Americans might know more than Congress, but politicians have managed to outsmart voters because they remain in office. Voters continue to re-elect professional politicians. They favor these shiny, happy hacks who know what to say when the camera is rolling.
Over the last decade, Congress has passed legislation that does not address specific issues but overreacts with enormous group consequences imposed on the masses. With much of this legislation, policymakers treated society as collectivist instead of a compilation of individuals. In Common Sense, Thomas Paine stated that many people confuse society and government. Paine defined society as “our wants, which promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections.” He believed government “in its best state was a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.” The late Peter Drucker warned that, “Nothing else has as great an impact on the distribution of shares of national income (GDP) as changes in government policy.”
Basic common sense dictates that a politician would weigh any impending legislation against the Constitution before voting on a bill’s passage. Yet, voters are discovering that the majority of American policymakers do not even read the bills much less run a stakeholder analysis on them. As a result, Americans are stuck with a government that Paine described as being “furnished by the means by which we suffer.” Voters have become their own worst enemy. In order to be smarter, voters have to have to work harder to identify policymakers that follow the Constitution and protect the free market. “We the people” can no longer rely on trust and transparency because honest politicians are an endangered species. Both parties have betrayed Americans. One needs only to look at the voting record for two of the worst pieces of legislation passed in this millennium:
2001- Former Senator, current lobbyist and tax cheat, Tom Daschle remarked, “To professionalize you must federalize.” This ploy became a tagline for government expansion, and thus the creation of the Transportation Security Administration. This law was passed as a response to the September 11th tragedy, with the voting as follows: the House 410 – 9, the Senate 83-16. With outsourcing proven as an efficient and effective methodology in business, why would politicians choose to hire over 45,000 new employees protected by the Federal Retirement program at taxpayer expense?
2002- The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was passed unanimously in the Senate and 423 -3 in the House as a response to the Enron and Arthur Andersen scandals. Ron Paul (TX), Jeff Flake (AZ) and Mac Collins (GA) were the lone three who voted nay. In The Sarbanes-Oxley Debacle, Professors Butler and Ribstein assessed, “if SOX were effective in protecting shareholders, then the market prices of firms with weak governance would have increased with its passage. Instead, the prices declined, suggesting that SOX does not protect even investors in poorly governed corporations.” SOX disabled the free market, in that it made it difficult for firms to compete against competitors listed in foreign stock markets. Investor confidence has never fully recovered. In response to SOX, the London Stock Exchanged advertised itself as “Sarbanes-Oxley free!”
Fast forward to 2009, and the messy health care legislation, one can assess blame everywhere:
- The Left – They have persisted endlessly to control as much of the free market as possible.
- The Right – During the decade they controlled both houses of Congress, they never attempted to remove the barriers that impeded the health care system.
Where do Americans go from here? They return to the voting booth, and select patriots who believe in the power of the Constitution, not the government. It takes an investment in the electoral process, but the dividends will pay off immensely.
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