Once upon a time we were taught that thrift was a virtue. Today we have to ask what possible difference does it make any more?
We live in a time when the majority of our citizens don’t understand how the tax system works, or more appropriately, doesn’t work. They are easily convinced by politicians that “drastic cuts” to the rate of growth mean actual cuts. Most don’t even realize that the past government shutdown was contrived, or understand why “zero based budgeting” and a “Balanced Budget Amendment” is so important.
Let’s begin with The U.S. Constitution, Section 7, that says that “All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives. In other words, the House holds the purse strings and is charged with submitting a budget each fiscal year. While they consider the president’s proposed budget, their job is to keep spending under the debt ceiling. Once they have adjusted the budget, it is sent to the Senate, where that body adds its demands for funding, and then on to a joint conference committee for resolution. Both Houses vote on the finished product and send it to the president for veto or signature. At least that is the way it is supposed to work.
In reality, the House budget is loaded with PORK in the Senate and by the House in the joint conference committee. That’s how they reward themselves and their cronies and how powerful voting blocs in each state get more funding for their pet projects. The longer members of Congress serve, the more powerful they become and the more PORK they bring home, keeping their constituents happy and voting them back into office.
Other methods to increased spending includes raising the debt ceiling, supplemental or “emergency” spending resolutions, and adding a desire unfunded program or project and cost as a rider to a completely unrelated bill. Everyone turns a blind eye to such shenanigans and the taxpayers are once again looted.
Obama’s proposed budget has been unanimously rejected every year since he took office. Under Obama, the game has changed, but there is a method to his madness. He prefers to have no limits on his power, and with the budget and the budget-makers under his thumb, he manages to unconstitutionally drain the coffers via tools such as executive orders. That means that every time we reach the debt ceiling, another battle erupts and almost no one in the House has the courage to close the purse.
While the passing of the fiscal budget is a constitutional requirement, the government has operated without an official budget for almost all of Obama’s reign. To be fair, the House has regularly forwarded budgets to the Senate but one man, the odious Senate president, Harry Reid, regularly pronounced them DOA, ignoring them until he got his way.
The House caves, the debt ceiling is raised with promises of imaginary cuts down the road and Congress can once again “pretend to follow it” while everyone happily keeps spending. With no effective budgetary restraints, Harry Reid, RINOs and Obama continue to raped the Treasury and the taxpayers each year while increasing their power exponentially.
There are words such as dishonorable, oath-breakers, liars, frauds, hollow men, etc. that come to mind for those without conscience. Obama, Reid and the House Leadership have been shown on numerous occasions to be what they truly are – hypocrites, every one of them.
We as a nation are faced with the cowardice and lies of the political class and almost everyone connected with it. Our leaders in both parties have forgotten their oaths of office, particularly that oath to protect and defend the Constitution. What a shame that so few men stand on principle and this nation is now led by fools and simpletons.
Source: Anniel Winters, American Thinker, “Mind The Pennies”
