Men are not fed on money. They do not clothe themselves with gold, or warm themselves with silver. What does it matter whether there is more or less money in the country if there is more bread on our sideboards, more meat in our larders, more linen in our wardrobes, more firewood in our cellars?
On January 30, 1835, Richard Lawrence attempted to shoot President Andrew Jackson, but failed, subdued by a crowd, including several congressmen. That was the first attempt on the life of a sitting U.S. president.
Sadly, January 30, 1948, was the date upon which Indian pacificist leader Mohandes K. Gandhi was shot and killed.
A famous poem ends “‘You lie,’ he cried, And ran on.” One of the better moments of modern televised State of the Union addresses was when a lowly member of Congress had the audacity to shout “You lie!” after a controversial immigration point.
Last night, Representative Steve Stockman (R-Tex.) did not run or shout, but merely walked out of the room.
Months ago, Stockman had handed out a book to each member of the august two-branched body he serves in, a book entitled Impeachable Offenses: The Case for Removing Barack Obama from Office.
What’s his beef with the president?
Tonight I left early after hearing how the President is further abusing his Constitutional powers. I could not bear to watch as he continued to cross the clearly-defined boundaries of the Constitutional separation of powers.
Even worse, Obama has openly vowed to break his oath of office and begin enacting his own brand of law through executive decree. This is a wholesale violation of his oath of office and a disqualifying offense.
Stockman is not alleging that all executive orders are dangerous or unlawful — just that some are indeed unconstitutionally usurping legislative powers.
The Prez certainly did imply that he was going to use them beyond their place in the Executive Branch, that is, instead of legislation from the Legislative Branch. Every Congressman should be concerned.
On the bright side, President Obama may be just blowing smoke. He’s just puttin’ on a show to appear more powerful.
On the dark side, a lot of people applauded. The idea of a leader with unilateral power, the culture of dictatorship, is never far enough away. . . .
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
To level and equalize the conditions of labor is not simply to cramp exchanges in certain branches of trade; it is to attack exchange in its principle, for its principle rests upon that very diversity, upon those very inequalities of fertility, aptitude, climate and temperature, that you desire to efface.
On January 29, 1761, Albert Gallatin was born. Gallatin served as the fourth United States Secretary of the Treasury — a post in which he served longer than any other in American history — advanced the anthropological and linguistic study of native Americans, and became the subject of a biography by Henry Adams. Called the “father of American ethnology,” he has been honored with a 1967 U.S. stamp (pictured) as well as many placenames, including the Gallatin National Forest in Montana.
Politicians know all about lying with statistics. But it’s more effective to lie with anecdotes — using stories to ignore the biggest Statistic in the Room.
President Barack Obama delivered his constitutionally obligatory State of the Union address to Congress last night. He told a lot of stories, and most of them may have been mostly true, for all I know. But what we do know for sure is that these stories distracted us from the one statistic that matters.
You know, to the actual state of the union.
Which is not sound.
The rising level of debt is putting the finances of the union in grave jeopardy. Politicians have promised too much — delivered too much — courtesy of borrowing from future tax revenues. The current debt is larger than the nation’s annual GDP. (That’s the stat that matters.) The federal government owes more than all of us, together, earn in a year.
This, of course, is unsustainable.
And yet the president is doing precious little to curb this unhappy meeting with destiny. Deficits are down a tad. He took credit for that. He didn’t credit the Republicans, his recalcitrant enemies.
But, in a State of the Union address filled with programs to expand and goals to “guarantee,” he didn’t offer to cut anything, did he? (Other than promise, yet again, to close Guantanamo.)
Indeed, in Obama’s most recent bickering “negotiation” with the House had his bid for extending unemployment benefits met with an ask price of an offsetting cut elsewhere in the budget. The prez balked.
Our “state”? In a deep debt hole, oblivious, and still digging.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
In a state of isolation, our wants exceed our powers; in consequence of Exchange, our powers exceed our wants.
The Internal Revenue Service has proposed new regulations to restrict the eligibility of nonprofit organizations applying for tax-exempt status.
Per the proposal, nonprofits tainted by certain kinds of political activity will be ineligible, since those kinds ipso facto don’t do anybody any good. Forget that “social welfare” and “political” issues might overlap.
Association with a candidate or political party, communicating with or supporting or even mentioning the name of a candidate for office too close to a general election, even voter registration drives would be disqualifying.
Let’s say a nonprofit bookstore promotes a select set of books online. The author of several of those volumes runs for office. Would the store’s tax-exempt status now be in jeopardy unless it scrubbed reviews of his books? Well, according to the IRS’s own explanation, “content previously posted by an organization on its Web site that clearly identifies a candidate and remains on the Web site during the specified pre-election period would be treated as candidate-related political activity.”
Any chance that the strict new rules will be varyingly interpreted and selectively enforced?
Well, yeah, if the IRS’s decades-long track record, especially the recent targeting of Tea Party and conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status, is any indication.
The agency is soliciting your comments on the proposed new tourniquet on political speech (here). The deadline is February 27. Proceed with pith if not vinegar.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
On January 28, 1912, Belgian economist Gustave de Molinari died. The last major economist of the French Liberal School, heir to Frederic Bastiat, and a prominent advocate of laissez faire, Molinari’s last book, “The Society of To-morrow” (the only one of his many books to be translated into English in his day) envisioned a future of extremely limited government, arguing against the growing tide of socialism and war that was becoming the then-near future.
Is Law to enforce rigorous Justice, or to be the instrument of Spoliation, organized with more or less adroitness?
Frédéric Bastiat, The Law (1850).