Eagle

Home

News
Behind the Headlines
Two-Cents Worth
Video of the Week
News Blurbs

Short Takes

Plain Talk

The Ryter Report

DONATIONS

Articles
Testimony
Bible Questions

Internet Articles (2017)
Internet Articles (2016)
Internet Articles (2015)
Internet Articles (2014)
Internet Articles (2013)
Internet Articles (2012)

Internet Articles (2011)
Internet Articles (2010)
Internet Articles (2009)
Internet Articles (2008)
Internet Articles (2007)
Internet Articles (2006)
Internet Articles (2005)
Internet Articles (2004)

Internet Articles (2003)
Internet Articles (2002)
Internet Articles (2001)

From The Mailbag

Books
Order Books

Cyrus
Rednecker

Search

About
Comments

Links

Openings at $75K to $500K+

Pinnaclemicro 3 Million Computer Products

Startlogic Windows Hosting

Adobe  Design Premium¨ CS5

Get Your FREE Coffeemaker Today!

Corel Store

20 years



equestration. What in the world does it mean? The dictionary definition. Take possession of, or confiscate, the assets of any entity which has defaulted on its obligations until those debts are paid, or the claims against those assets are mitigated. Okay, now that you know what sequestration means, you can see what Barack Obama is doing. What's wrong with this picture? Who's the real bad guy here? Who's spending money he doesn't have? Who's really spending the People's money? The People's representatives? Or a committee of twelve, six of whom have no authority to reach into your pocket? We'll come back to that in a few minutes.

Let's examine how we got to sequestration so you can see the problem from the insiide-out. Your home has certain fixed expenses each and every month (whether you ever take the time to work up a budget or not). Families who live on a budget generally get their bills paid on time simply because those obligations, or the percentage of those obligations paid with each paycheck, are usually the first things that get paid. They may have some lean meal days during the third week of month, and their family entertainment may be TV and popcorn rather than a movie theater and dinner out at a favorite local restaurant once a week, or twice a month. That's what living on a budget does. It makes you live within your means. Responsible people don't spend money they don't have. Nor do responsible governments.

When something unexpected comes up—the car breaks down and you have to repair it or replace it—you go to the bank for a loan. Then, you fit that payment into your budget. If the paycheck suddenly doesn't reach from payday to payday, you don't have the luxury of simply writing out a check to cover the shortage in your already bone-thin checking account. You engage in that age-old practice known in America as "belt-tightening" as you start looking for a part time job to supplement the family income until that debt is paid.

What happens if you don't make the car loan payments? Sequestration happens. What does that mean? To both of us it mean the bank calls you and threatens to repossess your car if you don't make up the payments. And, if you don't make the payments, the bank takes the car—and sues you for whatever portion of the debt they can't retrieve when they dispose of your vehicle in auction. That's the consumer form of sequestration.

After all, you're the one who borrowed the money. Okay, now let's look at the government form of sequestration. In the federal government, the primary consumer is the Executive Branch. The face of the consumer is the face in the Oval Office and the faces of the heads of the various departments within the government. The President of the United States is responsible for putting together the budget he needs each year to run the government. He submits that budget, constitutionally, to the House of Representatives which replicates the local bank you go to for a loan The "credit check" the House of Representatives runs is simply comparing the planned expenditures with the anticipated revenue, and how much long term debt the budget will create. When there is too much long term debt that will require financing from the Federal Reserve, the Republicans start cutting expenditures and the Democrats add tax hikes.

When they reach an impasse, as Congress did in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012, Congress does not pass a budget. Instead, they float a continuing resolution. Each year the Obama Administration has been in office, they have operated the government on President George W. Bush's last budget. Without a new budget to address current needs, the Executive Branch treated the fiscal budget like a slush fund that was always running out of money. As a result, Obama was continually asking for more money to keep the government from being shut down. And, each year, Obama reached the nation's debt ceiling and ended up having a showdown at high noon with Republicans to increase it.

In the consumer world, when the old car breaks down, or mama wants a new car because her friend down the street just bought one, you can't just reach into your neighbor's pocket for the money to repair the old one or buy a new one. You go to your bank and ask the loan officer for the money to buy a new car. If your credit won't justify it, you go to a small loan company and beg enough to fix the car you're driving.

