Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

The end of Congress as we know it?

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Will Republican intransigence mean the end of Congress, at least as you and I know it, and the designers of checks and balances designed our government?

Unfortunately, too many Republicans see the hyped debt ceiling crisis as a way to slash the social safety net.  Republicans want to do this, because what you and I see as a safety net, they see as “leechdom”.  To quote Paul Craig Roberts, President Reagan’s former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury from ’81-’82:

“To bring a number of Republicans onboard, the Reagan administration resorted to a non-economic argument that the tax cuts would starve the government of revenues and force the desired Republican shrinkage of government.  I opposed this tactic.  I argued that it would confirm the claim that Republicans wanted to take the tax burden off the rich and place it on the poor by curtailing the services from government.

I pointed out that House Speaker Tip O’Neill and the Senate Democrats were prepared to pass the Reagan tax rate reduction, and that there were enough House and Senate Republicans and Democrats to carry the vote.  But the White house Chief-of-Staff would have none of it.  He wanted a Republican “victory” over the Democrats.  Thus a necessary economic policy was misrepresented as a crusade against “big government.”

Republican concerns with creating a “leech class” do not take the realities of non-agrarian modern culture into account.  Large numbers of people in a market economy can find themselves without resources through no fault of their own.  To quote Dr.Paul Craig, “No modern country can simply say, “OK, hard luck, go die in the streets with your wives and children.”   For Craig’s entire article on this topic, go to:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25776

Roberts postulates that:

“We are talking about a crisis beyond anything the world has ever seen.  Does anyone think that President Obama is going to just sit there while the power of the US collapses?  He doesn’t have to do so.  There are presidential directives and executive orders in place, but there by George W. Bush himself, that President Obama can invoke to declare a national emergency, suspend the debt ceiling limit, and continue to issue Treasury Debt.  This is exactly what would happen.”

In fact, my legal analysis agrees with Professor Roberts’s.  As I noted, when I provided a link to the Congressional Research Service (CRS) “Report for Contress [on the President’s ] National Emergency Powers, see full Memorandum of Law at this link:

http://usa-the-republic.com/emergency%20powers/crs.html The scenario fleshed out so thoroughly in Professor Roberts’ article is directly analogous to the situation facing the USA in payment for Civil War debt that led to the passage of the 14th Amendment to the US constitution, and the National Emergency Powers are both legal, and in place, in the situation created by the current intransigent Republicans who are placing a hollow victory for their party above the well being of the Nation.  Once this this has occurred, Congress risks losing its control over the power of the purse, even as it has already given up its control over the War Power.

Again, I agree with Professor Roberts:

“A Congress that is willing to destroy its remaining power over a debt ceiling increase that is less than a Federal Reserve loan to one US bank is a Congress moved to folly by Republican intransigence.”

 

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Comments

  1. I don’t know, Amberpaw. National emergency? No. We’re talking about a serious economic hit, maybe another recession, something that’s going to cause a whole lot of suffering for a lot of people.

    But that’s Congress’s call, and just because they carry out economic policy in a way we disagree with doesn’t give the president the right to do whatever the hell he wants. I’m pretty sure unfettered executive power is a big no-no, and economic policy disagreements, no matter how serious, are no excuse to display total contempt for whatever semblance of a democratic process we’ve thrown together.

    As for Doctor “Not Actually A Doctor” Roberts…well, in calling this “a crisis beyond anything the world has ever seen”, I think he forfeits the right to be taken seriously. He seems to be claiming that Obama would declare a state of emergency, that “the power of the purse would transfer from Congress to the President”, that “It would be the end of the power of Congress.” Couple problems here.

    First: given that the administration keeps repeating that it doesn’t intend to do this (rather than prepping the nation for the possibility), it’s extremely implausible, and he offers no evidence.

    Second: this on its own is not an argument for Congressional action. He’s basically saying that Congress should live in fear of an imperial presidency. Not cool.

    The debt ceiling stuff is crazy. But Congress isn’t going anywhere.

  3. But decades in the trenches, speaking “truth to power” when often, those in power act like blockheads, may not lead to the sweetest and most charming of tempraments.

    Besides, no one asked either of us to take Mr. Cranky but Right out to dinner! But, hey, editor’s choice, and all.

  4. American democracy and oligarchyRoberts has been increasingly critical of what he deems as the lessening of democracy in the U.S.; instead accusing it of being run by oligarchs by stating:
    “The west prides itself that it is the standard for the world, that it is a democracy. But nowehere do you see democratic outcomes: not in Greece, not in Ireland, not in the UK, not here, the outcomes are always to punish the innocent and reward the guilty. And that’s what the Greeks are in the streets, protesting. We see this all over the west. There is no democracy, there are oligarchies, some of these smaller European countries are not even run by their own governments, they are run by Wall Street… There is probably more democracy in China than there is in the west. Revolution is the only answer… We are confronted with a curious situation. Throughout the west we think we have democracy, we hold ourselves up high, we demonize China, we talk about the mafia state of Russia, we talk about the Arabs and so on, but where is the democracy here?” [18]

    Something about living in a state where the legislature is exempt from all open meeting and information laws, and three people call the shots makes me LIKE the above quote (from that Wikipedia page)

    Here is another good one:

    On March 26, 2010, in a farewell column titled, “Truth Has Fallen and Taken Liberty With It,”[19] Roberts effectively announced his journalistic retirement. The article, published at Counterpunch.org, begins: “There was a time when the pen was mightier than the sword. That was a time when people believed in truth and regarded truth as an independent power and not as an auxiliary for government, class, race, ideological, personal, or financial interest.” It proceeds to a bitter chronicle of the demise of American intellectual integrity, particularly that of financial journalists and economists. These have been thoroughly corrupted by monetary inducements to misrepresent and ignore what has been, in effect, the systematic dismantling of the nation’s productive life, in the name of globalization. He holds the members of his own journalistic profession largely responsible for abetting relentless outsourcing of American industry, thereby gutting the American middle class and effectively dooming the nation’s future. He describes his own ostracism from mainstream media access, the consequence of his relentless and unflinching criticism of the demolition process over the past decade. His column ends, “The militarism of the U.S. and Israeli states, and Wall Street and corporate greed, will now run their course. As the pen is censored and its might extinguished, I am signing off.”

    Of course he didn’t stay “signed off” – folks as cranky as Roberts (and maybe, as me) just cannot shut up for long – we are too appalled by all the lies, deception, and greed around us. I note, too, that while Robert’s position on Isreal is extreme – and so are other positions of his – at least he is willing to stay out there fighting for the vestiges of journalism and democracy. Not bad for someone born in 1939. I hope I stay in the trenches too.

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