Just how deep does the rabbit hole go?
Posts tagged Congress
US Suspends Constitution in Permanent World War on Terror
11 day ago
Source: http://www.activistpost.com
By Eric Blair
Two disturbing developments have occurred in the last couple of days that have gone relatively unnoticed compared to the recent IRS, AP, and Benghazi scandals.
First, the senate is debating an expansion of the already broad powers of the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) so the U.S. can essentially engage any area in the world in the war on terror, including America. Which brings us to the second development: the Pentagon has recently granted itself police powers on American soil.
Assistant Secretary of Defense Michael Sheehan told Congress yesterday that the AUMF authorized the US military to operate on a worldwide battlefield from Boston to Pakistan. Sheehan emphasized that the Administration is authorized to put boots on the ground wherever the enemy chooses to base themselves, essentially ignoring the declaration of war clause in the US Constitution.
Senator Angus King said this interpretation of the AUMF is a “nullity” to the Constitution because it ignores Congress’ role to declare war. King called it the “most astoundingly disturbing hearing” he’s been to in the Senate.
Even ultra-hawk John McCain agreed that the AUMF has gone way beyond its authority.
“This authority … has grown way out of proportion and is no longer applicable to the conditions that prevailed, that motivated the United States Congress to pass the authorization for the use of military force that we did in 2001,” McCain said.
Glenn Greenwald wrote an excellent piece describing how this hearing reveals the not-so-secret plan to make the war on terror a permanent fixture in Western society.
Greenwald writes:
It is hard to resist the conclusion that this war has no purpose other than its own eternal perpetuation. This war is not a means to any end but rather is the end in itself. Not only is it the end itself, but it is also its own fuel: it is precisely this endless war – justified in the name of stopping the threat of terrorism – that is the single greatest cause of that threat.
A self-perpetuating permanent war against a shadowy undefinable enemy appears to be the future of American foreign policy. How convenient for the war machine and tyrants who claim surveillance is safety.
But perhaps most disturbing of all of this is the military’s authority to police American streets as if it was in civil war. For all those still in denial that America is a militarized police state, this should be the ultimate cure to your delusion.
Jeff Morey of AlterNet writes:
By making a few subtle changes to a regulation in the U.S. Code titled “Defense Support of Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies” the military has quietly granted itself the ability to police the streets without obtaining prior local or state consent, upending a precedent that has been in place for more than two centuries.
The most objectionable aspect of the regulatory change is the inclusion of vague language that permits military intervention in the event of “civil disturbances.” According to the rule: “Federal military commanders have the authority, in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the President is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances.”
A law from 1878 called the Posse Comitatus Act was put in place to prevent the Department of Defense from interfering with local law enforcement. But now, the DoD claims they’ve had this authority for over 100 years.
David Stockman speaks at the Manhattan Mises Circle
04 days ago
How Crony Capitalism Corrupts the Free Market
Source: http://www.lewrockwell.com
Posted by Ryan W. McMaken
Cody Wilson Responds To Congress Shutting Down Website With 3D Printer Gun Designs
01 week ago
Cody Wilson Responds To Congress Shutting Down Website With 3D Printer Gun Designs
If it’s a “states’ rights” issue, why are they asking permission from the federal government? (Internet Sales Tax)
02 weeks ago
Source: http://www.bcpublicrecord.com
By Tona
For many months now, “limited government, free market, reduced spending, Conservative Republicans™” Lamar Alexander, Bob Corker and Bill Haslam have been lobbying for and/or sponsoring the Marketplace Fairness Act, also known by a more appropriate title: the Internet Sales Tax. The tax-raising Republicans have been touting this as the states collecting taxes “that were already theirs”, or “making it fair for the brick-and-mortar businesses located in the state”, or “restoring state sovereignty” as if this is some sort of 10th Amendment takeback from the federal government – when in reality it is just a tax increase. Their appeal to the currently popular anti-federal sentiment in the country is not only unconvincing, it is without constitutional merit. Note that they are counting you as fools to fall for this “states’ rights” language.