Think of the House of Representatives as the Loan Officer of the bank the Executive Branch is forced, by the Constitution of the United States, to go to for money. And, you thought that loan officer was the US Treasurer or the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. It isn't. Particularly since the Federal Reserve is not even a part of the United States government. It's a private bank that was fraudulently created by bribing and threatening to destroy the careers of Congressmen and Senators who failed to vote it into existence on December 23, 1913.

While you are I are viewed by the princes of industry and the barons of banking as the "debtor" of all of the money owed by the US government to the Federal Reserve (not the US Treasury although that's the name you write on the check when you pay your federal income taxes each year)—it's our assets the IRS comes after when the Executive Branch spends too much and we can't make ends meet when the guy in the White House spends $17 trillion in three and a half years because he has a ton of campaign donors he has to pay off for their help putting him in the White House (although in 2008 it was the SEIU who delivered 35,626,580 more votes than voters, and in 2012 they delivered 36,292,841 more votes than voters). The quid pro quos were paid off without a budget, which means, the House of Representatives—the caretakers of the nation's purse—did not authorize the disbursement that created the shortfall.

Now the way it works under "sequestration," when the loan guarantor (cosigner in our consumer lingo—i.e., the executive responsible for the budget), and the only person in government with the constitutional authority to sign the legal contract obligating the United States to pay the debt, is the guy in the Oval Office. However, since his head is screwed on like the minority community activist he is, with a hard-luck story to tell and a nation-sized tin cup in his hand, he doesn't think like a president because he doesn't know how presidents think. Nor does he know what they do to run a nation since, as a community activist, he's trying as hard as he can to run the nation into the ground by grabbing what he can get for those on whose behalf he advocates, because that what community organizers do, Believe me when I say this, who he advocates for is not "we the people" although he pretends he does.

Shocking as it may be for the minority underclass (whose unemployment rate is over 40%), Obama has not advocated on their behalf since he was a State senator in Illinois and made the words "subprime mortgage" a respectable term by convincing then Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines to guarantee mortgages when the home buyers' only income was a welfare check. Nor was he looking out for the middle class in whose name he campaigned. Other than wanting their votes (which he didn't get), he couldn't care less about them. Obama, the community activist, advocated only for those who filled his campaign coffers. From billionaires like socialist George Soros to the bankers in the JPMorgan Chase cartel banks to now deceased King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia who, according to former New York borough president and former Malcom X lawyer Percy Sutton, was asked by Dr. Khalid Abdullah Tariq al-Mansour (whose real name is Donald Warden) to write a letter of recommendation for Obama to then Crown Prince Abdullah. Al-Mansour said he was raising money in the Muslim community to pay for Obama's education at Harvard. If Obama was not a Muslim, why would a radical Muslim be doing that? And, why, according to Sutton, would anti-US Saudi Prince Alwaleed kick in what appeared to be $3.5 million (£1.8 million) to Obama's presidential primary campaign in April, 2007? If you're wondering where the millions of $100 or less Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy and Grohjgt Nahoriie Internet donations came from, you can stop pondering. They were illegal contributions. Like what is estimated to be about $650 million in illegal donations the Clintons and Gore received from the People's Liberty Army in the People's Republic of China. Obama got his from the Muslim world and from socialists in Europe. Every donation by anyone who is not a citizen of the United States is illegal—.even when the guy running for President is, himself, illegal.

Meanwhile, back to Obama's sequestration. We now understand that government sequestration is a lot different than consumer sequestration. In Obama's case, he knows if the federal government fails to pay the bills he signed for, the Federal Reserve—to whom the debt is actually owed—won't come knocking on his door to repossess the White House, nor will bill collectors from the US Treasury call the Obama residence wanting to know when they can make a payment. The Fed might get a little anxious, and the folks at the Treasury who have to write the check to the Fed, might get somewhat apoplectic because their backs are against the wall.

