Subject: Can we please make use of the 80-20 rule?
Yesterday I criticized the misdirected public rage about the AIG bonuses. There is already some buzz on Internet about my “strong words.”
I simply pointed out that these bonuses were authorized by Congress, signed into law by the President, and paid by a government appointed CEO. I also explained how the “Read the Bills Act” could have prevented this from happening.
Which is more rage-worthy? The fact that Congress authorized the AIG bonuses, or the fact that many politicians didn’t know they had done this?
We think the answer is obvious.
That’s why we think people are focusing on the wrong thing.
This same lack of focus is happening with the Federal Reserve.
There’s a big push behind Ron Paul’s “End the Fed” bill. That’s good. But what isn’t good is the relative lack of effort on behalf of his far, far more important “Honest Money” bills.
The “Honest Money” bills are more important because they would pave the way for passing the “End the Fed” bill. Here’s why . . .
Once the “Honest Money” bills pass, private businesses could begin creating the mechanisms for buying things with gold and silver. Businesses could, for instance, allow you to use gold and silver through your credit and debt cards.
This is crucial. There’s no chance we can abolish the Fed until or unless a competing money system is already in place.
Ron Paul’s “Honest Money” bills are the 80-20 approach to abolishing the Fed. We need to . . . * Repeal the legal tender law,
* Repeal the government monopoly on coinage, and
* End the tax on gold exchanges.
This would give us a competitive money system. Read More »
Ron Paul followed up this morning’s interview on Glenn Beck’s radio show with an appearance on Beck’s TV show this afternoon. They covered the same topics for the most part, although the radio interview was certainly more detailed.
On my drive in to work today listening to Glenn Beck a caller from Florida thanked him for supporting their Tea Part protest over the weekend. Beck replied by telling the caller that when he saw the news coverage it looked too much like an anti-Obama rally and it was important that these “Tea Parties” aren’t about partisanship. I couldn’t agree with Beck more on this point.
Doug Mataconis (BelowTheBeltway) has been critical for the very same reasons. Apparently, there are many of us who feel that the Tea Party protest movement is becoming way too partisan rather than a true movement for limited government and restoring Constitutional rule of law.
It’s appearing more and more likely that the Tea Party efforts are being infiltrated and taken over by Obama-haters. Or was that the point all along? Of course Obama deserves some of the blame, but it shouldn’t be only about him.
Let’s call the “tea party” and “going Galt” nonsense what it is: unprincipled partisan hackery. If these were truly principled protests, they’d have been around all through the Bush and Republican-controlled Congress years, too.
I’m now officially on the Mataconis/Knapp Tea Party hypocrisy bandwagon. Where do I sign up?
Those upset about the AIG bonuses should focus on the fact that Congress authorized them. All the Congressional grand-standing about how bad the bonuses are is rank hypocrisy. One of two things is true . .
They didn’t know about the bonus provision, in which case they ought to introduce DownsizeDC.org’s “Read the Bills Act,” so they’ll know what they’re passing before they cast their votes.
But the politicians aren’t the only guilty parties in this stupid controversy. The American people are also at fault. Here’s why . . .
We’re constantly told that Congress doesn’t respond to public pressure and that, therefore, what DownsizeDC.org is trying to do won’t work. And yet, we see Congress respond to public pressure repeatedly. The only problem is that it’s always pressure about the wrong things!
The way to prevent problems like the bonus-authorization provision is to pass the “Read the Bills Act” (RTBA). RTBA is the RIGHT THING about which to pressure Congress!
Had RTBA been in effect then a quorum of both the House and Senate would have heard the bonus-authorization provision read, and that reading would have been broadcast on C-SPAN.
EVERYONE WOULD HAVE KNOWN WHAT WAS BEING PROPOSED BEFORE IT WAS PASSED INTO LAW!
If the American people want to rage about something meaningful then they ought to rage about the fact that Congress doesn’t read the laws it passes. If the same pressure that’s been applied on this trivial bonus issue had been applied on behalf of RTBA then we might already be close to passing RTBA.
I’m going to be blunt, because blunt talk is easily understood. The American people need to stop being immature twits. We need to stop getting worked up about symbolic trivia and start getting worked up about REAL ISSUES.
Making Congress read the laws they pass is a REAL ISSUE.
You can use your personal comments to point out that RTBA would have exposed the Dodd-Obama bonus authorization to public scrutiny BEFORE it was passed into law.
Ron Paul was interviewed by Glenn Beck on his radio program this morning. They discussed (joked about really) the MIAC report which links Ron Paul supporters to dangerous anti-government domestic terrorist groups. They also discussed the recent efforts by Geithner and the Obama administration to spend our way out of the economic mess.
At one point Ron Paul reacted to a breaking news item from Glenn Beck with the following quote:
“They are lying through their teeth!”
