Federal Money : Seducing the People

A few centuries ago Elizabeth Barrett Browning penned the words: “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” With scorn, we can adapt her sonnet to our federal government and its profligate spending: “How do I seduce thee? Let me count the ways.”

 

There seems to be no end to the methods employed by government to enforce power plays over cowering states and apathetic citizenry. One of the most effective tools of federal manipulation is the treasury—giving funds to those who “obey” and withholding funds from those who don’t. Like obstinate children, those who do not comply with federal demands don’t “get the goods”.

 

Our Founders intended that money spent by the general government benefit all the people equally. Congress was to have power to provide for the general welfare of the United States. Thomas Jefferson said this clause limited the power of taxation; Alexander Hamilton contended that it granted government spending power. Over time, Hamilton’s philosophy won out. Today the federal government squirts money like water from an untamed fire hose. Over time, with substantial help from the Supreme Court, we now have spending on steroids.

 

It began with national parks. The Constitution allowed for federal purchase of state lands only for forts, magazines, dockyards, arsenals and such. Undeterred, in 1896 the feds began setting lands aside for national parks, sans constitutional authority to do so. Today they don’t even bother to pay for federal lands, they just confiscate them under the powers of the 1906 Antiquities Act, as was done with Utah’s Escalante Staircase.

 

Then came the Butler case in 1836 to ordain the federal government with power to spend at will—so long as it was in the general welfare of the country, of course. “General welfare” and “country” (in other words, all of us) were undefined—left to federal interpretation. This decision, alone, destroyed the concept of limited government. Partnered with the 16^th Amendment, passed a few decades before, which allowed the federal pilfering of individual pockets for funds, the race to “buy” the American way of life was off and running.

 

Today taxpayer money funds turtle crossings, camps to instill socialism in teenagers, and empty commuter rail cars. It bankrolls questionable companies that go bankrupt, subverted funds for the desperately poor in foreign nations, and gives guns to rebels that use them against us. Public funds are used to force compliance in areas as diverse as education, banking, land use, and transportation.

 

The feds follow a patently unconstitutional pattern. Money offered to states is available only through compliance with federal “guidelines”. State governments weakened by feeding at the federal trough yield to the seduction of “free” money. Obama introduced a new twist: free money for a few years, then vicious second stage requirements a few years later that throw states under the economic and regulatory bus. Examples can be found in new federal legislation on education, such as Common Core. In addition, “voluntary” programs become compulsory: “Comply or we take your federal funds from another program”. Strong, independent states expire; instead, they comply with unconstitutional federal bribery, acting against their better judgment and self interest, to get the “goodies”. Secondary requirements have now driven many states into desperate economic territory. The feds take our money through taxes, then use it to force us to do what we don’t want to do. In the end, we victimize ourselves.

 

The short-term answer to this dilemma rests with states: stand up to the bully and fund your own projects. Federal money means federal control. It’s like going to college: pay your own way and make your own decisions.

 

The long term answer is a return to constitutional principles of strong states, a firmly limited federal government, and ethical, hard-working citizens who get to keep their pay.

 

- Pam