Posted on 09/06/2015 8:32:28 AM PDT by Kaslin
If there is anything presidential candidates agree on this year, it's that our government and politics are not functioning to fulfill the desires of the American people. Donald Trump proclaims that "our system is broken."
The phrase could be used by almost anyone in the race. "Government in Washington is dysfunctional," says Mike Huckabee. Bernie Sanders believes "the American political system has been totally corrupted." Joe Biden sounded like a candidate the other day when he lamented the "dysfunction in Washington."
The premise is that most Americans want one thing and our leaders in Washington keep giving them something entirely different. Ted Cruz insists his ideas are what most Americans favor. "It's only in Washington, D.C., that those are considered radical or extreme," he says. Sanders says the people "have serious doubts about how much their vote actually matters."
If only the politicians would listen to the people and respond to their wishes. If only democracy operated so public preferences become public policy. If only our interests weren't continually shortchanged by operational misfires.
Actually, the American government does a good job responding to the desires of the electorate. Sanders, Cruz and many citizens assume they don't get their way because the system fails.
But sometimes they don't get their way because most people don't agree with them. Sometimes they don't get their way because it collides with constitutional principles. Sometimes they get their way, but what they want is contradictory and -- what's the word I'm looking for? -- dysfunctional.
Cruz insists the great majority of Americans share the values he upholds: "live within your means, don't bankrupt our kids and grandkids, follow the Constitution." To which I can only say: Ha. Ha. Ha.
American politicians don't refuse to live within our means because they are congenital spendthrifts. They do it because the citizens want more things from their government than they are willing to pay for.
A 2013 poll by the Pew Research Center asked about various federal outlays and found that nearly every one of them is very popular. "For 18 of 19 programs tested, majorities want either to increase spending or maintain it at current levels," reported Pew. The sole exception was foreign aid -- which accounts for about 1 percent of the federal budget.
Living within our means suggests we should pay taxes in an amount sufficient to cover all these outlays -- something we have not done in a long time. This year, the federal government will spend about $425 billion more than it takes in.
We could close the deficit by cutting spending, which most people don't want to do. Or we could close it by raising taxes, which they also oppose. In a Gallup poll this year, only 4 percent of Americans favored an increase in federal income taxes. The public would rather run large deficits than do what is required to prevent them.
Sanders favors higher tax rates on the rich. When asked whether 90 percent would be too high, his answer was "no." The problem is that this is a minority view. The top rate today is 39.6 percent. A 2012 poll commissioned by the political website The Hill asked people what they thought the top rate should be. It reported that "75 percent said the right level for top earners was 30 percent or below." The rich get off easy? Blame the non-rich.
The people, granted, don't always get the last word. Cruz thinks something is wrong when the Supreme Court can make same-sex marriage legal everywhere. Sanders thinks something is wrong when the Supreme Court can empower the Koch brothers to squander millions on elections.
But deciding how to interpret the Constitution has been the responsibility of the Supreme Court for more than 200 years. If the justices rule against your side, that doesn't mean the system is broken or that democracy has been violated. The Constitution was meant to put some issues beyond the reach of majorities.
The justices, keep in mind, are appointed by elected presidents and confirmed by elected senators. Even at the Supreme Court, the will of the people plays a major role over time.
The candidates would like voters to think that anytime things don't go as they want, it's because someone or something failed the voters. That's usually not the case.
In a constitutional democracy, everyone sometimes is fated to lose. Being a sore loser? That's optional.
Who is this guy? Whattabunchacrap.
Who is Steve Chapman and why should anyone give a damn?
Hey Steve, the U.S. is not a “constitutional democracy”. Our form of government is a representative republic.
It’s a difficult distinction for commie libs who wish for mob rule.
If they rule against the Constitution, then yes, there is a serious problem.
One thing the average numb nuts American needs to realize is that SCOTUS has no special powers of perception to continually re-interpret the Constitution to fit the ideology of the current despots sitting on it.
The basic tenets of the Constitution are not that complicated or mysterious. A reasonable study of centuries of English law preceding it goes along way in understanding the intentions of the few areas that are not blindingly obvious.
The SC was never intended to be an elite despotic ruler of the 3 branches.