One of the more interesting portions of the 17+ minute interview included a portion where Ron Paul preaches turning the political tide back toward freedom using education and political means rather than violence and chaos.
He believes (as we all should) that trying to “take back America” in a violent way is ultimately self defeating.
Listen to the interview here while I get it up on youtube for the masses:
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Judge Andrew Napolitano is one if the few publicly vociferous voices in the wilderness, crying out for the masses to pay attention to how the Federal Government is overstepping its bounds with regards to the document that created it: the U.S. Constitution.
Napolitano is host to one of the hottest new shows on the ‘net, FreedomWatch, which airs every Wednesday at 2pm, and features notable guests such as Ron Paul, Peter Schiff, Lew Rockwell, Rand Paul, John Lott, Andrew Levy, Cody Willard, Mark Skousen, and more. The archives are always available at FreedomWatchOnFOX.com.
In a recent article by the Judge, entitled Can Congress Write Any Laws It Wants?, he discusses government’s propensity to violate natural law and violate its Constitutional boundaries. He sums it up nicely:
Is freedom a reality or a myth? Are the rights guaranteed in the Constitution real or just a pretense? Isn’t the whole purpose of government in a free society to uphold rights rather than interfere with them? If the answers to these questions are no longer obvious, it is because we have a central government whose only self-acknowledged limitation is whatever it can get away with.
The situation has slowly gotten out of hand, beginning with the days of Alexander Hamilton, and ramping up more quickly since 9/11/2001.
Read what Judge Napolitano has to say:
“Some men think the Earth is round, others think it flat… But, if it is flat, will the King’s command make it round? And if it is round, will the King’s command flatten it? … NO.”
When Robert Bolt wrote that truism in his play A Man For All Seasons, his protagonist, Thomas More, was attempting to persuade the jury at his trial for high treason that all governments have limitations, and that the statute he was accused of violating was beyond Parliament’s lawful authority to enact. Sir Thomas was there appealing to the natural law as well as to the common sense of his jurors: The government can’t change the laws of nature. As we know, he fared no better than those who today argue that Congress is not omnipotent, has natural, moral, and constitutional limitations on its power, and every day fails to abide them. [Continue reading]
With the wave of sinister change befalling America I find myself caught between hope and a hard place. That hard place is a survivalist bunker with despair in the air. And that air is strangled with Barack Obama’s socio-fascist flatulence. If it weren’t for the wise old golden boy Ron Paul and my fellow free market odor-eaters I’d be the sound of one hand clapping.
Unfortunately during this, Obama’s honeymoon, we have to endure being accosted by his true believing underlings while we try not to make a mess in our under-things in disgust. The Democratic Party has “organized” to seek pledges in support of the almighty one’s liberty-intolerant agenda. I’m not sure why I endeavor to read the article and the comments. Perhaps I’m a glutton for eye rolls.
No country in the history of the world has ever spent their way out of a depression. To anyone supporting the spend and spend more policies of Barack Obama please answer one question. What makes America different from the other countries that have failed?
Could it be that the other countries didn’t spend enough? There is no better analogy for our situation than the average American family owning upside down homes and thousands in credit card debt. When the government wasn’t pushing subprime loans it was seeking subprime loans of its own. The pseudo-evil lenders were just following the government’s own “encouragement”. The average family followed the government into this predicament. As it unwinds the government will follow the average family on its own path to oblivion.
Family members are losing jobs and being forced out of homes. What happens when the U.S. government is forced out of its home? We already know from experience the laws are different for those that are fortunate enough to make them. Everyone blames Bernie Madoff for his pyramid scheme yet no one cries over the government sponsored pyramid scheme known as fractional reserve lending. Well, not many anyway. Those of us who claim Peter Schiff, Ron Paul, Tom Woods and a few others as our modern day economics professors recognize the hypocrisy immediately.
So what happens when our government’s “do as I say, not as I do” financial pyramid scheme falls apart? I sincerely hope we never have to find out.
The debauchery on Capitol Hill continues unabated, with an amazing ninety-three new bills introduced yesterday in Congress, many of which attempt to do the same thing. How many of these bills do you think are Constitutional? (Answer: very few). Here are some of the worst:
HR1652 – To require institutions receiving certain assistance from the Troubled Asset Relief Program or the Federal Reserve to have employee bonus payment plans approved in advance of the payments being made. [Each member of Congress must operate in a bubble, and/or they're all hoping for the "credit" if their bill is passed. This is at least the fifth bill on this subject in the past three days!]
HR1650 – To enhance the oversight authority of the Comptroller General of the United States with respect to expenditures under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. [Yet another TARP regulation bill. The full text of the bill is not currently available, so I couldn't tell if it specifically mentions employee bonuses so I could add it to the list above. Why don't these people just come out and admit that this TARP garbage is immoral an unconstitutional in the first place?]
