IT'S 1787 AGAIN

Is It 1787 Again?

 

Much has been said lately about the current direction of our great American country.  Our National debt must be acknowledged by any faction to be ridiculously, obscenely out of control.  The Federal Government has usurped authority and control of our freedoms that was not allowed to them by our Constitution and we seem to have no voice in the matter.  In these times, I feel moved to repeat the following lines:

 

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.  That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.  Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.  But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.” (The various emphases have been added by this writer.)

 

Many of you, perhaps most of you, and maybe all of you will recognize these words as from the text of the Declaration of Independence, which preceded the Revolutionary War that liberated our Nation’s founders from the bonds of tyranny and the intolerable weight of despotism.  Then in 1787 some Plain, Honest Men [title of the book about the making of the Constitution written by Richard Beeman] concluded that the government created by the Articles of Confederation was fatally flawed and set out to replace it and to institute new government.  On September 15, 1787, these “plain, honest” men delivered our current form of government through the Constitution.  The flaws they saw to be fatal and in need of correction were; 1) the National Government’s inability to levy taxes to support the rightful duties of the national government (the National Government was too week), 2) it required unanimous approval of the state legislatures to amend the document (making it extremely difficult if not impossible to change and adjust when needed), and 3) there was no provision for an executive office (one person to represent the country).

 

Some today say that the Constitution needs to be INTERPRETED in the light of present day conditions.  However, the founding fathers intended that the constitution be strictly construed.  They provided for changing when times seem to require it; it’s by the amendment process.  Our present day elected officials betray their oaths of office when they pretend that the Constitution can just be ignored when it’s inconvenient to follow its requirements.

 

But now, in the face of years and to my mind egregious violations of the Constitution and actions by our Government that threaten our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and general safety and well being, we may well have come to a point where we should no longer suffer these evils.  It seems like it is 1787 again.  There seem to me, given the circumstances of the present day, to be some fatal flaws in our current form of government that we should no longer suffer.  Granted that government form should not be changed on a whim and that is the strongest argument for a representative form of government and I would not suggest that we should go so far as to depart from that safeguard against gyrations caused by the whimsy of the day.

 

One fatal flaw that I see is the unjustified lack of adequate check on the power of Executive Branch.  In 1787, those who wrote the Constitution perceived that the Federal Government needed to be strengthened for the good of the whole.  From the circumstances they saw, they were undoubtedly correct but today it is evident that they went too far in that direction.  It’s time to swing the pendulum a little back toward controlling the powers of the Executive Branch.  The President should not be able to unilaterally establish non-elected government agencies and Czars with authorization by him to perform tasks of GOVERNING with powers not allowed to them by the Congress.   The rewritten Constitution (or by amendment) should specifically prohibit the creation of such entities, without Congressional approval.

 

Also the President wields too much power with the current form of the veto process.  The Constitution requires that the President give the house of the Legislature, which originated the bill, his objections to a bill when he sends it back.  I believe he/she should also be required to give a Constitutional analysis of the bill and his/her objections to the bill.  If the President fails to do this within 7 days of sending the bill back, the bill should automatically become law, as it was approved by the two houses of the Legislature.  Much like the requirement for a unanimous approval of an amendment, under the Articles of Confederation, was considered a fatal flaw by those “plain, honest” men, the need for a two-thirds vote by the Congress to override a veto is too onerous.  A veto should be able to be overridden by a 60% + 1 affirmative vote by Congress.  A simple majority would be too lax in a representative form of government.  Likewise, an Amendment to the Constitution should continue as it is.  This process was intended to not be taken too lightly, so much that the ‘whim du jour’  could cause radical fluctuations in the rules of the land.  This would be chaotic.

 

Another flaw is the ability / allowance for Congress to incur debt.  If it is believed to be necessary to spend in excess of revenue, from time to time, there should be an absolute limit on the amount by which spending can exceed revenue.  It should be something modest.  Either a fixed 5% or tied to current Government Bond interest.  This should be an amendment to the Constitution so Congress cannot simply LEGISLATE an increase in the debt ceiling.  This ceiling should be an absolute and not an amount that can be added each year.  Once the Federal Government has reached this limit, it can incur no more debt; not in the current year, not in the next year not ever.  The idea is to pay down that debt before incurring more.

 

On a related but different subject, Congress should be responsible for doing an annual, or causing that there be an annual actuarial analysis of the Social Security funding, as was originally required by the bill that became the law creating the Social Security System.  And to make adjustment as necessary each year to avoid a collection of deficits that when finally addressed seem insurmountable.  And the actual assets of the Social Security Fund should be required to be funded just as ERISA requires private defined benefit plans to be funded.  They should not be allowed to decimate the fund by using ‘funny money’ on the balance sheet.

 

I call for some Plain, Honest Men with the influence to do so to call for a Constitutional Convention and change our form of Government to better protect our unalienable rights to freedom, safety, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and to free us from the overly burdensome interference from a Federal Government.

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