Voice For Liberty

Tag: United States government

  • GovTrack.us helps citizens watch Congress

    The website GovTrack.us is a great resource for citizens who are interested in the United States Congress. With the rapid expansion of government in the recent past, this is something we should all be concerned with.

    By using GovTrack.us, you can search for bills by their bill number, words in the bill, the bill sponsors, and other ways. Once you’ve found the bill, you can read its text and see its status as it works its way through Congress. What’s really useful is to add a tracker to the bill, so that you can be notified — either on the site itself or through email or RSS feed — when there’s new information about the bill.

    If you’re interested in information about particular members of Congress, you can find them by name, zip code, or by clicking on a map. Once found, GovTrack.us reports some useful information.

    One thing reported is the member’s position across the political spectrum. This is done through a statistical analysis of cosponsorship of bills. Kansas Sen. Brownback is identified through this analysis as a “far-right Republican,” while Sen. Roberts is also a “far-right Republican,” a change from his characterization as a “rank-and-file Republican” when I looked at this website in June.

    This analysis also reports that Roberts is “somewhere between a leader and a follower,” according to sponsorship of bills. Brownback is rated the same.

    The page for each member also reports approval ratings from SurveyUSA and an analysis of missed votes. It also holds a link to the page at the Center for Responsive Politics, which lets you see information about campaign contributions. Information about committee membership and bill sponsorship and cosponsorship round out this page.

    You can also add a member to your tracking page, so you can receive email updates when new information becomes available.

    This website is a useful resource for citizens to keep with with Congress.

  • Thoughts on Constitution Day

    Although Constitution Day has passed for this year, the article below contains important ideas for us to remember every day of the year. Thank you to Al Terwelp of Overbrook for authoring this submission. I apologize for missing it on Constitution Day.

    Thoughts on Constitution Day

    Today, September 17, is a little-remembered date in Kansas and arguably a day that eclipses even Independence Day in significance. On this day in 1787, occurred the signing of the U.S. Constitution. Not since the Magna Carta, (June 15, 1215) had there been such a progression by the purpose, mind and hand of mankind to peacefully join together to complete for themselves and their heirs guarantees of security against oppression.

    After the Revolutionary War was newly won our infant nation soon became adrift. Shey’s Rebellion in 1786 was evidence that we needed to jealously protect liberty and build a strong self government requiring secure checks and balances. The founders wanted a Republic ruled by law and purposefully avoided the tyranny of a superior few found in a monarchy or oligarchy and the overbearing force of the mob majority in a democracy.

    Unsatisfied with the Constitution’s original shortcomings and flaws, in 1789 anti-federalists and James Madison would introduce additional safeguards to the rights of man in a series of ten articles known as the Bill of Rights and would ultimately lead to the successfully completed ratification of the Constitution in 1790. Our Constitution has since been continually improved by a total of 27 amendments and has survived many challenges to become a near perfect example of governance and reference to human conduct. The result is the most unlikely, rare, opportunity and achievement in the chronicle of humankind.

    The American State Papers, (Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, Constitution, Bill of Rights, Amendments), are a clearly written exhibition of the virtues given to us by our creator. This acquired and instilled virtue is infused via the action of our Constitutional laws thus additionally preserving and fostering it in our citizens. No government through its temporal laws can make good citizens. We have free will. Neither was the Constitution’s intention to create laws that forbid all vices in men. Why should it. Our Constitution does however, dictate reason and facilitate the virtue by which we chose to be governed thus habitualizing good behavior in the people.

    Lovers of liberty see the virtue in our founding documents and the advantage that exists in being obedient to reason. The Constitution’s chain of reasoning serves as our foundation of principles and the intellectual origins which guide the destinies of our lives. Like the Ten Commandments, the Constitution provides us knowledge that proceeds from theoretical deduction and gives us simple black and white reference points to be used as a compass star to pilot a world of complex, confusing, gray issues.

