Liberty Maven

Yesterday in Congress, fifty-four new bills were introduced.  When taking a look at the list below, keep in mind that the U.S. Constitution, which created our Federal Government, clearly enumerated 18 specific functions that it is given.  For all other things, the 9th and 10th amendment make it clear that the individual states have the power.  Note that it states in the Constitution that it is the Supreme Law of the Land, which can be usurped by no other.  This means that all opinions to the contrary made by the Supreme Court are technically invalid.  Throughout the past couple of hundred hears the Supreme Court has rule one way or another on some “interpretation” of the Constitution, but in fact no interpretation is necessary, as the intention of the founding fathers are quite clear.  For example, if the “general welfare” clause or the “interstate commerce” clause was intended to be used as a catch-all for any arbitrary piece of legislation, then the 10th amendments which reads:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

would be completely meaningless.  So simple logic, in addition to the writings of Madison and other founding fathers, dictates the notion that the Federal Government was set up to have very little power, and that these United States are intended to be a loose federation of sovereign states.

Only due to politician’s greed and overwhelming desire for power does the Constitution get relegated to the trash heap.

So, despite the  noble intentions of many of these bills, it doesn’t mean they are legal.

Of the bills introduced yesterday, these are ones that are clearly not legitimate functions of the Federal Government:

• HR1702 – To authorize assistance for affordable housing and sustainable urban development in developing countries, and for other purposes.
• HR1704 – To amend the Public Health Service Act to improve mental and behavioral health services on college campuses.
• HR1705 – To create a Financial Product Safety Commission, to provide consumers with stronger protections and better information in connection with consumer financial products, and to give providers of consumer financial products more regulatory certainty.
• S-709 – A bill to better provide for compensation for certain persons injured in the course of employment at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in California.