If these leaders truly believed in “marketplace fairness” for brick-and-mortar stores, then Tennessee would not have cut the sweetheart deal with online retailer and corporate welfare queen Amazon to locate here and not collect any sales taxes – even for sales within the state. How’s that for an unfair advantage? Nobody argues that a sale made within the state isn’t subject to state sales taxes – except for our state government and Amazon, who enjoys an unfair advantage over all the other brick-and-mortar retailers in Tennessee thanks to Governor Haslam who now claims to be interested in “marketplace fairness”. Amazon also received a 10-year, 50% tax break on property taxes to locate in Loudon County. Apparently tax revenue (or is that “fairness”?) is for sale to the highest bidder. We don’t need a new federal law to correct that.
Article 1, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution states in part:
“No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any state.”
The federal government cannot issue a federal tax on interstate sales. They are exports, whether to another state or another country. The federal government can however regulate interstate “commerce” or transportation of the goods between states. The states themselves do not have this power over one another. They cannot regulate interstate trade period – which is precisely why sales taxes for purchases you made in another state have not been collected. They are exports to your resident state. So the money-grubbers in the state created the “use” tax to take some of your money anyway – despite the fact that they provide zero services to the brick-and-mortar store in the other state you imported from and your “use” of the item you purchased doesn’t induce any burden on your neighbors that require additional tax revenue that isn’t covered somewhere else by another tax.
So why ask permission from the federal government? Because they have to. Article 1, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution states in part:
“No state shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws: and the net produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any state on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the Congress.”
So guess what? The states are only entitled to collecting their new Internet Sales Tax and subtracting their expenses for executing inspections of these imports/exports. The rest of the revenue is required by the U.S. Constitution to go to the U.S. Treasury. At best, Tennessee could add more cigarette gestapo agents to the state Department of Revenue. The net revenue proceeds to the states legally should be ZERO, because see, the founders really did believe in some semblance of free trade and INDEPENDENT states.
There is no “state right” to this money. There never was.
The More Illegal Immigrants That Go On Food Stamps The More Money JP Morgan Makes
02 weeks ago
Source: http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com
By Michael
Recently uncovered documents prove that the Obama administration has been working with the Mexican government to increase the number of illegal immigrants on food stamps, and when more illegal immigrants go on food stamps JP Morgan makes more money. As you will read about below, JP Morgan has made at least 560 million dollars processing Electronic Benefits Transfer cards. Each month, JP Morgan makes between $.31 and $2.30 for every single person on food stamps (and that does not even include things like ATM fees, etc). So JP Morgan has a vested interest in seeing poverty grow and the number of people on food stamps increase. Meanwhile, the Obama administration has been aggressively seeking to expand participation in the food stamp program. Under Obama, the number of people on food stamps has grown from 32 million to more than 47 million. And even though poverty in America is absolutely exploding, that apparently is not good enough for the Obama administration. It has now come out that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has provided the Mexican government with literature that actively encourages illegal immigrants to enroll in food stamps. One flyer contains the following statement in Spanish: “You need not divulge information regarding your immigration status in seeking this benefit for your children.” The bold and the underlining are in the original document in case you were wondering. Overall, federal spending on food stamps increased from 18 billion dollars in 2000 to 85 billion dollars in 2012, and at this point one out of every five U.S. households in now enrolled in the food stamp program. When people illegally or fraudulently enroll in the food stamp program, it makes it harder for those that desperately need the help to be able to get it.
It is certainly a good thing to help fellow Americans that are suffering. It is a crying shame that more than a million public school students in America are homeless. That should not be happening in the “wealthiest nation on earth”.
But today we have a system that has turned poverty into big business. According to an article posted on Breitbart.com, JP Morgan has made at least 560 million dollars (and probably much more) processing EBT cards…
A new report by the Government Accountability Institute finds that JP Morgan has made at least $560,492,596 since 2004 processing the Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards of 18 of the 24 states it has under contract for the food stamp program.