This time he clearly failed to do so. He is wrong on so many points it's truly not worth the time to counter them all. Perhaps when he does have a few minutes to reflect on what he wrote he will write a retraction of this mess. ... Then again, maybe he truly believes what he wrote, and that is indeed sad.
Wrong.
In a democracy without limit on the franchise, everybody loses, and we're sick of it.
“But deciding how to interpret the Constitution has been the responsibility of the Supreme Court for more than 200 years. If the justices rule against your side, that doesn’t mean the system is broken or that democracy has been violated. The Constitution was meant to put some issues beyond the reach of majorities.
The justices, keep in mind, are appointed by elected presidents and confirmed by elected senators. Even at the Supreme Court, the will of the people plays a major role over time.”
Just don’t even know how to adequately respond to this BS. Trump is correct, we need a retention vote right for these turds.
Poorly written and thought out.
Steve My-ass-is-Chapped-Man must have noted some news that Cruz is doing better than many polls indicate and will be poised to begin a real run at it come next March....
I sorta get where the author is coming from, (maybe).
The system is fine.
It is the people that are broken. The peasants have been turned into mostly an ignorant bunch of fools, tribalized and more concerned about what the Kardashian-Jenners and/or their favorite sports teams do today than what the real world will drop on their heads next week.
It is the politicians that are broken. Our leaders have become our rulers. In it not to build and guide the society like good shepherds but to feed off of its dying carcass like wolves and vultures.
SCOTUS was the first failure of the dichotomy between the rule of law vs. the rule of man. SCOTUS was supposed to champion the rule of law but they have become hopelessly compromised and now are hyper-partisans without any oversight or check.
He does have a point. Leeches are the majority of the voters in many areas.
Socialism Is Legal Plunder
You would use the law to oppose socialism? But it is upon the law that socialism itself relies. Socialists desire to practice legal plunder, not illegal plunder. Socialists, like all other monopolists, desire to make the law their own weapon. And when once the law is on the side of socialism, how can it be used against socialism? For when plunder is abetted by the law, it does not fear your courts, your gendarmes, and your prisons. Rather, it may call upon them for help.
http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html#SECTION_G022
6. But the grand nostrum will be a public debt…
7. It must not be forgotten that the members of the legislative body are to have a deep stake in the game. This is an essential point, and happily is attended with no difficulty. A sufficient number, properly disposed, can alternately legislate and speculate, and speculate and legislate, and buy and sell, and sell and buy, until a due portion of the property of their constituents has passed into their hands…
9. The management of a great funded debt and a extensive system of taxes…
10. “Divide and govern” is a maxim consecrated by the experience of ages, and should be familiar in its use to every politician…
11. As soon as sufficient progress in the intended change shall have been made, and the public mind duly prepared according to the rules already laid down, it will be proper to venture on another and a bolder step toward a removal of the constitutional landmarks.
http://www.constitution.org/cmt/freneau/republic2monarchy.htm
Debates in the House of Representatives on the First Report on Public Credit 9–18 February 1790
James Jackson (Ga.)
But it is doubted with me whether a permanent funded debt is beneficial or not to any country.
The same effect must be produced that has taken place in other nations; it must either bring on a national bankruptcy or annihilate her existence as an independent empire. Hence I contend, sir, that a funding system, in this country, will be highly dangerous to the welfare of the republic; it may, for a moment, raise our credit and increase the circulation, by multiplying a new species of currency; but it must, in times afterward, settle upon our posterity a burthen which they can neither bear nor relieve themselves from. It will establish a precedent in America that may, and in all probability will, be pursued by the sovereign authority until it brings upon us that ruin which it has never failed to bring, or is inevitably bringing, upon all the nations of the earth who have had the temerity to make the experiment.
http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/875
DEFUND socialist collectives, foreign and domestic. RESTORE the republic…debt free.
No, The System Is Socialist
That’s rich coming from Biden!
Steve Chapman is a DC insider. Someone that wouldn’t say one critical word of his DC social masters.
The guy is right. All the corruption, all the villainy, all the evil is pretty much baked in the cake as to how Washington operates.
Oh wait. That wasn’t the conclusion this nauseating lickspittle wanted us to come to? So sorry.
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