How Should Republicans Govern the Next Four Years

I am writing five days after the November 6th election. Reading as much of the post-election analysis as my time admits I can't help but wonder how the Republicans in the House, Senate and in the state held offices might try to govern in light of the re-election of Barack Obama and the retention of the Senate by the Democrats.

Only a few items come to mind. In no particular order, the States should muscle up their 10th Amendment rights. The coercive scheme in place between the state and federal government that has gone on for decades should be challenged. States are co-equal units of government with more authority over a larger scope of government responsibility than is commonly known. Time for a few trips to the woodshed behind the supreme court.

The House of Representatives needs to understand the reasons that the House was designed with two features that are unlike their counterparts in the Senate and the other branch, the Executive. Those are popular vote and power of the purse. The popular vote, coming every two years as it does, was a means of keeping government close to the will of the people. It is the design for true self-government. The Senate gets six year terms and are voted in statewide which can be an effective insulator from the will of the people. The Executive being chosen nationally for four years is also insulated from a close association with the people.

The other feature in the Constituion designed for the House of Representatives is the power of the purse. All bills containing provisions to tax or spend must originate in the House. This power is designed to direct the efforts of the government to the will of the people. The current house leadership exercises this power somewhat weakly. When the Speaker says that the House cannot pass a budget without the concurrence of the Senate and President he is correct. When he says he must bend to their will he is not correct. That may be the compromising way to sign a budget into law but it is not a requirement that the House needs to compromise. The House can and should hold the government hostage to its budgetary and tax policy direction. Its a duty they have as evidenced by the power they were given.

The Executive function is to carry out the will of the people as expressed through their House representatives. The Senate function is not to trump the House but to curb its tendencies to extremes. When either the Senate or the Executive attempt to co-opt the power of the House to set tax and spend policy it is the duty of the House to shut government down pending a return to their rightful duties, the Senate and Executive. This also ought to be the check designed to curb the power grabs of the bureaucracy. The House is the protectorate branch of the people. The Senate is the protectorate branch of the States. The Executive is the protectorate branch of the political entity called the United States. The constitution empowers each to be able to fulfill their duty and checks them each from usurping the powers of the others, provided the others jealously guard their powers. 

Its up to the House to protect us during the next four years.

The Socialist Agenda Behind Gay Marriage

Over at Lew Rockwell is an article by one Scott Lazarowitz titled The Right to Marry. Here is an excerpt from his article that, I think, best sums up his opinion,

And in my opinion, there should be complete separation of marriage and state. No one should have to get a license issued by government bureaucrats to marry. It is not the business of the government to permit or forbid a private individual to establish one’s own private contracts voluntarily

Read the whole thing. It's pretty short. The Lew Rockwell site carries an eclectic assortment of articles with a heavy anti-statist bent. They vary from the delusional or conspiritorial to the reasonable or cautionary. I especially enjoy the bottom of the daily list that are devoted to health related matters and self defense weaponry and tactics. This article sets within the anti-statist category. However, it fails to make the anti-statist case, remarkably and I feel compelled to call out the author to either bolster his position or abendon it. If he is anti-statist and he reads my emails he will have no honor if he doesn't abandon his position. I responded in two back to back emails which I will paste in their entirety, below.

To make your case, a one track reliance on rights isn't going to be convincing. Don't read into that an inferral that you are not right. There are some matters of family law that, being heavily affected by a change of this kind, require answers. How would you deal with other formulations of marriage if family law extended all the benefits of the social contract as it is, not as you wish it to be, as they would impact public expenditures? How would you deal with private contract disruptions that extend benefits to marriage as it is currently formulated after new formulations add substantially to the beneficiary pool? How would you, or would you, rationalize marriage into only two sets; hetero and homo? Why not poly, incestuous, bestial, extended family, extended family poly, pediophiliactic marriage formulations? Are there legal or moral or economic "laws" that would remain enforceable once you open this pandora's box to limit the formulations?  Or would you not fret and let all comers enter? Not to say there are no answers, nor that you are unable to provide them, but they're not in that article. Hence, its useless as a workable guide to changing family law. You extend rights into others' areas of obligation, initially taxpayers and employers, without balancing their rights. Sincerely, Mike Mahoney in IN