A Daily Beast article provided some more specifics about the monster profits that JP Morgan is making…
Just how lucrative JP Morgan’s EBT state contracts are is hard to say, because total national data on EBT contracts are not reported. But thanks to a combination of public-records requests and contracts that are available online, here’s what we do know: 18 of the 24 states JP Morgan handles have been contracted to pay the bank up to $560,492,596.02 since 2004. Since 2007, Florida has been contracted to pay JP Morgan $90,351,202.22. Pennsylvania’s seven-year contract totaled $112,541,823.27. New York’s seven-year contract totaled $126,394,917.
These contracts are transactional contracts, meaning they are amendable based on changes in program participation. Each month, the three companies that administer EBT receive a small fee that can range from $.31 to $2.30 (or higher depending upon the number of welfare services on an EBT card and state contractual requirements) for each SNAP recipient.
So the more people that are out of work and that need to turn to the government for food, the bigger profits that JP Morgan makes.
What makes all of this even more insulting is that many of the jobs that JP Morgan could be providing to Americans to help alleviate this poverty are being shipped overseas instead. As I noted in a previous article, many EBT card customer service calls are being routed to call centers in India by JP Morgan.
So why doesn’t anyone do anything about this?
Well, it turns out that JP Morgan has the politicians that oversee the food stamp program in their back pocket. The following is from a recent Money Morning article…
And the bank has taken steps to make sure the SNAP program remains a growing source of revenue. JPMorgan’s political donations to the members of House and Senate agricultural committees, the ones with legislative responsibility for the program, soared from just over $82,000 in 2002 to nearly $333,000 as of 2010.
What a wonderful system we have, eh?
And surely JP Morgan just loves the fact that the Obama administration is actively encouraging illegal immigrants to apply for food stamps.
What you are about to read should absolutely shock you. At a time when the U.S. government is absolutely drowning in debt, the Obama administration is making it abundantly clear to illegal immigrants that their immigration status will not be checked when they apply for food stamps. The following is from a recent Judicial Watch press release…
Judicial Watch today released documents detailing how the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is working with the Mexican government to promote participation by illegal aliens in the U.S. food stamp program.
The promotion of the food stamp program, now known as “SNAP” (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), includes a Spanish-language flyer provided to the Mexican Embassy by the USDA with a statement advising Mexicans in the U.S. that they do not need to declare their immigration status in order to receive financial assistance. Emphasized in bold and underlined, the statement reads, “You need not divulge information regarding your immigration status in seeking this benefit for your children.”
The documents came in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request made to USDA on July 20, 2012. The FOIA request sought: “Any and all records of communication relating to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to Mexican Americans, Mexican nationals, and migrant communities, including but not limited to, communications with the Mexican government.”
The documents obtained by Judicial Watch show that USDA officials are working closely with their counterparts at the Mexican Embassy to widely broaden the SNAP program in the Mexican immigrant community, with no effort to restrict aid to, identify, or apprehend illegal immigrants who may be on the food stamp rolls.
You can see a copy of the flyer right here.
So who pays for all of this?
You do of course.
The Obama administration is doing all that it can to promote illegal immigration, and big banks such as JP Morgan just make bigger profits the more illegal immigration that we see, but it is you and I that end up with the bill. This was put beautifully in a recent article by Mike Adams of NaturalNews.com…
Nearly $75 billion of taxpayer money is spent each year on federal food stamps, and it turns out some of that is alarmingly being handed out to illegal immigrants — people who contribute nothing to the federal tax base in America but who seem to be experts on collecting social welfare benefits of all kinds. If you are working for a living, you are buying food for illegals who are being actively recruited by Obama and the democratic party so that they will vote more democrats into office.
When we reward illegal immigration, what happens?
That’s right – we are just going to get even more illegal immigration.
According to WND, we have already started seeing a huge increase in illegal immigrants coming across the border since Congress began debating the amnesty bill…
Illegal border crossings have doubled, and possibly even tripled, since the latest congressional push began toward comprehensive immigration reform.
In reporting first published by Townhall.com’s Katie Pavlich, border patrol agents in the Tucson/Nogales sector claim illegals are coming here in much higher numbers in just the past few months.
