Category — US Budget

One of the “Essential Documents” featured in The Patriot’s History Reader, is President Jackson’s veto message. Jackson’s words are perhaps more applicable to today than for his own time.

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.  Winston Churchill

It’s time for Republicans to put their pants on.  When 47% of Americans “somewhat approve of Obama’s handling of the …

The proposed balanced budget amendment is not necessarily all it’s cracked up to be. We owe it to ourselves to look at it very carefully before we make it part of the Constitution.

Who are we as a people? What do we believe in?

Societies which fail to transmit their core beliefs to the next generation can expect those beliefs to erode, sometimes by design, sometimes by default or by carelessness. Standards not reinforced whither away. Liberty, independence and equality under the law give way to less demanding ideals.

The system of checks and balances we gloss over in the education system deserves a closer look. The Constitution is a contract that ensures those checks and balances and that the government is ultimately answerable to the people. It’s not a “living document” as so many would have us believe. No lawyer believes in a living contract. If something isn’t working properly, then the contract must be amended, and contracts are amended every day all over this country. In fact, the United States Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times. That doesn’t mean that the contract is subject to interpretation – just amendment through the designated process.

The Boston Tea party was more than a protest over taxes. Nor was it just a prank perpetuated by a few rowdies dressed as Native Americans. On December 16, 1773, as many as 7,000 people congregated around the Old South Meeting House. John Adams did not like mob action, but he wrote this about dumping the tea: “There is a dignity, a majesty, a sublimity, in this last effort of the patriots that I greatly admire.”

The newly elected and established politicians seem to be at loggerheads over the correct course of action. The country is in a dire state of affairs and it may get worse real fast. What to do? Here’s some advice from one of the Founders of the Republican Party and the first Republican president—Abraham Lincoln.

In spite of the Founders’ best efforts to create a republic where the evils of faction could not prevail, today the powers of faction hold sway. Congress is growing progressively more and more factious as is evidenced by “deeming” to spend as much as they like without being accountable to actual budget.

I talked to an accountant friend of mine, because I was concerned about potentially misunderstanding what I’ve read about the state of the US Federal budget, national debt, current and planned expenditures.  In my earlier post on this subject, I …

This is something that may be impossible to do.  The numbers are astounding.  According to the US Treasury, we now owe more than 12 Trillion, 322 Billion, 720 Thousand dollars.  This represents the principal amount of marketable and non-marketable securities outstanding.  …