts, acquisition of part of the domestic auto industry by outright disregarding federal bankruptcy laws which included giving the UAW Union equity in GM and Chrysler. This unprecedented action destroyed preferred stock and bond holder’s rights. This congress spent almost a trillion dollars on a so-called stimulus package that was just a wish-list of big-government programs and paybacks to the public employees’ unions and special interest groups. The congress and the administration overstepped the bounds of the constitution by pushing a so called heath care reform legislation that imposes a penalty for non-compliance on individual citizens. The president is also guilty of outright misrepresenting the bill’s individual mandate by telling the public it was not a tax. When the states recently sued the federal government the president reversed himself and instructed the justice department to defend the bill’s constitutionality as a tax before a federal court. The administration also with its supporters in congress has circumvented the constitutional requirement of a senate confirmation for cabinet level appointee’s. The president has appointed so called special administrators (Czar’s) to essential control cabinet level departments. This action is making the congress irrelevant and concentrating power in the executive branch.
Lessons from History:
Some of the EU “Nanny States” might have decided too late to step away from the brink by cutting back social spending. We now have a window (notably in Greece & Spain) on our possible future on what happens when an overspending, overreaching and overtaxing government cannot afford to keep its promises of generous health, retirement and welfare benefits. The result of waiting to change course is civil unrest, crippling strikes and possible currency collapse or devaluation. If we do not change our course quickly we may have the same fate in store for us. What would happen if the federal government is unable to pay or even service its enormous debt or continues todebase our currency and chaos ensues? History has given us examples of republics faced with that fate. The Roman Republic of the 1stCentury BC and the most recent example of Germany’s Weimar Republic in the early 20th century comes to mind. If we become complacent we will one day soon wake up and realize that an all powerful oligarchy has replaced our republic. The Democratic Party has been taking over by the remnants of the “New Left” movement of the late 1960’s. This coalition is a band of progressives, socialists and outright Marxists. I am not saying that all of Democratic rank and file are socialists but much of their national party leadership is. All you have to do is look at supporting organizations they have associated with in the rallies they have staged recently. My parents always told me you can tell a lot about a person who they associate with and the Democratic Party is proving the truth of that old axiom.
The Future of our Republic is in our Hands.
General Washington Praying At Valley Forge
So what should we, the American voters do? I for one do not have much faith in the GOP leadership since they bear a large part in the decay of our constitutional values. My hope is the growing number of Tea Party members running under the Republican Party’s banner. These newbie’s to the national political scene might be the only hope to stem this headlong march to destroy our constitutional republic. My real hope for the long term is the growing awareness of the individual citizen that something has gone awry. There is a growing interest of both the young and old in the constitution and how both parties have been treating it with distain. Americans are beginning to reeducate themselves and realize that their individual unalienable rights come from natures God and are not granted by a piece of legislation and therefore cannot be taken away. I pray that the Tea Party candidates can act as a “Firewall” to stop the growth of the leviathan that the federal government has become over the last century. With our faith in natures God and in our individual responsibility as free citizens along with our constitution we can save our republic for our posterity. If we fail and lose our freedom our generation will never see freedom rise again in our lifetime.