In less than four years the Obama Administration increased the national debt by over $17 trillion. He's had to have the debt ceiling raised three times. The American people—the folks who have to pay that bill—have had enough. Their children, grandchildren and great, great, great grandchildren have had enough, too. For a community activist like Obama to wake up one morning and discover he's the guy who signs the checks in Uncle Sam's checkbook for his own pet projects, it gave him a rush that made him feel like the 12th Imam (Antichrist) since Jan. 20, 2009—except, now, the checkbook's empty and he's overdrawn at the bank.. And, with House Speaker and Obama personal banker John Boehner denying a new loan, Obama has found himself in something of a pickle—and, you can bet it's not a kosher one.

Obama's former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who resigned on Jan. 25, 2013, thought he found the solution. Under Article I, Section 8 of he Constitution, Congress has the unassignable right to coin money and establish the value thereof. Ever mindful of the fact that Republicans control the House of Representatives and the pursestrings of the nation, Obama announced he was thinking of authorizing a new coin—a trillion dollar coin made of platinum to pay off the national debt and get around the stubborn Republicans who are determined to reduce the debt by cutting spending while refusing to enact the new taxes Obama has demanded.

When the White House floated its trillion dollar coin trial balloon, Washington Post opinion writer Marc Thiessen commented: "In a town that specializes in stupid ideas, this one reached a new level of stupid. Think about it. If [Obama] could really create a trillion dollars out of the ether simply by minting a single trillion dollar coin, why would we stop at one? We could mint 17 of these puppies and eliminate the national debt. Heck, we could mint 18 of them and have a trillion-dollar surplus."

When Obama was floating the trillion dollar coin idea, he actually planned to mint 20 of them. I guess he wanted a three trillion-dollar surplus. While most people thought Obama's trillion dollar coin idea was just plain stupid, the idea was actually the brainchild of Joe Weisenthal, a editor for Business Insider and Josh Barro of Bloomberg View. The idea was championed by Congressman Jerry Nadler [D-NY]. Everyone liked the idea—except Fed Chairman Ben Bernancke who warned Obama there would be consequences to his stupidity that Obama would not like. After Bernancke's warning, Treasury spokesman Anthony Coley shot an email to Brenden Sasso of The Hill who asked if Obama was going to pay off the national debt with fiat platinum coins. Coley said: "Neither the Treasury Department nor the Federal Reserve believes that the law can or should be used to facilitate the production of platinum coins for the purpose of avoiding an increase in the debt limit."

Most Americans were unaware that Congress added an obscure provision to a 1997 law to allow the Treasury Secretary to authorize the minting of platinum coins of any value to increase their numismatic business. (The law was intended to mint collectible coins based on the bullion value of platinum [which was worth $1,537,99 an oz. on 4/11/2013].). The thought of creating two dozen platinum coins each weighing, say, 5 ounces containing a total bullion value of $153,700.00 that could be used, and accepted as face value legal tender by the Fed bankers to pay off the national debt, is ludicrous—except for a community organizer whose mind lives in a make-believe world where you can play Barack in Alice's Wonderland with the stroke of a pen. There's no way the Federal Reserve was going to accept $17 trillion in fiat coins for $17 trillion in fiat greenbacks (although the platinum coins would actually be worth about $154 thousand in real money and the $17 trillion in debt-backed Fed currency have the monetary value of a mega-12 = 48-roll pack of Charmin™ toilet paper.)

The only way Obama could create a trillion dollar coin that the Fed bankers would accept to pay down Obama's debt would be for the coin to contain a trillion dollars worth of platinum. And, of course, if it did, Obama would need 17 of them. For Obama to mint a solid platinum trillion dollar coin it wouldn't be a coin, it would be a trillion dollar obelisk. And, of course, for Obama to pay off the national debt with them, he would need seventeen trillion dollar platinum obelisks. I guess that's why he using sequestration to impose financial pain on the US taxpayers hoping they will put enough pressure on Speaker Boehner to force the House Republicans to raise the debt ceiling and give Obama the tax increases he needs to pay off his Election of 2012 quid pro quos. Campaign contributions don't come cheaply these days. Based on how fast the national debt climbed since Obama took office, and how little the government has to show for what it spent, it appears it takes trillions, not millions, of dollars of taxpayer money to cover those campaign promises that generated the infusion of cash Obama needed to buy the votes that put him over the top, both in 2008 and again in 2012..

