by Judge Andrew Napolitano
When President Obama won re-election last month by a larger margin than even his most fervent supporters had expected, though with fewer popular votes than he received in 2008, most commentators initially opined that not much had changed in Washington.
The president would remain in the White House for another four years, the Democrats would keep control of the Senate, and the House would stay in Republican hands. Most Republicans re-elected to both houses of Congress had publicly pledged not to vote to raise taxes under any circumstances. And most of those Republicans have adhered to that promise – until now.
Over the Thanksgiving weekend, the false congressional fiscal conservatives in the Republican Party began to reveal their true selves. Led by the Republican presidential standard bearer in 2008, Arizona Sen. John McCain, at least a half-dozen Republican members of Congress have renounced their public promises never to vote to raise taxes.
In the case of Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., Congressman and Senator-elect Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., they had re-stated their promises, directly or indirectly, as recently as last month during their successful campaigns. Did they blatantly dupe the voters? Did they genuinely change their minds? Did they ever sincerely accept the pro-freedom anti-tax logic?
The Founders certainly embraced the pro-freedom anti-tax logic, as they gave us a Constitution that barred the federal government from imposing any direct tax on any persons. That was part of the genius of the document. If the feds really needed cash, they’d need to tax the states. If the states were feeling over-taxed, they could block federal taxes in the Senate, where for 135 years senators were chosen by state governments as delegates to the Senate, rather than elected by voters. This procedure, too, was part of the Founders’ genius. It came about in order to assure a place at the federal table for the states, many of which were older than the federal government and all of which retained their sovereignty when they voluntarily joined the union. This procedure for choosing senators was also a check on the growth of the federal government.
Those constitutional provisions were cast aside during the progressive era about 100 years ago, when, during a period of just five years, the Constitution was amended so that the states lost their place at the federal table and Congress could tax incomes, and the feds got a new printing press for cash in the form of the Federal Reserve.
I have described this dreadful time in our history in my new book, “Theodore and Woodrow: How Two American Presidents Destroyed Constitutional Freedom.” They did so by inverting the concept of limited government. With the exception of Abraham Lincoln, every president from George Washington to TR’s predecessor, William McKinley, accepted the truism that the federal government is one of limited powers, and it may only in engage in behavior that is specifically authorized by the Constitution or reasonably inferable therefrom.
Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, who ran against each other and who hated each other, turned this value on its head. They jointly argued that the Constitution does not mean what it says and is not the Supreme Law of the Land as it states. They held that the federal government can do whatever it wishes unless those wishes are expressly prohibited by the Constitution.
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For 100 years, the Republican Party resisted the progressive onslaught. As recently as this past election just a few weeks ago, Republicans argued that increased tax revenue, whether from increased tax rates or from decreased tax deductions, effectively moves wealth from the productive sector and delivers it to the consuming sector – which would be the government.
This argument is really one of the basic laws of economics, so why are Republicans now rejecting it? I suspect that they are drunk with power and have concluded that they – just like Obama did – can assure their re-elections, their continued possession of governmental power, if they deliver bigger pieces of the federal pie to the folks back home. Stated differently, they are unwilling to address a system that soon will deliver more in entitlement payments and interest payments on government debt than it collects in revenue by reducing the entitlements, shrinking the government, cutting the debt, returning to the confines of the Constitution and letting hardworking Americans retain what is theirs. Instead, they now want to raise federal taxes.
They would be unwise to try to pull this off – and would be wise to recall recent history. The last Republican president to pledge “Read my lips. NO NEW TAXES” and then violate that promise was dispatched by the voters to a hotel suite in Houston, rather than to four more years in the White House. I bet George Herbert Walker Bush today would stick to his pledge.
Andrew P. Napolitano [send him mail], a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel. Judge Napolitano has written seven books on the U.S. Constitution. The most recent is Theodore and Woodrow: How Two American Presidents Destroyed Constitutional Freedom. To find out more about Judge Napolitano and to read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit creators.com.
