The Games They Play pb

“A LONG TIME WITHOUT GOVERNMENT”

by Gunnery Sergeant John McClain, USMC, Retired, ©blogging at Gulf1

(Oct. 11, 2013) — When we elect people to serve in Congress, we are supposed to be selecting members of the community, the citizens we know and trust; people to actually represent us, personally, directly, and exactly.  We were established as “sovereign citizens” with the ratification and application of our constitution, and as such, we have all the responsibilities of Kings, Princes, and Emperors, as citizens, and not merely the liberties and freedoms.

The Greeks understood this and established the factual nature of the connection between liberty and responsibility with the story of Damocles, and “The Sword of Damocles.”  Our founding was on the principle that we, The People, would be the Sovereigns, ruling ourselves through representative government, with citizens making decisions, and our elected all being “representative” of “Our Sovereign Power;” representatives, not possessors.

In the face of the House doing its proper duty of writing a budget, forwarding it to the Senate, and its being met with a Democrat stone wall, it has become clear to all with an open mind that it is again, as always, Democrats who simply aren’t willing to live within a budget.  We have had a budget written in every Republican administration throughout my life, and we have operated on “continuing resolutions” through most Democrat administrations, with the few budgets being ignored and overrun.

For a budget to be written, one must start long before the spending and plan, since that is the intended outcome.  So one can’t start this year’s budget today; we can only start one for the following year, having failed to watch over our Congress and see to it that they wrote one in 2014.

In the face of this year-long confrontation of the House writing a budget, and the Senate rejecting it out of hand, the appearance is all about intransigence on the part of the left, while every apparent effort has been made by the House to start the process, and the continual proffers demonstrating the full intent of accomplishing. The Senate has rejected every bill out of hand, refusing to even consider them in committee all year.  Senator Reid has demanded nothing but a “clean continuing resolution,” the statement that no budget will be considered.

While those strongly opposing increasing our debt offer budget considerations which reduce spending, yet address specific and real needs, the stance from the left has been “a clean continuing resolution with no specific demarcations.”  They stand on the demand of an unfettered hand, no constraints, an open-ended debt increase, and acknowledge no responsibility to reduce spending.

We, The People, have shown we are tired of having additional debt dropped on our shoulders without any say in it, and have fully backed the House and its attempts to have a real budget with specifications and limits.  We have rejected with derision the notion of “a free hand,” and they have been stymied up until now for any other response.

To this point, since Obama took office, the House has offered bills for the budget, while the Senate demands a simple grand sum, unconstrained, and has rejected everything offered.  It has been suggested the sole resolution is “a continuing resolution,” meaning an open-ended fiscal number with no specifics on how it is spent.  They have pushed such through and received what they wanted for five years and are angry that they are being confronted.  With the House offering bills, they are looking unreasonable, as they have been.

Up against a “hard break,” they offer a bill to contend with the House bills.  They put up a bill which provides the “continuing resolution” unfettered, along with an unspecified debt ceiling rise, in language that is a default passage unless opposed by a two-thirds majority, allowing Republicans the chance to allow it to pass while stating they did not support it.

This is no bill, it has no substance, it is no legitimate piece of legislation; it is no more than a “sleight of hand continuing resolution with a debt increase” couched in terms faux conservatives can pretend to oppose.  This is just an unapologetic political manipulation of “The People” by deceit.

It is time for a budget; there has been no legitimate excuse for the lack of one, except we have allowed it.  The Constitution demands Congress produce a budget; we can’t afford to allow them to continue without one, literally.  We can afford to go a long time without government.