Sequestration is a powerful weapon in the hands of government. We watched it work in Cyprus in March, 2013 when the central bank of Cyprus robbed a portion of the wealth of their working class depositors. Facing tough financial times, the cash-strapped banks in Cyprus taught the Cypriots a new word—sequestration. If you watched it on Fox News, you saw something our grandfathers and fathers saw in 1910 and 1929. Most of them lost their entire life-savings to the bankers. In the Cypriot version, the international money lenders of 17 of the European Union nations only took "some." You needed to watch Cyprus, because if Obama doesn't get his $600 billion in new taxes this year, the American people will feel a touch of Cypriot sequestration.

Remember: sequestration seldom negatively impacts the people who cause the problem (except many of them lose their jobs). It impacts the taxpayers who are forced to follow the donkeys and elephants in the political parade with a broom and dustpan. The working class consumers are the easiest to prey on because they don't get to write the laws—they are the human chattel that totes the load and pays the freight. And most of those who will feel the bite of sequestration won't be born for another 20 to 30 years.

The Cypriots who believed their government's word that consumer bank deposits were protected, and thought their money was safe based on safeguards provided Americans under the 1933 US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation [FDIC], woke up a couple of weeks ago and discovered their bank accounts had been assessed with a levy of between 7% and 10% of the total value of the funds they had on deposit in all of the banks in Cyprus. (Which actually beats what happened to the American bank depositors in 1933 prior to the passage of the FDIC. They virtually lost all of their real wealth with the enactment of the Emergency Banking Relief Act of March 9, 1933 that created a bank holiday and temporarily closed all US banks and savings and loan companies. On March 6, 1933 Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Presidential Proclamation 2039 preventing Americans from owning gold even though US currency in denominations as small as $10 were gold certificates. Roosevelt's sequestration was about to happen three days after becoming the nation's 32nd President.

In defiance of the empirical evidence that had the Fed expanded the money supply during the Stock Market Crash of 1929, the meltdown would likely never have happened, former New York Stock Exchange economist William C. Freud, in a March, 1997 World & I magazine interview, confirmed that fact when he said, "Few people know that in the 1930s our central bank did exactly wrong thing. Instead of encouraging the money supply to expand, [the Fed] allowed [it] to contract by some 30%. No wonder the economy went down the drain." The princes of industry and the barons of banking expanded the money supply so much from 1920 to 1929 the bankers feared the same type of hyperinflation that destroyed Germany and brought Adolph Hitler to power might also destroy the industrial world..

Working class bank depositors, fearing hyperinflation, began withdrawing their funds in gold coins. At the same time, foreign depositors who had invested their country's fiat currency in US business opportunities, converted those investments into US dollars and withdrew gold. FDR's sequestration was about to kick into high gear. From Dec. 1, 1929 to March 3, 1933 US wage-earners and foreign small investors drained $414 billion in gold from the US Treasury. State banks coughed up another $20 billion in gold which they paid to small depositors across the country. for a total of $434 billion in gold bullion losses to the US Treasury. Two hundred twenty-four billion dollars in gold bullion was paid to foreign investors.

On March 6, 1933 Roosevelt declared a bank holiday, closing every bank in the United States. Thirty days later FDR signed Executive Order 6102 "...forbidding the hoarding of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates within the continental United States." Anyone possessing more than 5 troy ounces (160 grams) of gold would be guilty of a crime punishable by up to ten years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000 (that fine, in today's dollars would be in excess of $177 thousand). Exempted from penalty were jewelers and artisans who workws in gold—and a class of gold coins recognized as having a special value as rare or unique coins to recognized collectors. Many of the coins seized by the Roosevelt Department of the Treasury were sold to wealthy collectors who immediately couriered their treasures to banks in Switzerland. Would it shock you to discover that many of the pre-1933 gold coins that were seized by Roosevelt on, or after, March 9, 1933 are the same pre-1933 coins you are now buying? It shouldn't. They are. Just call them sequestered numismatics. (By the way, when Roosevelt seized all of the gold coins in the United States in the 1930s, the White House told the media that the coins were being melted down into bullion. In reality the Roosevelt Administration used the coins at their numismatic value to buy back gold certificates from foreign investors at prices well in excess of the bullion value of the gold they had seized.

