Friday, July 29, 2011

Do-Nothing Government: A Welcome Euphemism

Do-Nothing Government: A Welcome Euphemism for "Limited Government".

Speaker of the House John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and President Obama cannot craft final legislation to raise the debt ceiling. They are still unable to control the unruly elements in their respective parties to agree on certain conditions for the short or long term.

The incessant debate of Congress has angered voters across the country, who had demanded that their legislators do something about the financial crises afflicting this nation. Many of them have decried Washington as a dysfunctional, do-nothing Congress that is wasting our time and patience while flushing billions in tax revenues.

Foolishly, some pundits have elevated bi-partisanship to mythic status, as though every legislator must be dedicated to putting aside his or her "petty ideologies" and cooperate with forming a Grand (albeit "Corrupt") bargain. Yet every time that bi-partisanship mania has deluded both sides of the aisle into passing heedless legislation, it has only concentrated more power in the hands of the federal government and impoverished individuals and local stake-holders. The frenzy over stopping terrorism after 9-11, for example, gave birth to the bloated and corrupt Department of Homeland Security, which has only added to the financial as well as national insecurity plaguing this country. Consider also the chronic, complicit corruption of legislators to sneak in pork and entitlement enhancements to please constituents for easy reelection.

Someone has got to slay this insanity. Bi-partisanship is the very thing bringing down this country. A government that does nothing, even failing to raise the debt ceiling, would accomplish far more for this country than the stop-gap "bi-partisan" measures which have only sucked the life out of this nation's hard-working tax-payers while exploding the growth of "Do-Nothing-By-Doing-Too-Much" federal government.

Congress is finally functioning exactly how it was supposed to. The Framers designed the Federal Government to function only under great deliberation, not duress nor demand. Presidents do not get to force their mandate on an unwilling Congress. Even leaders within both legislative chambers cannot bully their members to follow in lock-step with their national parties' overboard agendas. President Carter, for example, learned the hard way the futility of dictating change to Congress, even when the large majority of Congressmen at the time were fellow Democrats. Newt Gringrich resigned within four years of ascending the House Speakership after failing to fulfill any part of the Contract of America which he had run on in 1994. His repeated attempts to force his Republican colleagues to vote in lock-step with his wishes also contributed to his downfall.

Today, the Tea Party Freshmen frustrating House Speaker Boehner are doing exactly what they were voted into office to do: hold the government accountable for every tax-payer dollar that it spends. If that means not permitting the federal government to raise its debt limit, so be it. If that means the nation defaults on its debt, perhaps the American People will stop expecting the federal government to play by the same rules that they live by when preparing a budget with their finances. Once we rid ourselves of the naivete that the federal government is inherently dysfunctional, we will stop justifying our growing dependence on government control and provision.

Congress by its nature must consider legislation. Emotional initiatives and parochial pressures have no place in the Capitol. We have political parties for a reason, each of which sponsor a differing core version of the nation and the Constitution. These views will never be reconciled, nor should they be. Any government, handicapped by partisan bickering is the very engine of "non-change" which will begin the necessary resurgence of power back to the people. The voters, the tax-payers, deserve a Federal Government which will protect our rights and defend our borders, nothing more.

"A Do-Nothing" Government is a welcome euphemism for the limited government intended by the Framers, enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, and until recently sorely lacking from the halls of the United States Federal Government.

No comments:

Post a Comment