Copyright © 2012 Andrew P. Napolitano
They should pull this off because we need a real lesson to understand where agreement is located. This last hundred years was not done by them it was done by us and our own agreement versus our resistance. It is ridiculous to keep blaming stupidly trained people who went to our same education indoctrinations that taught us to follow and not independent thinking. Independence is a word long forgotten and it is sure not a practice by very many. You can look where most people spend all their time looking, most are looking at some other rather than looking at themselves and their own poor choices, bad agreements and the allowance of this nonsense.
Where does responsibility reside? In some other or is this a part of YOU? Our own neglect of US is the true cause of our own failure. Show me our Republic, where is it hiding? Do you have it in a bank vault somewhere? Who the hell creates and sustains a Republic way of living? Can liberty survive in some other way known to man? Who stands and supports Liberty by a constitution, the people or a Government? How is that working by the way?
I have really been giving this some in depth thought, maybe instead of reacting to all these bogus ideas of others and nullifying their poor activities maybe we should Nullify our ridiculous agreements of support, pour inability to create independent thinking and to act accordingly. Maybe we need to nullify the lack of our own understanding of which way of Life we all said we signed on to, or did we? Maybe we have yet to decide such an action.
The beatings will essentially continue until we change us not them, who is it that learns these lessons, them? How is that going? So the real answer sits right before us doesn’t it?
I recently watched a film called Blue Gold and the resistance communities all over the world where people are standing up for their selves and resisting and removing Corporations from their countries and communities. What has really been taking place is they are finding agreement with each other and their independent ideas versus ideas from well trained non independent useless politicians. Personally I don’t want some well educated (trained puppet) in office, I want some living soul who tested a few ideas in life and got who causes crap to happen. Someone who did not agree with all statements in writing and tested a few to see if they were worthy at all.
Our whole basis is right in front of our faces but all the educated cannot locate it which says a lot, this basis is simple;
We are to be A Republic which is a way of life where public are able to DISCUSS these issues (which is different from educated dominance of any kind). This Republic is comprised of 3 basic parts that make up the whole and they are LIFE (YOU!) Liberty and act we DO! and Our Pursuit of Happiness which is simply acts of sustaining ourselves as this life as these communities to Thrive and grow. Most of you will not focus on these parts, you only focus on what all others are not doing around you. Independent thinking is a result of independent living (not the conforming to educated fallowing techniques) which have yet to produce anything material.
Let us decide today to Nullify education in this country and encourage the testing of real ideas directly associated with us. Let us be the solution and not the starring, the blaming and the oh so unconscious puppets of training of the past.
Fact; WE agreed to pay taxes, I did not say that was a good choice at all, but is what made it possible.
Fact; WE agreed to allow the growth of Government which stripped us of our Liberty.
Fact; WE allowed the alteration to our constitution which when applied is our liberty.
Fact; WE have all agreed to stop creating and promoting A Republic and decided on the American dream saga.
Fact; WE agreed to let representatives be put in office by special interest or corporate interest.
Fact; WE agreed to have and to support corporatism under the false claims of Capitalism (a financiers dream)
Fact; WE Agreed to support the idea of Debt by borrowing, (still a financiers dream)
Fact; WE refuse to look at ourselves as Life and make choice based upon such a fact.
Fact; We refuse to use and apply our Declaration of Independence as the foundation of this Republic period.
Fact; it is not only them that are trained and ignorant, it is us as well by our own ignorant agreements and this poor indoctrination.
Now who wants to swallow this crap, eat crow and learn these lessons, change the way we make choices and become a part of the solution and stop agreeing to the very causes we are pretending we are not.
New ideas do not come from old education, they are created in independent minds and this in itself a great lesson to receive. Nullify your old training, please.
Both parties and the media are controlled by oligarchs. This wont be defeated by conventional political means.
“The Founders certainly embraced the pro-freedom anti-tax logic, as they gave us a Constitution that barred the federal government from imposing any direct tax on any persons. That was part of the genius of the document. If the feds really needed cash, they’d need to tax the states.”
No, that was the system under the failed Articles of Confederation. The Constitution, on the other hand, deliberately gave Congress a broad taxing power and specified exports as the only thing Congress couldn’t tax. To suggest that the Constitution prohibits taxing individual people displays an incredible ignorance of the law.