Who’s in Charge Here?
If we ever needed any proof about the power of government, and the danger it poses to the private sector, we need look no further than the circus currently underway on Capitol Hill. The powers in government, under the guise of saving the American economy and rescuing the banking industry, has committed what will end up being trillions of tax payer dollars into a system they do not understand and cannot manage.
It’s important to understand how this was done. Those in congress have a constitutional mandate to appropriate funds generated by taxes, but decided in this case it would be better to relinquish that authority and place it in the hands of the treasury secretary. Never mind the fact that this is unconstitutional and frankly irresponsible, the real question is, “why would the financial services committee so quickly and willfully give up their authority to ensure these funds where properly spent?” This is a new little trick that I am seeing more and more out of our elected representatives. The reason my dear friend is simple. They didn’t want to own the problem.
To illustrate the point more fully, let’s look at both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Now I know this is a touchy subject, and having been to both Iraq and Afghanistan during the conflicts I see both sides of this issue. But the constitution is very clear about the steps that need to take place in order for our president to commit troops to combat. There must be a formal declaration of war from the congress, and then congress must provide the funding for the war. It’s called separation of powers. It keeps everyone honest. And most importantly it forces or representatives to go on the record and tell their constituents they are taking us to war.
But in both instances of late, congress decided against a formal declaration of war and instead opted simply to give the executive branch (read President) the authorization to commit troops to combat. Constitutional? I think not. But while this may seem like a small thing, in fact it freed those in congress to come back on the president and criticize his execution of the “war”. However, when given the opportunity to exercise their constitutional authority and stop funding what many were calling an “unjust” and “illegal” war, they chose to continue to fund it. Why? Because it was politically expedient to do so.
This takes us to our current debackle. As we now know, congress appropriates funds, not the treasury. But when Barney Frank and Chris Dodd (both of whom together couldn’t run a profitable lemonade stand on a hot day at a construction site) took one look at this mess they did what any good politician would do. They shifted the blame.
By giving the money to the treasury secretary and saying essentially, “Fix it”. They killed 2 birds with one stone. They have now absolved themselves of any responsibility for the execution of the recovery effort, and they have freed themselves up to criticize the actions taken by others in solving what should be their problem.
Now Barney Frank and Charles Schumer want AIG to break its contractual agreements to pay bonuses to its employees. (Where where these guys when GM was trying to amend the UAW contracts in order to stay afloat? Hypocrisy? I think so.) Now you may think these AIG executives don’t deserve a dime, and in my opinion you’d be right, but do we really want to go there? Do we really want Barney Frank running AIG, Citi, GM or GE? Is there anyone on the planet who can honestly say the collective group of buricrats on the finance committee holds the answer to solving the problems facing our nation?
In reality, this was a power grab, plain and simple. Those in congress were more than willing to turn over whatever tax payer money was required without so much as a pause because they knew it would mean control of the banking sector. For all the chest beating and finger wagging our representatives are doing up on the hill, you might stop to ask yourself who is really to blame for all the misappropriation and mismanagement of our tax money. I think you get my point.
That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading,
Jason Stapleton
The Swing Trading Authority