• S-710 – A bill to prohibit unfair or deceptive acts or practices relating to gift certificates, store gift cards, and other general-use prepaid cards, and for other purposes.
• HR1709 – To establish a committee under the National Science and Technology Council with the responsibility to coordinate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education activities and programs of all Federal agencies, and for other purposes.
• HR1710 – To include family therapists on the list of professionals recognized to provide public school mental health services under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.
• HR1711 (also S-708) – To express the policy of the United States regarding the United States relationship with Native Hawaiians, to provide a process for the reorganization of a Native Hawaiian government and the recognition by the United States of the Native Hawaiian government, and for other purposes.
• HR1712 – To amend title II of the Social Security Act to establish a Social Security Surplus Protection Account in the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund to hold the Social Security surplus, to provide for suspension of investment of amounts held in the Account until enactment of legislation providing for investment of the Trust Fund in investment vehicles other than obligations of the United States, and to establish a Social Security Investment Commission to make recommendations for alternative forms of investment of the Social Security surplus in the Trust Fund.
• HR1713 – To name the South Central Agricultural Research Laboratory of the Department of Agriculture in Lane, Oklahoma, and the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 310 North Perry Street in Bennington, Oklahoma, in honor of former Congressman Wesley “Wes” Watkins.
• HR1714 – To require that the Board Compensation Committees required for financial institutions receiving assistance under the Troubled Assets Relief Program include the representation of the financial institution’s lowest paid employees.
• HR1715 – To amend the Public Health Service Act with respect to the protection of human subjects in research.
• HR1717 – To allow a State to submit a declaration of intent to the Secretary of Education to combine certain funds to improve the academic achievement of students.
• HR1718 – To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to treat amounts paid for umbilical cord blood banking services as medical care expenses.
• HR1720 – To permit statues honoring citizens of the District of Columbia to be placed in Statuary Hall in the same manner as statues honoring citizens of the States are placed in Statuary Hall, and for other purposes.
• HR1721 – To amend the Public Health Service Act to help individuals with functional impairments and their families pay for services and supports that they need to maximize their functionality and independence and have choices about community participation, education, and employment, and for other purposes.
• HR1722 – To improve teleworking in executive agencies by developing a telework program that allows employees to telework at least 20 percent of the hours worked in every 2 administrative workweeks, and for other purposes.
• HR1723 – To provide for a paid family and medical leave insurance program, and for other purposes.
• HR1724 – To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide tax incentives for the remediation of contaminated sites.
• HJR41 – Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to prohibit the President from entering into a treaty or other international agreement that would provide for the United States to adopt as legal tender in the United States a currency issued by an entity other than the United States.  [Oh man, they've allowed the fed to run the dollar into the ground, and now they're scared of the Dollar no longer being the world's reserve currency.  Legal tender laws need to be abolished, so we can have competing currencies!]
• HR1706 – To prohibit brand name drug companies from compensating generic drug companies to delay the entry of a generic drug into the market, and for other purposes.
• HR1707 (also S-706) – To increase housing, awareness, and navigation demonstration services (HANDS) for individuals with autism spectrum disorders.
• HR1708 (also S-700) – To amend title II of the Social Security Act to phase out the 24-month waiting period for disabled individuals to become eligible for Medicare benefits, to eliminate the waiting period for individuals with life-threatening conditions, and for other purposes.
• SR85 – A resolution congratulating the Rocky Mountain College Battlin’ Bears for winning the 2009 National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Men’s Basketball National Championship.
• HR1725 – To amend title XIX of the Social Security Act to require, at the option of a State, drug manufacturers to pay rebates to State prescription drug discount programs as a condition of participation in a rebate agreement for outpatient prescription drugs under the Medicaid Program.
• S-692 – A bill to provide that claims of the United States to certain documents relating to Franklin Delano Roosevelt shall be treated as waived and relinquished in certain circumstances.
• S-695 – A bill to authorize the Secretary of Commerce to reduce the matching requirement for participants in the Hollings Manufacturing Partnership Program.
• S-696 – A bill to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to include a definition of fill material.
• S-697 – A bill to amend the Public Health Service Act to help individuals with functional impairments and their families pay for services and supports that they need to maximize their functionality and independence and have choices about community participation, education, and employment, and for other purposes.
• S-698 – A bill to ensure the provision of high-quality health care coverage for uninsured individuals through State health care coverage pilot projects that expand coverage and access and improve quality and efficiency in the health care system.
• S-701 – A bill to amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to improve access of Medicare beneficiaries to intravenous immune globulins (IVIG).
• S-702 – A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow long-term care insurance to be offered under cafeteria plans and flexible spending arrangements and to provide additional consumer protections for long-term care insurance.
• S-703 – A bill to provide for health care for every American and to control the cost and enhance the quality of the health care system.
• S-705 – A bill to reauthorize the programs of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and for other purposes.
• S-707 – A bill to enhance the Federal Telework Program.
• S-689 – A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to clarify the treatment of church pension plans, and for other purposes.
• S-690 – A bill to amend the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act to reauthorize the Act
• HR1719 – To amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to promote the use of the Internet by State and local election officials in carrying out voter registration activities, and for other purposes.
• S-693 – A bill to amend the Public Health Service Act to provide grants for the training of graduate medical residents in preventive medicine.
• S-694 – A bill to provide assistance to Best Buddies to support the expansion and development of mentoring programs, and for other purposes.
• HR1699 – To require that certain complex diagnostic laboratory tests performed by an independent laboratory after a hospital outpatient encounter or inpatient stay during which the specimen involved was collected shall be treated as services for which payment may be made directly to the laboratory under part B of title XVIII of the Social Security Act.
• HR1700 – To authorize the Administrator of General Services to convey a parcel of real property in the District of Columbia to provide for the establishment of a National Women’s History Museum.  [Not sure about this one.  What I do know is that the Constitution only allocates "10 square miles" for our nation's capital.]

Each bill introduced takes countless hours to be drafted, typed up, disseminated, put through the various stages of the process, all costing time and money.  So even if the bill seems minor, such as SR85 (“Congratulating…”), it costs you money.  Do you want your tax dollars being spent on this stuff?

Please take a couple of minutes out of your day to contact your representatives via telephone simply to tell them that you support or oppose a particular bill.  It’ll most likely take you less than two minutes, and it’s so very important that we stand up to our increasingly tyrannical government.

If you don’t know who your Senators are, or how to contact them, click here to found out.

If you don’t know who your Representatives are, or how to contact them, click here to find out.