and

Sorry to return so quickly, before I even give you a moment to consider a response. But, I left a glaring ommission with huge consequences out of my other letter. The universal plea of the gay community is not to have a private right to marry as there is no state sanction against private marriage now. No, rather it is to have confirred on the marriage all, public and private by state sanction via equal rights and/or due process the benefits of heterosexual marriage onto new formulations of marriage. It is an undeniable demand made universally by the gay community and its supporters. In other words, you want them to be able to extend their private right, as it exists now, into the public realm. This is the opposite of what you wrote and it is the way the gay community wants it. They do not want a mere PRIVATE right to marry. They want it to be PUBLIC POLICY, MARRIED TO FAMILY LAW! They want to extend and expand the welfare state in their behalf. So within the confines of your article, either you are being disingenious or devious. There are other worse options I won't ascribe until I read your response. Really, you have a tough row to hoe. Sincerely, Mike Mahoney in IN

Why Richard Lugar Lost His Senate Seat

How, in 2012, does a venerated, accomplished, well liked conservative Republican lose his seat of 36 years in the Red state primary of Indiana? Conventional wisdom is saying he wasn't conservative enough. By pointing to a few voting missteps and some bipartisan friendships the spinners of conventional wisdom plucked the obvious explanation. There's more to it than that. If the Republicans recognize the what else part of the reason, they'll see something more profound, though not complicated. Senator Lugar was elected 4 years before Ronald Reagan. In a way he could claim to be a predecessor to Reagan and the Reagan style of Republican governing. That style is a blend of pragmatism, business acumen, and being results oriented. Lugar has hardly budged from that style, in spite of a few votes that infuriated me. It served him and the country well up until about 2000. Its taken 12 years, then for something to cause a tipping point. If the senator hasn't changed, what has? Back in '76 a conservative elected to office of any shade from pink to scarlet was going to be an improvement over the FDR stlye of blue, social democrat that had dominated American politics for a half century. Lugar was good and red. Funny how red used to denote communism and now we use the election map colors the MSM put on states on election night to describe the voting trends that night. But I digress. Lugar was and is a good conservative. His ratings by various watchdog NGO's make it all too plain. By a measure of static historical reflection, Lugar should have been a shoe in. No Republican in the state could seriously have expected yesterday's defeat by looking over their shoulder at Lugar's past record or election results. Eventually, even Lugar sensed that the rise of the Tea Party was going to present a challenge. Lugar must have believed that he could easily weather the challenge based upon his record. He failed to sense that the Republican electorate had recognized a weakness in the garden variety conservative. Further, that the democrats were exploiting it to great advantage and repeated victories. Lugar labeled his opponent's biggest support group, the Tea Party as extreme. The Tea Party embraced the label if only notionally. There was one extreme difference between Lugar and the Tea Party. What Lugar either failed to realize or acknowlege was that the Democrats in particular and government in general were eating their lunch in legislative negotiations because the two sides were operating in agreement on a basic, underlying principle. That principle was that there should be no limiting principle to what government does and only slightly less, embraced that the means ought to have no limit. The disagreements were on details. This resulted in unrestrained growth and police powers of the state. Lugar styled Republicans were wedded to the idea that they could eventually talk sense into the deliberative process. It wasn't working. Republicans had held the reigns of power twice since 2000 and each time executed an overreach of their own design. Each time earning a smackdown from the electorate. The new Republicans had woken up. They discovered the weakness and the cure. Lugar wouldn't take the medicine; constitutionalism. That's the straw that broke the camel's back. Once the Republican elecorate rediscovered the source of a limiting principle, saw it in application in our early history and surmised it still the best fit for what ails the nation, Lugar's fate was sealed. He lived and died a pragmatist. He either failed to recognize or refused to believe that the Democratic acceptance of pragmatism divorced from limiting principles were ruining the country. Further, that they were using his own method of governing against us and him. If he were simply duped, realized it and refocused he would be our nominee, still. When it became clear that the constitution wasn't in Lugar's political DNA that sealed his fate as senator. The times demand fealty to the limiting principles, extracted from the dillutions of history and case law. Richard Lugar couodn't even see it coming. The rest of you, take note. ectorate

Trends in Government Services-Less for More

User fees and service fees are becoming a wide spread trend in the delivery model for government services. While there was a time that I advocated for such fees, now I am recanting based upon two points of objection. The first is the notion that government is a not for profit enterprise. The second is that whatever government does should provide a general benefit and be paid by general taxes.