    The Constitution and the other state papers are also established and accepted statements of a new system of knowledge. One based not only on legal rights and human laws but on natural rights, natural laws and their demonstrated conclusions. All people are born with these universal rights and they are not contingent on human law or acquired from government. These are the truths that Jefferson held to be self-evident and unalienable. These endorsements of truth give us not only knowledge about a belief, but continually communicate to us when to hold a belief to be true. This unsurrenderable document that framed laws by men not perfect in virtue is much more than a contract from which government limits and derives its authority. Its words ultimately bind us in conscience from a higher eternal law.

  • Articles of Interest

    Wichita airport, golf, Sweden’s economy, federal government hiring needs, depression.

    Drop in fliers could alter terminal plan

    The Wichita Eagle reports that a drop in passengers might cause the airport to alter its plans. “The trouble locally is that Wichita was counting on increased traffic to finance a planned new terminal building to replace its 1950s-vintage facility.” I’ve been in favor of keeping costs at the airport as low as possible, which means making a small renovation rather than a wholesale replacement. See Wichita’s new airport terminal: Has its time passed? and Consider carefully costs of a new Wichita airport terminal: “As Wichita considers building a new terminal at its airport, we should pause to consider the effect an expensive new terminal would have on the cost of traveling to and from Wichita, and by extension, the economic health and vitality of our town. … Airlines are starting to become alarmed at the high costs some airports charge airlines for using their facilities.”

    Wichita City Council approves $1 golf fee increase

    The Wichita Eagle reports an increase in golf fees at city-owned courses. Editorialist Rhoda Holman wrote: “To their credit, the six Wichita City Council members who voted Tuesday to raise golf course fees clearly hated to do it.” What, does hating to do something mitigate its effect or make it heroic in some way? If the city really wants to improve the golfing experience for Wichitans, it should immediately sell all the courses it owns.

    The Swedish Model

    There are those in America who praise Sweden as an example of a country with a huge government and prosperity at the same time. In The Swedish Model, the Cato Institute’s Richard W. Rahn looks at the history of Sweden over the last century and concludes this: “Those who wish to chase the Swedish model need first to decide which model they seek: The high-growth, pre-1960 model; the low-growth model of the 1970s and 1980s; or the reformist, welfare-state model of recent years. The irony is that the current Democratic Congress and administration are rapidly emulating the parts of the Swedish model that proved disastrous and rejecting those parts that are proving to be successful.”

    Federal Government Needs Massive Hiring Binge, Study Finds

    A Washington Post story finds that “The federal government needs to hire more than 270,000 workers for ‘mission-critical’ jobs over the next three years, a surge prompted in part by the large number of baby-boomer federal workers reaching retirement age, according to the results of a government-wide survey being released Thursday.” All told, the study found that the federal government needs to hire 600,000 workers over the next four years, which would increase the workforce by one-third.

    The Real Town Hall Story

    E.J. Dionne Jr. writes in the Washington Post that the impression that television viewers may form of the last month’s town hall meetings may be false: “Much as the far left of the antiwar movement commanded wide coverage during the Vietnam years, so now are extremists on the right hogging the media stage — with the media’s complicity.”

    What Happened to the ‘Depression’?

    Writing in the Wall Street Journal, economist Allan H. Meltzer makes the case that the recession is probably over, or will be soon: “Most economists now believe that the recession is expected to end before much of the government spending takes hold.” The spending referred to is the stimulus bill passed earlier this year. So what should we do? “The proper response now is to repeal what remains of the misguided stimulus and avoid the cap-and-trade program.”

  • Stop spending our future

    It’s hard to comprehend the spending by the federal government over the last year. The numbers are so large, the spending programs announced so quickly, one after another, that sometimes we need to step back and take a look at the big picture. When we do, it’s quite terrifying, especially when we realize that the Obama administration and Congress have several more large programs to pass.

    A video that places these programs and spending in context is available from StopSpendingOurFuture.org. It’s short and to the point. The companion website, a joint effort of The Heritage Foundation and Americans for Prosperity Foundation, provides additional information and background.

