This week I chose the article ‘GOP In Disagreement…’ because the debt ceiling does not authorize new debt, but instead clears the check, as it were, for the money that Congress has already appropriated. The GOP, the main actors in the article, seem to not remember this very basic bit of information, and in fact daily campaign on falsehoods, namely that raising the debt ceiling is somehow a ‘blank check’ for the Obama Administration. This is of course not the case. Kevin McCarthy, the Congressional House Republican whip, says he does not have the votes to send a ‘clean debt limit’ to the Senate or to the President. This has happened before, the stonewalling by House Republicans, each time much to the detriment and not to the betterment of the welfare of our great nation. And they know this, or they should…regardless of ideology.
As it is, Modern Monetary Theorist and economics professor Stephanie Kelton points out in another article, ‘Why the US lost the War on Poverty’: “The simplest way (to end or prevent poverty, or, care for the general welfare) is to print more money…inflation is caused by too much money chasing too few goods…inflation occurs when the economy is producing to the limit,” says the good professor. Everyone knows this is not what is happening right now. That the deficit (the people’s money) has been cut so extraordinarily during the Obama Administration means that the people’s money is in the hands of the government and the private business, and not invested in the peoples future through the rebuilding of our national infrastructure, as mandated by the Constitution (see: post office, roads, schools, etc.) for the betterment of the general welfare of the general citizen.
This brings me to Madison’s Federalist 45. He argued that
the federal government rightfully possesses certain powers over the states, and
rights that the states do not. States have responsibilities to not only their
sovereign citizens but to the federal government and the citizens of all other states
as well. The rights to make treaties, declare war, etc., are all rightfully
federal. But his most interesting point is the one that closes the essay, where
he seems to scold the supporters of the Articles of Confederacy for refusing to
admit that a federal AND a state government simply MUST tax to survive.
As with today, the extreme of the right had taken over and
begun RUINING the people’s government. The Constitution, as Madison put it, was
not written to give the federal government new powers, but rather a more
effective means of administering old powers. Foremost among these, in Madison’s
eyes and mine, was the rightful authority of the Congress both federal and
state, to ‘require indefinite supplies of money for the common defense and
general welfare’ of the nation and her citizens.
I am tying these three articles together on the notion that
old is new again, as the radical right prevents adequate and appropriate
taxation though the Norquist ‘No-New-Taxes-Pledge.’
Source
citation: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/02/05/gop-disagreement-over-debt-ceiling-strategy-could-save-the-party-in-2014 http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865593975/Why-the-US-lost-the-war-on-poverty.html?pg=all
Federalist 45
Article Analysis
Assignment
First, read a news story from the newspaper or the Internet. Answer the following questions regarding your
news story: 1) What is the main issue, who are the main actors being discussed; Then, choose one of the assigned articles you read for
this week. Answer the following
questions regarding the assigned article: 1) What are the basics of this
article (who, what, when, how, why, etc.);
2) What is the overall main point the author is trying to convince you
of? 3) Do you agree with the author’s
argument? Why? Why not?
Finally, tie together your news
story with what you learned from the assigned article, textbook readings,
podcasts, videos, etc. for this week. Type
your answers in the box below using your own words, no outline or bullets,
complete sentences and paragraphs, single-spaced, full-page.
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