Roosevelt signed the Gold Reserve Act into law on Jan. 30, 1934, and a day later he signed Presidential Proclamation 2072 that reduced the weight of the gold dollar from 25 4/5 grams to 15 5/21 grams, devaluing the fiat dollar (the Federal Reserve Notes that replaced the United States Gold Certificates) by 41%. Included in Proclamation 2072 was a provision, referred to only as Title 3 of the Act of May 12, 1933 and never as Title 3 of the Agriculture Adjustment Act., that allowed the fiat Federal Reserve to replace gold certificates which were redeemable only in more Federal Reserve Notes. Every American citizen was required, under penalty of law, to surrender any gold certificates, gold bullion or gold coins in their possession.

Finally, let's look at how the community activist plays the word, "Sequestration.". Since Obama can't punish the Republican members of the House of Representatives for not giving him control of the nation's pursestrings like any good third world dictator gets, he's doing the next best thing. He's going to punish the American voters for letting Republicans take control of the House to keep him from spending the taxpayers' money in whatever manner he desires.

As sequestration was covertly planned in the Obama White House, the Gang of Twelve—an unconstitutional super committee which made unconstitutional decisions for 535 legislators—brought Obama's sequestration to the table like a carrot on a long stick, or better yet, a long grace period that would let Congress avoid tough decisions until after the Election of 2012. Obama, of course, denies that sequestration originated in the Strategy Room at the White House. In a presidential debate on Monday, Oct. 22, 2012, Obama countered a Romney statement in when the former governor said he would not make the sequestration cuts Obama planned to make since it would make America's "...future less certain and less secure." Obama responded by saying Romney was assigning the blame in the wrong place. "First of all," Obama said, "the sequester is not something I proposed. It is something that Congress proposed. It will not happen."

In fairness to Obama, he was pretty sure sequestration would not happen. He thought, in the end, House Speaker John Boehner would have to cave and give him the $600 billion in new taxes he wanted as the community activist condescendingly cut $400 billion in new spendng from some obscure made-up bills that either have not yet been written, or never had a prayer of passing. In other words, Obama had absolutely no intention of cutting a dime of spending which had previously been authorized, particularly since that money was already in the pipeline and that was as good as "in his hand.".

Let's turn back a couple of pages of history and take a closer look at sequestration. From February 9, 2009, Obama was on already on a spending spree to honor the quid pro quos expected by his campaign donors. He proved he could reach the debt ceiling faster than any two presidents in the past and, because it wasn't like it was his money, and because Obama didn't really have to rely on voters to actually vote for him to win, he didn't have a problem spending it.

As long as Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi controlled the pursestrings of the nation as Speaker of the House, Congress rubber-stamped Obama's spending. Washington, from Jan. 2, 2007 to Jan 5. 2011 was on a social progressive spending spree. On Jan. 5, 2011 Speaker Pelosi [D-CA] was reduced to Congresswoman Pelosi and the nation's 61st Speaker, John Boehner [R-OH] turned off the money spigot. When Obama told Congress he needed the debt ceiling raised, Boehner told the White House that real spending cuts had to accompany any increase in the debt ceiling. Boehner entered "good faith" negotiations with Obama and Reid only to discover their idea of negotiations dealt only with how much new tax revenue Boehner was going to okay.

Boehner said "none." It was time to cut spending. In came the Gang of Twelve. They "found" $1.2 trillion in pretend budget cuts they were willing to make, spread over ten years, or $10 billion in cuts per year. The other $1.2 trillion, in the view of the Democrats, would come from real tax increases on the middle class. Initially Boehner was agreeable to eliminate some deductions on the "rich" such as the elimination of the home mortgage interest deduction, and a new reduction in the deduction of medical expenses and non-reimbursed work-related expenses, which, for some reason, Boehner didn't seem to see as a tax increase even though when you eliminate deductions you're increasing the taxpayer's taxable earnings which means you are raising his taxes. Boehner also took the nation's biggest liar at his word when Obama insisted he would not increase taxes on anyone making less $250 thousand per year until Obama refused to extend to the Bush-43 tax cuts.