  • Paygo rule meaningless, harmful

    In a letter printed in yesterday’s Wichita Eagle, Doug Ittner of Wichita promotes the benefit of a rule known as “paygo.” The purpose of this rule is to force budget discipline on Congress. As the Washington Post’s David Broder wrote in that newspaper in June: “[Paygo’s] key provision requires that any new tax cut or entitlement increase be paid for by an offsetting reduction in other programs or a tax increase. If, for example, you want to guarantee child care for every working mother or provide her with a payroll tax cut, you would have to find savings or revenue elsewhere of equal size.”

    It sounds like Congress has suddenly been overtaken by reason, doesn’t it?

    If only it were so.

    The reality is that the paygo rule is so feckless as to be meaningless. In fact, the rule causes great harm. By sounding tough, the existence of the rule leaves apparently naive citizens like Mr. Ittner to conclude that things are under control in Washington. But things are far from under control, and this illusion of control is quite harmful.

    A good article to read to understand how paygo works is the Wall Street Journal article The ‘Paygo’ Coverup from June. Here are some of the points it makes.

    • When Democrats took over Congress in 2006, Speaker Nancy Pelosi imposed paygo rules. What happened? “By 2008, Speaker Pelosi had let those rules lapse no fewer than 12 times, to make way for $400 billion in deficit spending.”
    • President Obama campaigned on paygo, and the deficit has exploded by an unprecedented amount since he took office.
    • “Paygo only applies to new or expanded entitlement programs, not to existing programs such as Medicare.” Existing entitlements consume the lion’s share of federal spending, so paygo doesn’t apply to much of the problem.
    • Paygo doesn’t apply to discretionary spending.
    • Congress classifies spending to circumvent paygo. “… the 2010 budget resolution included a $2 billion increase for low-income heating assistance as an entitlement change that should be subject to paygo. But Congressional Democrats simply classified it as discretionary spending, thereby avoiding the need for $2 billion in cuts elsewhere.
    • “The other goal of this new paygo campaign is to make it easier to raise taxes in 2011, and impossible to cut taxes for years after that.”

    Even the liberal David Broder, in his Washington Post piece, recognizes that the current law is “full of loopholes,” as the title of his article indicates.

    We’d be better off without this meaningless rule, so full of loopholes, that lets politicians promote the illusion of controlling the federal budget.

  • In Wichita, Declaration of Independence to be read

    Here’s a message sent to me by Mike Shaw. This seems like it will be an interesting event. For more information, contact Mike Shaw at mshaw21@cox.net.

    Too many times we have heard the upcoming National Holiday referred to as “firecracker day.” I wonder, have we really been dumbed down to the point we no longer know why we celebrate on that day?

    As such, a team of good voices will be reading the Declaration of Independence aloud this upcoming 4th of July. We will be at the south steps of the old Sedgwick County Courthouse at 9:00 a.m., across the street east of the new courthouse. The building is located in the north east corner of the intersection of Main and Central. It is a Saturday, so we hope we will have a good turnout, and the county asks that we stay off the grass. Beware, it is a scary document when you realize these men were risking their lives, fortunes, and reputations in signing this document and declaring our country free of England. A copy of the original document will be on display. I’m hoping we can make this a yearly event.

    Click to get a Google map to the event site.

  • It’s time to audit the Federal Reserve Bank

    I received a press release from the Libertarian Party of Kansas announcing their support for legislation introduced by U.S. Representative Ron Paul that would “audit the centralized/privatized banks that make up the Federal Reserve System.”

    “The secretive FR [Federal Reserve] is a monetary oligarchy and an unelected monopoly that has control of credit, interest, volume and value of our currency. Until the people regain control of their money, bankers and not the government, will control the situation and our property,” says Al Terwelp, Vice Chair of the Libertarian Party of Kansas. “We must have the ability to search for the truth in FR practices and once it is found only then can we exercise justice for all. Without openness, our Republic’s existence is in jeopardy, for every dollar, every citizen, every issue of monetary, social and foreign policy is connected to the hegemony that is the Federal Reserve.”