“We’ve seen the number of illegal aliens double, maybe even triple since amnesty talk started happening,” an unnamed border agent said to Townhall. The data from Customs and Border Protection cited in the report shows 504 illegals were detected crossing in that sector between Feb. 5 and March 1. Only 189 were caught on camera, and just 174 of the 504 were apprehended. Of those spotted on camera, 32 were carrying huge packs believed to contain drugs and several were heavily armed.
If that bill is passed, it is being projected that it will bring 33 million more people into this country…
The pending Senate immigration bill would bring a minimum of 33 million people into the country during its first decade of operation, according to an analysis by NumbersUSA, a group that wants to slow the current immigration rate.
By 2024, the inflow would include an estimated 9.2 million illegal immigrants, plus 2.5 million illegals who arrived as children — dubbed ‘Dreamers’ — plus roughly 3.4 million company-sponsored employees with university degrees, said the unreleased analysis.
The majority of the inflow, or roughly 17 million people, would consist of family members of illegals, recent immigrants and of company-sponsored workers, according to the NumbersUSA analysis provided to The Daily Caller.
We have made legal immigration a complete and total nightmare while leaving the back door completely wide open at the same time.
We greatly punish those who are trying to do things legally while at the same time we are greatly rewarding those that are cheating the system.
What kind of sense does that make?
Shouldn’t we insist that everyone come in through the front door?
Those that are coming over our borders illegally know what the score is…
Linda Vickers, who owns a ranch in Brooks County, which is Ground Zero for the immigration debate, pins the blame directly on talk of ‘amnesty’ and a ‘path to citizenship’ for people who entered the U.S. illegally.
She recalls one man being arrested on her ranch not long ago.
“The Border Patrol agent was loading one man up, and he told the officer in Spanish, ‘Obama’s gonna let me go’.”
Border Patrol agents report that immigrants are crossing the border, and in some cases surrendering while asking, “Where do I go for my amnesty?”
We are already becoming a poverty-stricken nation. We simply can’t afford to feed millions upon millions of illegal immigrants as well.
As I write this, the U.S. national debt is $16,758,107,082,298.63.
We now have a debt to GDP ratio of about 105 percent.
In the United States today, the amount of money that is deposited in our banks is about 9.3 trillion dollars. If we took every penny of that and used it to pay off the national debt, we would still owe more than 7 trillion dollars.
We are stealing more than 100 million dollars from future generations of Americans every single hour of every single day to pay our bills, and yet everyone seems to think that this is “normal” somehow.
The truth is that what we are doing is absolutely criminal, and we should all be ashamed.
For much more on our exploding national debt, please see the following article: “55 Facts About The Debt And U.S. Government Finances That Every American Voter Should Know“.
In the end, it should be apparent to everyone that our system is failing. Our government is corrupt, our big banks are consumed with greed and most average Americans are so addicted to entertainment that they have absolutely no idea what is going on.
What would those that bled and died for this country think about what we have become today?
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For more articles by Michael please visit http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com
GAO Now Investigating DHS Ammo Purchases
02 weeks ago
in Politics, regulation
Source: http://spreadlibertynews.com
The Government Accountability Office tells Whispers it is now investigating large ammunition purchases made by the Department of Homeland Security. Chuck Young, a spokesman for GAO, says the investigation of the purchases is “just getting underway.”
The congressional investigative agency is jumping into the fray just as legislation was introduced in both the Senate and the House to restrict the purchase of ammo by some government agencies (except the Department of Defense). The AMMO Act, introduced Friday, would prevent agencies from buying more ammunition if “stockpiles” are greater than what they were in previous administrations.
Donelle Harder, a spokeswoman for Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., who introduced the legislation in the Senate, tells Whispers the bill would also require GAO to share the findings of its report on DHS purchases with Congress.
Officials at DHS have denied to both Whispers and lawmakers that it is stockpiling ammunition. The Associated Press reported in February that DHS wanted to buy more than 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition, but DHS officials testified last week it was only planning to buy up to 750 million.
