Time For A Revolution

I think our federal government is revealing its true colors, now more than ever. While many think that the government naturally exists to take care of the people, or that it is basically harmless, news stories seem to indicate that our national leaders has reached a new low in both senselessness and selfishness.

It seems clear to me that it’s all about power and money. Warning: the following news story may make you mad.

A recent article entitled Feds to Convince DC Area Taxpayers to Embrace $4.8 Billion Mileage Tax just goes to show the extremes that our government will go to in order to get our money. I have to admit I laughed at the title when I first read it – I mean, getting people to “embrace” a new tax? But when I read the article, I realized that it is exactly what they are trying to do. It seems that since gas tax revenues are down in Washington, DC – because people are driving less or using vehicles with better fuel economy – the government needs to replace the tax shortfall with a new tax. The idea is to install a GPS device on every vehicle, and the owner will pay a fee for every mile driven. No matter what road you drive on. Even if you’re just pulling the car out of the garage to wash it.

There are many crazy implications in this article. Here are just a few:

· The first thing the planning board is going to do is spend $400,000 of taxpayer money for a study “on how best to sell the public on a controversial per-mile tax proposal”. Note the irony – taxpayer money is being spent on a study to figure out how to get more taxpayer money.

· “The funds will pay for a series of telephone surveys and focus groups with residents and special interest groups with an eye to determining how best to package ideas that have generated significant public opposition when proposed in other areas around the world.” So – they know it’s not a popular idea, which will require them to figure out how to “package” the concept. I think “package” may be a code word for “lie about”?

· The GPS required for each vehicle would record the distance traveled, as well as the time and location of each movement. Can you say “invasion of privacy”?

· The reason for the new tax would be to make up for the current shortfall of $420 million – money that used to come from gasoline taxes. The new plan would raise ten times that amount – as much as $4.8 billion. I can only conclude that the law would not exist to replace revenues, but to increase them dramatically. I wonder where the money goes? Hmmmm….

· The article lists all of the current places where taxes are paid by motorists in the area – federal excise tax, state excise tax, personal property tax, vehicle registration fees, car insurance tax, special commercial vehicle tax, and parking/speeding tickets. Do you still think the government isn’t out to get ALL of our money?

· It also states that “The total of all motorist-related taxes in Virginia exceeds the amount spent on road building and maintenance in the state”. If true, why do they need to establish a new tax? Could it be that the money will be diverted elsewhere?

Can there be any doubt about what is going on here? Our current crop of politicians want more money, ostensibly to keep running the same programs that exist today. But we also can deduce that they want to invoke more and more programs, thus increasing and consolidating their power over us.

I have had enough. Our leaders have departed from what made this country great. They are trying to drag us to a place of mediocrity and dependent status. Never forget these words of our predecessors:

"Any people that would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. It is force. And force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." - George Washington

"We, the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow men who pervert the Constitution."
- Abraham Lincoln

So where does the money go? One wise writer told us a long time ago where it goes, and also about the fate of those who abuse their God-given power:

"The Lord enters into judgment against the elders and leaders of his people: ‘It is you who have ruined my vineyard; the plunder from the poor is in your houses.’" - Isaiah 3:14

I think it’s time for a little revolution!

Getting a Constitutional Education – (Mis)interpreting the General Welfare Clause (Part 8)

It’s important that we educate our children on the topics of politics, government, and the Constitution which governs our nation. This nine-part series attempts to remind us of some basic principles, lest they be forgotten by the next generation.

In this series, we have presented various viewpoints about how the government derives its power and abilities. The truth is that there is much debate over the extent of what the federal government should be involved in. Our nation continues to give up increasing power and authority to the federal government – at the expense of states’ right and individual liberties (see Part 2 and Part 5).

We’ve also seen how the founding fathers had some disagreement over the extent of defined federal powers in the Constitution (Part 6). On the conservative side of the issue, both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison opposed the expenditure of federal tax dollars for road-building projects – simply because they could find no authority to explicitly do so in the Constitution. They chose to leave this to the states and to private enterprise.

So where did the idea start that the federal government could get a foothold into almost anything? It all began with four little words in the Preamble of the Constitution – in the very first sentence:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

“Promote the general Welfare” – these are words that Thomas Jefferson almost certainly wished that he had left out when writing the document. It is these words upon which most of our governmental leaders base their ability to spend tax money. Read the above preamble once again – but leave out these four words – and you will see an entirely different and far more limited view of government than we have today.

The general welfare clause appears again in the Constitution in Article 1, Section 8, which lists the powers given to the Congress. And the Congress has used (and sometimes abused) this clause to the fullest – they build roads, fund overseas abortion clinics, impose exhorbitant income taxes, and even tax death through inheritance tax laws. Alexander Hamilton, one of the very first proponents of a liberal definition of “general welfare” said, “[T]he power to raise money is plenary and indefinite [in the Constitution]. The terms general welfare were doubtless intended to signify more than was expressed.” Trillions of tax dollars would agree with him.

The sad fact is that promotion of “general welfare” is such an ill-defined and nebulous phrase that there will be no end to the debate over its meaning. Indeed, instead of debating the legality of whether the federal government should fund medical research for cancer, nearly all of our lawmakers will just argue about the amount to spend or which lab in their state will get the money. It seems a foregone conclusion among members of Congress that they have the right to spend our money wherever they wish. And they have taken it even farther – by spending our children’s and grandchildren’s money today, through deficit spending. Any government deficit today must be paid by taxes tomorrow. The amount of debt that our leaders are incurring today necessitates the taxing of money that our offspring have not yet earned. And when you look at it that way, does that really fit with the Constitutional preamble, when it says we should “secure the blessings of Liberty to…our Posterity”? Our posterity is the future generations of Americans that will follow us. Shouldn’t their welfare be taken into account, as well?

Next article: What brought about the birth of “judicial activism”? Was this interpretation intended by the founding fathers? Back to the main index article.