As the sequestration deadline approached, Obama floated his first budget trial balloon that included $600 billion in real tax increases cushioned with $400 billion in imaginary revenue cuts. Pressured by the conservatives not to offer Obama anything that remotely looked like a tax increase, Boehner, fearing a revolt that could lead to a leadership change, said "no."

The Bowles-Simpson Super Committee (six House members and six Senate members pictured above. left) which can't constitutionally initiate a tax bill since only 435 people—all members of the House of Representatives—can do that . That's the rules the Founding Fathers made because the Senate, which does not share its responsibility ot vetting presidential appointees with the House, can't expect to to share the exclusive franchise of the House—determining how and how much of the People's money is spent by the Executive branch.

Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution makes it clear that the US Senate has no authority to propose tax bills, or join the House in writing the language of a tax bill. The only authority the Constitution gives the Senate is to propose amendments to the tax bills crafted by the House. Making the Bowles-Simpson nightmare even more ghoulish is that Obama covertly loaded the Committee with nightmarish leftwingers who were not on public display. Also appointed on this committee by Obama was Andy Stern, the president of SEIU, the Service Employees International Union (to whom Obama owes the Oval Office), who has no business sitting on any congressional committee. Stern is a union thug. While Alice Rivlin, Clinton's social progressive head of the Congressional Budget Office is qualified to talk about spending cuts and tax revenue, she should not have been on the committee because she is not a sitting member of Congress.

Where did the word "sequestration" come from? It is, after all, a term banks—big banks—use. Banks big enough to foreclose on big corporations—or small countries. Think of the War of 1812 as "The War of Sequestration." England, foreclosing on the United States. That's why Obama likes the word. So does JPMorgan Chase, which loaned the word to him.

In 1791 through the efforts of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, the First Bank of the United States came into being. The initial funding of the bank would be $10 million with the US government buying 20% of the stock for $2 million. The only problem is, the new government did not have $2 million. The Bank of America, which didn't either, loaned it the money. Some of the wealthiest men in America, like Hamilton's father-in-law, Philip Schulyver, invested in the bank. But the bulk of the shares were purchased in Europe—mostly by the Bank of England which realized that while it may have lost the right on the field of battle to fly its flag over centers of government in the new nation, if it controlled America's banking system it could financially control the political direction of the nation by manipulating its monetary system. Both Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and Congressman James Madison opposed the central bank which they believed violated the Constitution since both argued that the Constitution did not endow Congress with the authority to incorporate what would be a privately-chartered bank that was largely owned by a foreign power. On February 25, 1791, President George Washington, convinced that the Constitution did not preclude authorizing its charter because the government owned a slice of it, signed the Bank bill into law. After Hamilton left office in 1795, the new Secretary of the Treasury, Oliver Wolcott, Jr. suggested that the government sell its stock in the bank and turn control of America's banks over to the States. The bank's charter expired in 1811 and Congress refused to renew it. The first battle in the War of Sequestration of the United States took place on June 18, 1812 when Madison signed the declaration of war against England.

On May 11, 1812, British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval was assassinated in London, bringing Robert Jenkins, Lord Liverpool to power. Parliament signed an Order in Council, blaming the United States for Perceval's death even though he was more likely a casualty of the Russians who likely received their orders to assassinate him before the Anglo-Russian War ended. Liverpool repealed the Order of Council, but word never reached the United States. A state of war existed for 32 months. No one knows who fired the first shot, or why. It was fired. Then, it seemed, England's attempt to repossess American just seemed to end on Feb. 18, 1816.

Strangely, a 20-year charter for the Second Bank of the United States was signed shortly after the armistice, with the bank opening its doors for business on Jan. 7, 1817. Twenty percent of the capital stock was given to the United States by the Rothschild bankers who controlled the Bank of England. England won the War of Sequestration. Historians say that neither England nor America won the War of 1812. Ask any historian today who started it, or why, and you'll get as many answers as questions asked. Without sequestration as the cause, the War of 1812 makes no sense—partuclarly since England was also fighting the Napoleanic Wars that was draining the England treasury. Fighting a two-front war when you don't have to, makes no sense at all. Particularly since the Anglo-Russian War had just ended in April, 1812 after five years of depleting money, munitions and men.