Taking the second point, first, for discussion. Without delving into an arguement to parse each and every function for its proper inclusion as a general benefit suitable to be a be government service, let's stipulate that what we do receive all qualify. I don't agree that they all do. Its just that this discussion goes to methods of paying for them.

Very quickly and simply, if a government service is provided on a fee for use basis this means that the taxpayers pay to staff and equip the agency providing the service but, without the fee the service wouldn't be delivered. This makes little sense except as an admission that the service isn't provided as a general service but targets a specific group. Take toll roads and courts, for instance. While both are open to the public, only users pay fees to use them. The prevailing wisdom is that these services benefit all, even those who do not directly use them. Who wants criminals untried or their goods undelivered. or unable to commute to work?

Going to the first objection, that government should not be involved in for profit endeavors.
Whether or not the purpose of a fee is to make a profit or to subsidize a department, if the service is considered properly delivered by a government agency, the unstated premise is that the service somehow is connected to the general welfare and not a subsidization of a special interest group. If, OTOH, the government imposes fees in order to subsidize the taxpayer at the expense of the user, this gives rise to a challenge that the staffing and equipping of the delivering agency is a taxpayer subsidy to a special interest group. If this is the argument the government wants to make, then the proper mechanism for delivery of the service is through a competitive, private, for profit endeavor.

One way governments have recognized this dichotomy of function (general welfare service) and recipient (subsidized special interest) is to contract out the service to a private company. This is a close proximation to what they ought to be doing. I take exception to long term, monopolistic contracts, though. The benefits of competition are lost when the ink dries. Contracts should be short term and/or divided along some lines like geographical areas.

Parks are a good example. Open to the public. Purchased, equipped, staffed and maintained by general taxes, they are often accessible by fee. Additionally, some users and locations are fee exempt, others pay a hefty amount.

This scheme of delivering government services is Naut Right.

Explaining more at the well means less at the pump - for gasoline.

First, another link telling more positive news coming from U.S. energy production: US Oil Shale Seen Rising Fast

The Saudis have used production to control prices since 1973, when we had our first oil embargo, courtesy of them and Henry Kissinger. They know this game. It's too obvious that increased supply puts downward pressure on price. What is not so obvious is the vicious circle this can catch the market into riding. If the Saudis feel compelled to maintain revenues large enough to generate near same gross profits that they have for so long, before this new competitor arrived, they have to pump more to make up for lost margins when new supply drops prices. That additional quantity in the market further presses down on prices, leading to another decision to live with less profit or increase supply again until revenues generate profits equal with the past. This could continue until the market becomes saturated and no increases in supply can be bought up. This is a classic equilibrium sequence for any market.

The flip side is that the Saudis could elect to withdraw production in order to keep prices where the margins for profit are maintained. The risk for the Saudis is that the lost gross profits might not sustain their hold on their kingdom, which is now that of a benevolent king. Well, in a few regards. They can be brutal when it suits them. They could choose a chancy road of supression of their subjects, but then spring might come to Saudi Arabia. They don't want that. One other choice they would have would be to cash in their holdings of American assets, until that runs out. Lastly, thet can choose a more frugal lifestyle, which if that were in them, one might think they would have already done so in order to quiet criticisms of their lifestyles juxtaposed against that of their tent bound, camel ridden subjects.

Its going to be interesting.

Fixing the TSA - Congress whittles with the wrong end of the knife

Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn introduced H.R. 3608, the STRIP ACT as reported in The Hill .
All it does is strip the title of officer from TSA employees who have not taken LE training.

My congressman got an earful from me. Summing my complaint, I wrote that the TSA is the congressionally coreographed victory dance for Al Queda and the Taliban. All H.R. 3608 does is rename a character in the playbill. Its an insult, a waste of time and not worthy of my opinion on the merits of its passage.

Abolish the TSA. Put the duty, responsibility and liability for the traveling public onto the transport company.

When you whittle with the wrong end of the knife you won't cut much wood, you will bleed and people will laugh at your stupidity; no matter you thought you were whittling a gift for your hecklers.

Exasperated Europe turns to crowdsourcing for answers

Found this interesting at the 17:21 mark.
See also the link in the first comment to locate the text about this.


It is very oddly reassuring that the European money changers have gone hi-tech with an iPad app to invite a crowd-sourcing solution to the eurozone economic crisis. But there you have it. I have more faith in the people working through a faux free market exercise than I do central planners. I admit there are going to be a huge number of central planning, commie, socialistic, and aristocratic solutions profered. The market solutions will shine through.