Federal Spending

I wrote about this subject in my first book roughly six years ago, but it has grabbed far more attention lately because of the economic meltdown and the "War On Women," i.e., the audacity to resist forcible subsidy of private sexual choices. These and other subsidies are themselves a war on society, and resistance is crucial.

The Power To Spend Our Money

One of the most sacred duties that a holder of public office can undertake is the disbursement of the people’s money. Such money is collected through the awesome power of taxation, a power which in any other context would be labeled as theft. It is often said that taxes are the price we pay for civilization; however, when government begins spending more than it must – spending on initiatives not encompassed within its solemn duties – then de-civilization inevitably follows. For what else can it be called but barbarism when some take by force the money of others for purposes not authorized by law and not necessary for the preservation of safety and order?

Recall that President Madison refused to sign a bill that would have disbursed money from the Treasury for “internal improvements” because such an expenditure was nowhere contemplated within the four corners of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution outlining Congress’s powers. Some of Madison’s successors as president took time on the festive day of their inauguration to draw attention to this sanctity of the public purse, although none in recent memory has seen fit to do so:

Ours was intended to be plain and frugal government, and I shall regard it to be my duty to recommend to Congress and, as far as the executive is concerned, to enforce by all the means within my power the strictest economy in the expenditure of the public money which may be compatible with the public interests. ~ James K. Polk, Presidential Inaugural Address, March 4, 1845

It is beyond all question the true principle that no more revenue ought to be collected from the people than the amount necessary to defray the expenses of a wise, economical, and efficient administration to the government. ~ James Buchanan, Presidential Inaugural Address, March 4, 1857

It is the duty of those serving the people in public place to closely limit public expenditures to the actual needs of the government economically administered, because this bounds the right of the government to exact tribute from the earnings of labor or the property of the citizen, and because public extravagance begets extravagance among the people. ~ Grover Cleveland, Presidential Inaugural Address, March 4, 1885

While a treasury surplus is not the greatest evil, it is a serious evil. Our revenue should be ample to meet the ordinary annual demands upon our treasury, with a sufficient margin for those extraordinary but scarcely less imperative demands which arise now and then. Expenditure should always be made with economy and only upon public necessity. Wastefulness, profligacy, or favoritism in public expenditures is criminal. ~ Benjamin Harrison, Presidential Inaugural Address, March 4, 1889

The severest economy must be observed in all public expenditures, and extravagance stopped wherever it is found, and prevented wherever in the future it may be developed. If the revenues are to remain as now, the only relief that can come must be from decreased expenditures. ~ William McKinley, Presidential Inaugural Address, March 4, 1897

The collection of any taxes which are not absolutely required, which do not beyond reasonable doubt contribute to the public welfare, is only a species of public larceny. Under this Republic the rewards of industry belong to those who earn them. ~ Calvin Coolidge, Presidential Inaugural Address, March 4, 1925

Such devotion to confining federal spending to its constitutional objectives died a final, unceremonious death in 1937 at the hands of the Supreme Court, which in another fit of obeisance to Franklin Roosevelt refused to find fault with the newly christened Social Security Act in the decision of Helvering v. Davis. Suddenly, the Court had decreed that Congress could spend money in a manner entirely divorced from Congress’s enumerated powers, and that Congress could decide for itself what constituted the “general welfare” of America when it came to funneling funds out of the Treasury. As a result of the Court’s capitulation, the Congress received not merely a blank check to spend money as it chose, but also a new tool for exercising the type of “police power” that the Founders specifically had sought to reserve to the States. As one of the dissenting Justices predicted:

That portion of the Social Security legislation here under consideration, I think, exceeds the power granted to Congress. It unduly interferes with the orderly government of the state by her own people and otherwise offends the Federal Constitution. . . .

Apparently the states remained really free to exercise governmental powers, not delegated or prohibited, without interference by the federal government through threats of punitive measures or offers of seductive favors. Unfortunately, the decision just announced opens the way for practical annihilation of this theory; and no cloud of words or ostentatious parade of irrelevant statistics should be permitted to obscure that fact. . . .

No defense is offered for the legislation under review upon the basis of emergency. The hypothesis is that hereafter it will continuously benefit unemployed members of a class. Forever, so far as we can see, the states are expected to function under federal direction concerning an internal matter. By the sanction of this adventure, the door is open for progressive inauguration of others of like kind under which it can hardly be expected that the states will retain genuine independence of action. And without independent states a Federal Union as contemplated by the Constitution becomes impossible. . . .

Ordinarily, I must think, a denial that the challenged action of Congress and what has been done under it amount to coercion and impair freedom of government by the people of the state would be regarded as contrary to practical experience. Unquestionably our federate plan of government confronts an enlarged peril.

Congress would use its now-boundless spending power to bribe States and individuals into accepting federal rules that the federal government had no constitutional competency to create, thereby projecting federal influence over even more aspects of our lives than possible under the tortured readings of the interstate commerce clause. The federal government, having siphoned away much of the citizens’ money by means of taxation, now could offer to return some of that money for the price of obedience. And of course the Supreme Court dutifully approved of this medieval system of tribute, holding that the federal government could thus commandeer the States indirectly despite lacking the power to commandeer them directly.

Congress has never looked back, and today [in 2005] we have a government that spends in excess of $2 trillion each year on a smorgasbord of patronage and largesse that lies completely beyond the Constitution’s scope. Such expenditures constitute almost 20 percent of America’s gross domestic product (one hundred years ago it was just 3 percent). It is now impossible in “mainstream” politics to suggest a mere freeze in annual spending levels, let alone real cuts. Even a self-described “conservative” such as George W. Bush  has presided over the largest explosion of the budget deficit ever. In the absence of spending cuts, the only alternatives for coping with problems such as the deficit and the national debt are 1) raising taxes; and/or 2) printing more money. (Borrowing merely postpones the day of reckoning, as debt still must be repaid with taxes or inflated currency.)  Both of these alternatives decrease Americans’ wealth: the first through a direct taking of our money, and the second through the devaluation of the money remaining in our pockets. We now occupy the psychedelic political landscape where cutting taxes to allow Americans to keep more of their money is labeled as “expensive” or “greedy,” since wealth is no longer perceived as belonging to the individual but rather to the government. As deficit and debt continue to mount, the government will continue to push for higher taxation and inflation, and we will continue having to work harder just to maintain our standard of living.