We have already won many elections. So why has our country continued to spiral in the wrong direction? Consider 3 reasons!
- America does not select candidates based on issue performance! Fact: The re-election rate of house incumbents averages 90+% over the past 7 decades. Fact: The avg job-approval rating of Congress is less than 20% over the same period. If 80% of citizens dissapprove of their elected representatives, then how do more than 90% get re-elected? It is obvious American voters do not vote on job performance. The painful truth is they vote on NAME RECOGNITION which depends on campaign contributions by Political Action Committees. Almost every member of Congress has their own PAC. Winning elections has often become purchasing an office. Again, unconsionable but true. Fact: 2016 total federal campaign contributions was $6.5 Billion But 2020 total federal campagn contributions $14.2 Billion THAT IS MORE THAN DOUBLED
- Unless you can match the endless contributions of a few, super-rich political activists, we will never be able to purchase our own elections. Please do not misinterpret this as a reason not to vote. We must Secure Our Right to a Constitutional Republic and exercise our right to free elections. This is absolutely essential. We may not always be able to choose who is elected. But we can control: 1. How long they can stay in office 2. How much they can tax and spend while in office 3. Stop runaway government to limit their influence on our liberties
Can you image how much emotion, over-spending, and broken promises would be removed from the election process if "We the People" again controlled government and forced Congress to act within the limited boundaries of our original Constitution?
3. Many politicians do not vote the same way as they promise during the campaign.
Fact: Consider as an example, the 112th Congress, 113th, and 114th Congress voted 67 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act better known as Obamacare.
The vast majority of incumbents campaigned on repealing The Affordable Care Act or Obamacare and their stated commitment toward this goal. But suddenly, Congressmen/women would no longer vote to repeal when we also had a President who would sign the legislation returning our healthcare decisions to families.
Politicians know that Political Action Committees would still purchase their re-election success even when their constituents were largely dissatisfied by this betrayal.
Most every candidate criticizes the inability of Congress to design and pass the budget. but the hard truth is in total, 200 Continuing Resolutions (CR) were enacted into law instead of a budget during the period FY1977-FY2023, ranging from zero to 21 CRs in any single fiscal year. They espouse almost unanimous promises to clean up this most important function but rarely has progress been made since the 1940s.
Candidates need HOT-TOPICS to keep you upset and motivated to conbtribute and vote. If they had no issues, you would not be engaged. If they actually solve your problems, they fear your apathy!
For what purpose can Congress raise taxes on Americans?
Our Constitution states the 3 purposes Congress can tax and spend in Article 1, Section 8 as follows:
" The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States."
Debts referred to the leftover costs of our American revolution. Founders knew it would be irresponsible and a sin to leave a debt to the next generation. Defence is self explanatory.
But "general" and "welfare" are the two most misunderstood words in the Constitution, far different in 1787 from what they are defined today. But the framer's intent was clear and certain. The intention was that the Federal government could not spend for any local or regional purpose or that was within the jurisdiction of the States. They could not spend for a purpose that would benefit only a few states and definately not to benefit individuals. It must be to benefit the nation as a whole. Certainly not forgiving certain individuals personal student loans for example.
Our legislative branch was to be the origin of any federal action and was limited to 18 enumerated powers. We can show exactly how the judicial branch broke these limitations and incorrectly created legal precedents that made government power unlimited. Now the only correction available is through properly worded Constitutional amendments.
James Madison warns us about spending for general welfare!
"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress...Were the poower of Congress to be established in the latitutde contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America."
James Madison
"Consider for a monent the immeasurable difference between the Constitution limited in its powers to the enumerated objects, and expounded as it would be by the import claimed for the phraseology in question.
The difference is equibalen to two Constitutions, of characters essentially contrasted with each other--the one possessing powers confined to certain specified cases, the other extended to all cases whatsoever;...
Can less be said...than that it is impossible that such a Constitution as the latter would have been recommended to the States by all the members of that body whose name were subscribed to the instrument?...Is it credible that such a power would have been unnoticed and un opposed in the Federal Convention? In the State Conventions, which conded for, and proposed restrictive and explanatory amendments? And in the Congress of 1789, which recommended so many of these amendments? A power to impose unlimited taxes for unlimited purposes could never have escaped...those public bodies.
Constitution is a limited one, possessing no power not actually given, and carrying on the face of it a distrust of power beyond the distrust indicated by the ordinary forms of free Government"
James Madison