S-651 – A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to impose an excise tax on excessive bonuses paid by, and received from, companies receiving Federal emergency economic assistance, to limit the amount of nonqualified deferred compensation that employees of such companies may defer from taxation, and for other purposes. [Number 7, by Sen. Max Baucus [D-MT]…]
HR1649 – To authorize the Secretary of Education to make grants to reduce the size of core curriculum classes in public elementary and secondary schools, and for other purposes.
HR1645 (also S-638) – To provide grants to promote financial and economic literacy. [While I think it's critical that people become more financially and economically literate, government should certainly not be the teacher, or else we'll end up with more Keynesian nitwits that have destroyed our economy to date. Rather, people can take Chris Martenson's Crash Course for free, and read books like Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson and Tom Woods' Meltdown.]
HR1643 (also S-648) – To amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to establish a prospective payment system instead of the reasonable cost-based reimbursement method for Medicare-covered services provided by Federally qualified health centers and to expand the scope of such covered services to account for expansions in the scope of services provided by Federally qualified health centers since the inclusion of such services for coverage under the Medicare Program.
HR1642 – To provide loans and grants for fire sprinkler retrofitting in nursing facilities.
HR1641 – To amend the National Trails System Act to provide for a study of the Cascadia Marine Trail.
HR1640 – To amend the Truth in Lending Act to protect consumers from usury, and for other purposes. [Caveat emptor. The process of buying a home would be much quicker and hassle-free if not for the myriad of regulations and bureaucratic red-tape imposed by the federal, state, and local governments.]
Forty-six new bills were introduced on Wednesday, March 18th. Here are some of the more obnoxious ones:
HR1590 – To provide assistance for the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, Poland.
HR1583 – To further competition in the insurance industry. [Huh? the only reason there is any lack of competition is due to government regulation and intrusion!]
HR1582 – The Executive Bonus Repeal Act: To amend the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 to strike a provision included in a recent amendment of such Act. [How many bills of nature do we need? There is already HR1572 to steal 90% of the bonuses as well as HR1542 which proposes to steal 100%.]
HR1581 – To optimize the delivery of critical care medicine and expand the critical care workforce. [Government interference is what has impeded the best emergency care possible. So now the "benevolent" hand of government is going to come in with more regulation to fix it?]
HR1580 – To authorize the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to award grants for electronic waste reduction research, development, and demonstration projects, and for other purposes.
HR1603 – To require institutions receiving large amounts of assistance under TARP to restrict compensation increases for officers, directors, and employees to the Federal civil service pay increase. [Again, such bills would not be necessary if there were no unconstitutional TARP in the first place.]
HR1600 – To amend title 10, United States Code, to provide for the treatment of autism under TRICARE.
HR1599 – To require survivor annuity payments made to disabled dependents to be disregarded in eligibility and benefit determinations under the supplemental security income (SSI) and Medicaid Programs.
HR263 – Expressing support for designation of the month of September as “National Brain Aneurysm Awareness Month”. [Hahaha, wouldn't this conflict with HR255 which would be “National Atrial Fibrillation Awareness Month”?]
HR262 – Expressing the strong concern of the House of Representatives about the actions of the Taliban in Swat, Pakistan, to restrict girls’ access to education. [Do they think that people in Afghanistan care what the U.S. House of Representatives is concerned about? Or put the other way, how would we like it if the government of another nation were to stick it's nose into our way of life? Granted, I do not agree with how females are treated in some cultures, but it's not the business of the Federal Government to be concerned with such things.]
HR258 – Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding drug trafficking in Mexico.
S-637 – A bill to authorize the construction of the Dry-Redwater Regional Water Authority System in the State of Montana and a portion of McKenzie County, North Dakota, for other purposes.
S-636 – A bill to amend the Clean Air Act to conform the definition of renewable biomass to the definition given the term in the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002.
S-635 – A bill to amend the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act to designate a segment of Illabot Creek in Skagit County, Washington, as a component of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.
S-634 (also HR1585) – A bill to amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to improve standards for physical education.
S-633 – A bill to establish a program for tribal colleges and universities within the Department of Health and Human Services and to amend the Native American Programs Act of 1974 to authorize the provision of grants and cooperative agreements to tribal colleges and universities, and for other purposes.
Yeah I know they are technically called cosponsors, but with the MIAC report I think coconspirator is a more apt word. We just published the list of Ron Paul’s HR1207 coconspirators late last night and now there are 6 new names on the list bringing the total to 39. The Federal Reserve Transparency Act is extremely important legislation in this age of economic instability. Please support it and let your own representatives know.
I really need to keep hounding my own representative until I see his name on the list.
For a complete list and to keep updated check out the Thomas.gov page listing the cosponsors of the bill. To see the cosponsors you have to put in “HR1207″ in the search box and select “Bill Number” before doing the search. Apparently, direct linking to the results doesn’t work properly.
Liberty Maven
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