Throw The Bums Out?

Given the lack of term limits for our Representatives and Senators, we are unfortunately left with the prospect of career politicians. Presumably, individual states could enact legislation enforcing term limits on their own Representatives and Senators, but it's extremely doubtful that any would choose to do so. After all, power in Washington comes with seniority, and with power comes Federal tax money that State politicians don't then need to tax directly from their citizens, so why mess with success? For this reason, it seems highly unlikely as well that a Constitutional amendment could garner the necessary votes for passage. (The logic that everybody would have to start over for leadership positions would likely not penetrate the minds of those voting).

So, what's a citizen, fed up with the Constitutional disregard and disdain shown in the hallowed halls of Congress, to do?

A politician currently of some renown once noted in a speech I attended, when asked about term limits, that we already have them - they're just called "elections." In that spirit, I'd like to propose the non-partisan rules for voting, better known as "Throw The Bums Out!" approach.

(1) Do not vote for the incumbent in any election. Those elected to serve us should return to the real world and reap what they've sown.

(2) Where there is an open seat, do not vote for a major party candidate (Democrat or Republican). History suggests that these individuals will soon become Bums who need to be thrown out.

(3) Candidates for an office against an incumbent who previously held the same office -- that is, for example, an incumbent who lost their seat in 2006 running again for the same seat in 2008 -- should be treated as incumbents unless at least 2 full terms of that office have passed. Waiting only one term suggests someone who wants to be a career politician in that seat who likely will spend their entire time after defeat raising money and running for office, rather than living in the real world.

(4) Where an incumbent has no opposition for reelection, you must still VOTE! Write in a candidate, or better yet, challenge the incumbent yourself!

I recognize that, especially in the case of Representatives with 2 year terms, voting against an incumbent in 2010 who was first elected in 2008 might seem harsh. But voters must be harsh in sending a message to the entrenched political caste. While letters, emails, phone calls, and tea parties might make politicians nervous, nothing would be more effective than massive turnover in the halls of Congress, especially electing a large number of third party candidates to weaken the political hold of the Democrat and Republican parties.

The Macro / Micro Theory

When I attended college to earn a business degree, we were required to take micro and macroeconomics. Microeconomics would, at a basic level, deal with economic decision making at the level of the individual (person, household, business), while macroeconomics would deal with economic decision making at the larger collective level, typically a state or nation.

One point that struck me in this course of study is that at the macroeconomic (national) level, decision making dealt not with a single individual, but with the market as a whole. Decisions best for the national economy, in other words, did not base its plans on how it would impact me specifically. A plan may result in an overall rise in GDP, productivity, and employment, while at the same time causing my personal employment to end. At the macro level, such a course of action would be desirable. At the micro level - namely, me and my family - such a course of action would be painful.

It strikes me that our Constitution madates a strict separation of macro and micro decisions. Each level of government must first determine if an action impacts the vast majority of citizens in scope. If it impacts fewer than half of the citizens, it should be deferred to a more local level of government. 51% of citizens still suggests, in my opinion, that such a decision area is still better handled more locally. Perhaps the threshhold is best set at 75% or more of citizens at a given level then it is likely a candidate for consideration by the level of government (federal, state, city/county, etc) in question.

Once it is determined that a particular course of action has a wide enough impact, the second crucial test is whether it is allowable within the confines of the contract between citizens and state known as the Constitution. Thus, even if a decision has sufficient impact - even for 100% of citizens - if it is not a specifically listed area for consideration by the government then it should not be undertaken.

Let's look at a couple of examples.

The education of our children likely passes the threshhold of impact. However, the United States Constitution says nothing about education; therefore, such consideration should move to the state level and discussed there. Any coordination desired between states can be negotiated between them; there is no Constitutional basis of a federal Department of Education. And while education in a general sense does impact a large percentage of the population, the education of an individual does not. As such, we have to strongly question whether government-supplied education loans are permitted within the confines of the Constitution.

What about bailing out the automakers? While it's tough to get a count, it appears that GM and Chrysler, the automakers most troubled, employ about 175,000 people in the United States. Should we bail them out? Well, let's say that the families of those employees bring the total of impacted people up to one million, which is a rather large average family size. Would one million people impacted hit the threshhold of most? I don't think so. What about all of the suppliers providing parts and services to those companies? Perhaps five million people would be impacted? Does that rise to the threshhold of federal scope in a country of three hundred million? It does not seem so. For those impacted, though, I would suspect that the cars and parts needed to produce them is a void that will filled by Ford, Toyota, Honda, and others, and that the new capacity would need to be absorbed through the hiring of skilled auto workers. Certainly most of those would come from the recently displaced workers from GM and Chrsler, no? Those not brought into those other companies would be the executives and labor union leaders whose decisions brought about the collapse of those companies.