Now that you now know so much more than you did ten minutes ago, let's get back to the National Committee on Fiscal Responsibility & Reform which, as I was saying, violated Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution. The Bowles-Simpson Committee had no congressional authority to originate a tax bill. At least, none of the six US Senators sitting on the Committee did. Nor did Ann Fudge, a liberal corporate executive for several corporations who was added by Obama. Nor did Joe Biden's chief-of-staff, Bruce Reed who should also have not been there either since he's not a member of the House of Representatives, and constitutionally cannot serve two masters. It's interesting that the then-Minority Leader of the House, John Boehner picked Paul Ryan, the House's best budget thinker for the committee. Ryan didn't like the farce that were being played by Obama's Bowlesimpson caricature and resigned. He was replaced by Fred Upton.

In the 30-some years I've been wrapped up in politics, I've never seen a single constitutional tax bill enacted by Congress. Here's what I see. Tell me if you see the same thing. The House proposes an appropriations bill. The Senate proposes a version of the House bill tey would prefer—which is entirely different than the House version.. Constitutionally, they can't do that. They can ony offer amendments to the House bill. They can't through the House version in the Senate trash can and write their own version. (That's what the Senate did with Obamacare. They didn't like the House version of Obamacare, HR 3200 so they threw it in the trash and wrote their own, HR 3962. Because of the Origination Clause in the Constitution, there had to be a House version of that bill that preceded the Senater version because the Senate cannot orignate an approprirations bill. It appears more likely than Rahm Emanuel had HR3590 retrieved from the trash can than Harry Reid. Perhaps both jointly, They gutted it and pretended it was the original healthcare bill when it was designed solely to provide a one time home purchase tax exemption to veterans returning from Iraq or Afghanistan.)

What is supposed to happen is that the Senate gets the House appropriations bill which is enrolled and read from the floor. The Senate offer amendments to the House Resolution. What they can't do, constitutionally, is offer their own appropriations bill, or any other legislation which originated in the Senate and taxes levies fines levy on the American people. They can't do a Harry Reid. They can't kill an Appropriation Bill at the door of the Senate and write their own bill.

Any Senate-originated appropriation bill violates the Origination Clause of the Constitution (Article I, Section 7, paragraph 1). Only the House can write an appropriation bill because only the House can authorize spending. The minute you create a super committee of six House members and six members of the Senate with the power to create a grand bargain by crafting an appropriations bill that both Houses will theoretically support, you have violated the Constitution. (How you dance around the Origination Clause is simply enroll the bill in the House before you enroll it in the Senate and you've technically met the standards of the Origination Clause although, in reality, the Sequestration Bill actually originated in the Oval Office—not exactly where the Founding Fathers nor the Constitution intended for such legislation to originate. Since the money that greases the wheels of government comes from the sweat of the brows of the American taxpayer, they determine—through their representatives in Congress—how much of their hard-earned money they are willing to contribute to the cogs that turn the wheels of government. And, whether you realize it or not, when the bureaucrats spend too much of your money, or spend it on something that displeases you, you aren't supposed to shrug it off—you're supposed to fire the slug.

Here's one inconsequential example of sequestration and how Obama applied it. Obama cut off all White House tours because, he said, the expenditure was not essential in tough times. Under sequestration, there's no money for wasteful tomfoolery—just real important government stuff. While Obama views the White House as his private home that just happens to have a few offices in it—so if there's a blizzard, the president can still get to work on time.

While there's no charge for tours for individuals or groups through the White House, they must be scheduled through your Congressman who then schedules them through the Dept. of the Interior's Park Service at least six months in advance of the tour. On March 9, 2013 Obama abruptly canceled all White House tours, telling the media that because of sequestration budget cuts, the Secret Service made the decision to cut the tours. When the media saw through the sham, Obama said its not his fault, saying, "...the Secret Service says its costs about $74,000 a week. The Secret Service told us they were going to have to furlough some folks." Doesn't Obama even know the US Park Service, not the Secret Service, oversee White House tours?

