United Liberty

Recently, I was in a discussion about a good friend of mine who serves in the Alabama legislature. In the conversation, I mentioned this individual and said you can count on that person to do what is right. They are the kind of people we need in the legislature. The other person with whom I was conversing would call themselves a conservative Republican, but immediately they began to discuss legislators and members of Congress. That individuals sole criterion for quality of an elected representative is the amount of money that elected representative brings back to their home area.

For generations, politicians have held onto office by boasting of money brought back into the district. Particularly distressing is that so-called conservative Republicans go to Congress with a vengeance to fight the leviathan of big government, but are soon lured into voting for unconstitutional spending because some of that money comes back to the district. Hence, we vote our way into the treasury and buy votes to re-elect us.

Our representatives have spent our huge federal revenues, have spent deeply into the Social Security Trust Fund, and then have borrowed to the gills to finance spending. The vast majority of funds spent are not authorized by the US Constitution. The vast borrowing sprees by our Federal Government have now reached foreign banks as a great portion of our national debt is held by international investors. Shockingly, lenders in Red China hold billions and billions of loans to the US Government. Congressman Ron Paul warned that Red China could wage economic warfare simply by dumping their vast holdings in US dollars.

In light of our huge spending debts and our international obligations, are we surprised that our dollar has less value on the international market? As the Federal Reserve inflates the money supply to “boost” the economy, our dollars buy less on the international market. Demagogues blame oil companies and even Arab oil sheiks, but few point their fingers at a Congress that spent money without Constitutional spending. By the way, we are watching as Congress foolishly bails out Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, but I dare ask where our Constitution authorizes Federal intervention into the housing market?

Let’s face it! We are broke! Foreign countries have us by the neck and are holding us hostage. Our dollar buys less, due to the inflating of our currency and the worthlessness of paper money. Our debts have us obligated to the gills. Our American dollars will buy less Arab oil, due to the worthlessness of our US currency.
We are borrowing money to provide for the world. Yet, we are not looking realistically at repaying those debts.

My great fear is that we are killing incentive for investment and spending our way out of prosperity and into poverty. The problem is bi-partisan,with blame for both Republicans and Democrats. While the remnants of the free market have kept our economy growing, one can only wonder how much debt and worthless money can we bear before a market crash is too severe for any rebound. For years, conservatives have begged for a return to real money, cutting of federal spending, and a return to Constitutional limits on the size of government. Forgive my pessimism, but I fear that we may be too late— but we must try!