Note that the macro/micro distinction must also be observed in how legislation is implemented. We cannot seek to apply it at the micro level. That is, laws must be applied equally to everyone. We cannot means test based on income or net worth any more than we target (or exclude) by religion, gender, race, ethnicity... or whether one is a member of Congress. To do so is to apply a law to an individual. A crime is a crime regardless of your social or economic demographic profile, and a benefit should apply without regard to your social or economic demographic profile either. If it can't be applied to everyone, then you've failed to meet the macro test, haven't you?

And a thought on all of this: given this approach, how does a progressive income tax fit in?

The Death of Religious Faith

Religious faith has long been an underpinning of the United States. Specific religions have not been endorsed by the government - one of the few cases where government has actually made a feeble attempt to live within the confines of the Constitution - yet rarely have you seen public figures who do not express some type of religious faith.

Faith communities and the acts of charity performed within and by these communities provided societies with a means of caring for the truly destitute or incapable of work; the non-productive through sloth or lack of initiative left to fend for themselves through begging. The Biblical proverb "He who does not work, neither shall he eat" served as a guiding principle. You could not choose to live off the generosity of others.

Yet we do not see this philosophy in play today. Americans remain a tremendously generous people. Yet our religious institutions are no longer the source of charity, nor even so much the basis of community any more as they were in days past.

It is my contention that the death of religious faith and predominance in our communities, with a corresponding decline in publicly enforced morality and standards of behavior, have been driven by and exacerbate an increase in the presence of government in our lives.

Why? When government attempts to dictate and enforce norms of behavior through legislation, bureaucratic decree, taxation, regulations, and the like, it becomes the source of our collective morality, rather than the religious communities in our neighborhoos.

Government, then, as the source of our collective morality, decreed that "the poor" (without discerning the cause of said poverty) deserved our compassion in the form of our collective, forcibly mandated, and inefficiently distributed tax dollars, replacing the religious community approach of knowledge of individual circumstances, judgement of worthiness to receive community charity, and voluntarily given benefit.

As such, government replaced the church and incentivized behavior leading to receipt of government-mandated "charity" for any, including those who chose charity over work due to their own sloth. A sense of entitlement develops - you do not see the individuals who make sacrifices in their own lives to provide the charity you receive when it is merely a government check doled out by a bureacrat you don't know - leading to, not thanks offered to the providers and desire to remove oneself from those handouts, but rather complaints about low (relative) standards of living, complaints about the greed of "the wealthy" / "the rich" being selfish with their blessings.

Behaviors which previously resulted in public shame and thus a desire to turn away from said behaviors - when our religious communities held sway as the focal point of our national morality - are now, if not openly encouraged, are certainly not *discouraged*. Witness the ability of families to receive more government spoils from the raiding of the storehouses of the evil rich should they choose to eschew marriage, to avoid employment, to bring yet more children into the world in those circumstances. How is that benefitting the individuals, the children, or society at large? Do we expect that those children, by and large, will learn to support themselves in any fashion other than what they see from their parent?

In returning to a more accurate following of our Constitution - our contract between grantor citizens and grantee elected officials and their subsidiaries - it is my contention that we will see a revival in our religious communities and a surge in personal responsibility, as irresponsible behavior will no longer be rewarded. It is more difficult to justify receiving charity from your next door neighbor and member of your religious community than it is to justify receiving an entitled standard of living by plundering from the faceless "someone elses" in society.

What Is A Constitutional Capitalist?

It is a person that believes that the contract between the grantor (the citizens) and its grantee (the government) must be followed precisely and enforced by the citizens, rather than the other way around.

It is a person who believes that our government and other institutions should be constructed and operated so as to encourage the creation and import of capital to fund wealth building activities of the citizens of this country, rather than to plunder capital and encourage it to leave our shores or be hidden.

It means that constitutionally limited government is best and best achieved by explicit following of the Constitution, and that good intentions or new eras are not sufficient means to artificially amend (without documentation or vote) the explicit requirements and/or limitations of federal government to current whims and desires. You follow the explicit dictates of the governmental contract of the Constitution, and if there is evidence that the contract needs modification, the amendment process is followed. If desirable, individual States and localities may pursue such policies as allowable under their own charters.

It means that government’s taxing power is to be performed in the most efficient, equitable, and transparent manner possible while encouraging the creation of individual wealth and capital, which will in turn enable others and future generations to produce ever greater wealth and capital, rather than as a means of controlling behavior or a means of distributing political spoils.

It means that decision making and choices are, as defined in the Constitution, properly made at the individual level and that the most local level of governmental agency should become involved only where decisions are in fact directly impairing another individual’s rights to life, liberty, or property – in that order.

In its simplest form, it represents people who want the freedom to live their lives in true liberty, striving to better themselves and their families, without the heavy hand of government dictating how, where, or when they may engage in those behaviors or limiting or discouraging productive activity.


It is, in short, an American.