Knowing these sequestration financial shortfalls were coming, Obama had to know there was no way the House of Representatives was going to cave in to Obama's plan to cut $400 billion in imaginary spending in exchange for Boehner passing a $600 billion tax hike on the middle class (while the Senate, which can't originate a spending bill), was working on a new $600 billion jobs program for minorities paid for with...you guessed it...Boehner's $600 billion tax hike. If Obama needed an extra $74,000 a week to make sure the American people could visit the People's House at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, all Obama had to do is tell Joe Biden he was going to have to cancel his five day London-Paris trip in February—the purpose of which has never been explained. From the myriad of media photos taken in London and Paris, it seemed to be a pleasure jaunt not a diplomatic mission (which would not have been handled by Biden.) . Here's the tab for the trip—and remember, the White House already knew there would be no tax increase agreement with Boehner. The Speaker made it clear when Obama broke his promise about extending the Bush-43 tax cuts. He told the Democrats "...there will be no tax increases. Obama already got his tax increase," so Obama knew sequestration is going forward. That's why Obama will make sequestration as painful on the American people as he can. He needs it to be so painful the people hurt most will overlook him and blame Boehner and the Republicans. It's the only way he takes back the House in 2014.

The American people need to understand when they think about this in 2014, Barack Obama, and Barack Obama only, is making the decision what is cut—and when. There are hundreds of billions of boondoggle projects whose funding is already approved—billions and billions of wasteful pork barrel projects— that could be cut with no adverse affects on anyone except the Obama donor who would lose his quid pro quo. Instead, Obama has made sure his cuts will anger, if not physically or financially hurt the white middle class that it will the but most. Now, here's Joe Biden's tab for his 5-day February jaunt to London and Paris:

Two nights at the Hyatt Regency in London: $459,338.65, followed by two nights at the Hotel Intercontinental Paris LaGrand: $585,000.40. Transportation on Air Force One (per hour) $179,750.00.. It takes 7 hours, 17 minutes to fly from Washington, DC to Heathrow Airport in London. So, Biden's one-way trip to London cost the taxpayers $1,288,817.50. Add another $174,750.00 to go from Heathrow to Paris, and we have his one-way fare pegged at $1,468,567.50. Round trip, just for travel, Biden spend a whopping $2,937,135.00. Whoops. Forget Biden's "ground transportation—the limos he used that week. They cost the taxpayers $322,000, for a really grand total of $3,259,135.00. Had Biden not taken that trip, the White House could have allowed the American people to visit the People's House for 4,044 weeks—or about 77 years. I think Congress needs to hold a hearing and have Joe Biden explain, when Obama tries to cancel the White House Easter Egg Hunt, and does cancel the right of the American people to visit their House at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, what was so urgent in London and Paris that he had to waste over $3 million in taxpayer dollars to lollygag in Europe for five days—on our dime when we barely have two nickels to rub together.

Vice Presidents have one constitutional duty: they are the President of the United States Senate. If Congress discovers that Biden was "vacationing" for five days, they need to give him the bill for his trip particularly when the community activist has been flying around the country telling the people the nation is broke, and cuts that are going to hurt everyone are coming. (Which is why he made the big show out of biting the bullet himself and giving back what amounts to $20,.000 of his $400,000 per year salary. Wow! What a sacrifice.) Watch for the cut that seniors are going to get. If Social Security recipients get a 5% cut on their retirement check, and that's their sole income, that elderly person will likely have lost most if not all of their discretionary income for the month.

That's the nice thing about sequestration. Everyone's fingerprints are on it. But they're all smudged so you can't blame any particular person. Barack Obama, of course, insists that the Gang of Twelve and sequestration were both Congress' idea. Not true. Both are Obama's. . Sequestration was conceived by Obama, orchestrated by Obama, and every hurtful cut was specifically schemed and approved by Obama to inflict maximum financial injury on the voters. Because, when Obama, the community organizer, stands before his TelePrompTers, he will blame John Boehner and the Repubican-controlled Congress for the pain the public is suffering. Sequestration will be Boehner's fault; and the fault of the House of Representatives because they refused to give Obama the tax increase he wanted so he could continue spending $1.7 trillion dollars a year.

 

Just Say No
Copyright © 2009 Jon Christian Ryter.
All rights reserved
.