    Personally, I find that most people have no idea of what the Federal Reserve does, or that it creates money out of thin air. It doesn’t even have to print it, as all it has to do is make some computerized ledger entries, and there’s new some money.

    Rep. Paul’s bill that would requre the audit of the Fed, HR 1207, has 237 co-sponsors in the House, including Kansas’ Tiahrt, Moran, and Jenkins. Rep. Dennis Moore of Johnson County is not a sponsor.

    Rep. Paul has a resource page with much information about the legislation and the need for it at Audit the Federal Reserve: HR 1207 and S 604.

  • GovTrack.us helps citizens watch Congress

    The website GovTrack.us is a great resource for citizens who are interested in the United States Congress. With the rapid expansion of government in the recent past, this is something we should all be concerned with.

    By using GovTrack.us, you can search for bills by their bill number, words in the bill, the bill sponsors, and other ways. Once you’ve found the bill, you can read its text and see its status as it works its way through Congress. What’s really useful is to add a tracker to the bill, so that you can be notified — either on the site itself or through email or RSS feed — when there’s new information about the bill.

    If you’re interested in information about particular members of Congress, you can find them by name, zip code, or by clicking on a map. Once found, GovTrack.us reports some useful information.

    One thing reported is the member’s position across the political spectrum. This is done through a statistical analysis of cosponsorship of bills. Kansas Sen. Brownback is identified through this analysis as a “far-right Republican,” while Sen. Roberts is a “rank-and-file Republican.”

    This analysis also reports that Roberts is “somewhere between a leader and a follower,” according to sponsorship of bills. Brownback is rated the same.

    The page for each member also reports approval ratings from SurveyUSA and an analysis of missed votes. It also holds a link to the page at the Center for Responsive Politics, which lets you see information about campaign contributions. Information about committee membership and bill sponsorship and cosponsorship round out this page.

    You can also add a member to your tracking page, so you can receive email updates when new information becomes available.

    This website is a useful resource for citizens to keep with with Congress.

  • Harold Koh nomination threatens American law and sovereignty

    President Barack Obama has appointed Harold Koh to be Legal Advisor to the State Department. While a job with this title might seem to be relatively minor, it turns out that this position is quite influential and powerful. Koh’s views on the law indicate that he should not be confirmed by the Senate for this position.

    Harold Koh is a transnationalist. What does that mean?

    • International law and American law are not distinct
    • International law should be incorporated into American law
    • American courts should import international law, even when that law conflicts with American legal tradition and laws our elected representatives have passed

    According to M. Edward Whelan III of the Ethics and Public Policy Center:

    Transnationalists have three primary mechanisms for their revolution. First, they advocate a new understanding of “customary international law” (or CIL) in which they and other international elites, rather than state practice, generate the norms of new CIL and in which those norms supposedly are binding as federal common law. Second, they favor an extravagant reading of the treaty power in which treaties are presumptively self-executing (i.e., applicable as domestic law) and the treaty power is boundless in its scope (i.e., treaties can address the full range of domestic policymaking and thereby supplant — and even go beyond the scope of — congressional legislation). Third, they urge the Supreme Court to reinvent the meaning of constitutional provisions to reflect selected contemporary foreign and international practices. What transnationalism, at bottom, is all about is depriving American citizens of their powers of representative government by selectively imposing on them the favored policies of Europe’s leftist elites.

    The nomination of Harold Koh is dangerous for America. It holds the threat that American representative democracy will be subservient to world view. Our system of liberty and property rights is not respected all across the world. Transnationalism is a way for those who want to attack America to do so through law.

    A good source of information about Harold Koh and why his nomination should be opposed is The Coalition to Preserve American Sovereignty.

    Another source of information about Koh is Harold Koh’s Transnationalism , by M. Edward Whelan III of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.