It’s Only a Trillion Dollars, and It’s Just Tax Dollars

Congress passed a $1.1 Trillion spending bill yesterday. It was mostly passed by Democrats but there were a couple Republicans who joined in. The Republicans did not support it because, well they’re Republicans, and since it was not their bill to spend a trillion dollars they put on their self-righteous suits and denounced the bill. Had the situation been reversed, I have no reason to think that the Democrats would have decried the bill against virtual unanimous Republican support. We all know that some of the items covered by the spending would have been on a few different things, but both sides would have found their cause célèbre with which to denigrate the other.

The public will predictably divide into their Republican and Democratic cadre and a few splinter groups all of whom will be taking positions on why it’s too much, too little, being spent on the wrong things and needs to be spent on other things, or is a conspiracy by their favorite scapegoat cartel. What will not be noted or talked about is that the Government doing nothing different than they have been doing forever. They are crafting spending plans, spending commitments, spending objectives and spending pay-offs. The bill is compiled by Congress, for Congress, and of Congress. And therein lies the problem. Congress has willfully deceived itself into believing that the Constitution gave it the right to decide upon how the taxes of the country are to be spent.

What the Constitution really provides for is that the responsibility for all appropriations of the federal government being vested in the legislature. And the salient term that the politicians have for their own convenience left unattended to is that Congress has the “responsibility” vested in their hands. And they do not recognize that they are responsible. Responsible in the sense that they are to held accountable to the public for the proper and appropriate use of these funds for the benefit of the nation and its populace.

How do we know that the politicians are not responsibly spending our tax dollars? If they were acting responsibly then they would be seeking better ways to ensure that every tax dollar that was spent was being used to its utmost value. A responsible Congress would find ways to get more benefit for fewer dollars, not the spend more dollars without any benefit even expected. Where is Congress even employing any of the successful capitalistic processes that have been so powerful in creating the enormous wealth of the nation? Congress has made itself an un-responsible assembly. Congress has neither leaders, members or supporters that understand or even recognize their moral obligation to public service for which they were elected and to which they pledged their lives and honor.

The huge deficit that imperils the United States is and has been dutifully crafted by each successive Congress regardless of party. And the public continues to place the blame on whoever is not their preferred political group. It’s always easier to blame the other side, rather than accept that the responsibility is your own. Kind of makes you wonder where Congress got the idea of abrogating their responsibility.