The 545 People Responsible For All Of U.S. Woes BY Charley Reese (Date of publication unknown)-- -- - Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them. Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits? Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes? You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does. You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don't write the tax code. Congress does. You and I don't set fiscal policy. Congress does. You and I don't control monetary policy. The Federal Reserve Bank does. One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president and nine Supreme Court justices - 545 human beings out of the 235 million - are directly, legally, morally and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country. I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered but private central bank. I excluded all but the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislation's responsibility to determine how he votes. A CONFIDENCE CONSPIRACY Don't you see how the con game that is played on the people by the politicians? Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party. What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of Tip O'Neill, who stood up and criticized Ronald Reagan for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it. The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating appropriations and taxes. O'neill is the speaker of the House. He is the leader of the majority party. He and his fellow Democrats, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetos it, they can pass it over his veto. REPLACE SCOUNDRELS It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 235 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts - of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem, from an unfair tax code to defense overruns, that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist. If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair. If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red. If the Marines are in Lebanon, it's because they want them in Lebanon. There are no insoluble government problems. Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take it. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exist disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation" or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do. Those 545 people and they alone are responsible. They and they alone have the power. They and they alone should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses - provided they have the gumption to manage their own employees.
vo, I agree 100%. This country is full-of-shit, about everything. It's all about getting the people's money, period. perr
This is one of those captivating articles --written some time ago, but nothing has really changed -- that makes a lot of sense on the surface and makes things pretty simple. All of the problems are because our legislative, executive and judicial branches of government profess one thing but do another. The problem is, this is way too simple. In fact, most of these folks believe in what they profess, and much of the time, probably the majority of the time, are true to their word. If the article had started with that premise, which is the correct one, and then explained how, in spite of good intentions to balance the budget, prevent inflation, reduce taxes, and I might add, simplify the tax code, they screw up anyway, this could have been a ground breaking article, because it would have then addressed the root causes of our disfunctional government. And, certainly, the root cause is not that these people are mostly fuck-ups and people with bad intentions. They are not. It makes sense to place blame for the country's failure to solve its problems squarely on the shoulders of these 545 (a few more now, isn't there?) individuals. That I can agree with completely. But they are not scoundrels. Nor are they, as individuals, incompetent or irresponsible, not many of them anyway, yet collectively they seem to be. (One has to acknowledge that occasionally a Phil Gramm or a Tom DeLay will come along, but they are the exceptions.) So why in spite of good intentions, can nothing get done. To me, that is the proper question to be asking.
It boils down to this movement. The movement that I financially and emotionally support. http://www.breitbart.tv/palin-wows-...ored-us-in-2010-you-cannot-ignore-us-in-2012/ Wake up America.
That was a really good post. why dont you write a formal response to this article explaining what the situation really is, I would be very interested to read it.
At first glance I found this article appealing, but then I realized you can stop here -- it's already failed. The electorate demanded low taxes, unsustainable entitlements, unsustainable personal consumption, and lip service to deficits. And the "545" obliged. Hence, the author implicitly claims a higher moral ground than the electorate and the US democratic process. That's not necessarily wrong. But the critical failure of the article is that it assigns the "blame" only to these "545" for giving the (majority of the voting) 235 million what they demanded. Granted, there is a place for democratically-elected leaders to do unpopular things. But there are practical limits to this, not to mention the need to weigh going against the will of the electorate (and possibly one's own campaign promises) in what is ultimately a democracy. If the author had instead appealed to the electorate to recognize the contradiction of its demands and instead shift to longer-term thinking, that would have made sense.