Image Reference
Associated Press
Neil Macdonald: U.S. media complicit in Obama’s drone doctrine
03 months ago
Source: http://www.cbc.ca
By Neil Macdonald, CBC News
Posted: Feb 6, 2013
Some say U.S. president is waging a ‘war on whistleblowers’
Neil Macdonald
Senior Washington Correspondent
In 2001, when Israel started killing militant Palestinian enemies (and, often, innocent bystanders) with missiles fired from helicopters hovering so high you could barely see them, foreign reporters were urged by the Israeli government to call the practice “targeted killing.”
Most of us, including many of my American colleagues, preferred the term “extrajudicial assassination.” We felt we were in the news business, not the euphemism business.
Today, 12 years later, the Washington Post carries a front-page headline about the U.S. drone program titled, “Targeted killings face new scrutiny.”
Yet another government document has been leaked, this time a so-called “white paper” in which the U.S. Department of Justice lays out the administration’s justification for killing American citizens it suspects of belonging to Al-Qaeda.
U.S. media outlets, it seems, are perfectly comfortable with the term “targeted killing,” now that it is a major tool for the Pentagon and CIA.
It’s also clear American media outlets are comfortable suppressing news the government does not want published. Today’s story reveals not just that the Americans have operated a secret drone base for years in Saudi Arabia, but that the Post, along with various other news organizations, have been keeping that fact to themselves at the government’s request.
History of suppressing sensitive information
It isn’t the first time such information has been suppressed. In 2005, bowing to the White House, the New York Times for months kept confidential the fact that the Bush administration had been carrying out warrantless wiretapping. The revelations eventually provoked Congress to pass a new law.
Reports on the U.S. drone program, also based on leaks, have described how Barack Obama’s administration has become ever more dependent on remote-controlled killing. Obama himself reportedly signs off personally on each target.
U.S. President Barack Obama, who once denounced George W. Bush-era security measures, has not just amplified Bush’s programs, but has begun hunting down and prosecuting officials who leak details. (Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images)
The American public has been largely unconcerned with the program, except when the person killed has been an American citizen. (The U.S., unlike many other countries, accords its citizens special protections from government intrusions.)
That is the focus of the latest leak. The “white paper” in today’s story appears under the arid title “Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen Who Is a Senior Operational Leader of Al Qaeda or an Associated Force.”
The term “senior operational leader” appears to be key. An American citizen who is a low-level fighter would appear to enjoy a legal immunity that does not extend to foreign nationals suspected of planning or involvement in attacks on Americans.
As the Post story rather dryly notes, “The number of attacks on Americans is minuscule compared with the broader toll of the drone campaign, which has killed more than 3,000 militants and civilians in hundreds of strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.”
There is an accompanying article today on the astonishing fact that 54 countries, including Canada, have participated in or enabled the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program of sending suspected militants to be interrogated, sometimes under torture, in secret prisons and by totalitarian regimes worldwide.
Twelve years ago, reporters had a different term for that sort of thing, too: kidnapping.
Obama’s ‘war on whistleblowers’
All these hardened security measures were begun under the Bush administration. President Obama, who once denounced them and even, as president, ordered Bush legal memos be made public, has not just amplified Bush’s programs, but has begun vigorously hunting down and prosecuting officials who leak details.
And that is one initiative the American media is not so comfortable with.
Some are calling it Obama’s “war on whistleblowers.” Current Attorney-General Eric Holder has prosecuted more officials for leaking information to reporters than any of his predecessors since the Second World War.
The government has hunted down intelligence officials who leaked details of expensive programs to spy on internet traffic, wiretaps placed in the Israeli embassy in Washington and of Obama’s personal involvement in selecting drone targets.
The lawyer for one of those officials said Holder’s prosecutors “don’t distinguish between bad people – people who spy for other governments, people who sell secrets for money – and people who are accused of having conversations and discussions.”
Several news outlets have noted, rather acidly, that the administration seems fairly expert at leaking classified material that makes the government look good.
None of this makes Obama different from any previous president. It just demonstrates his ability to keep the nation’s media on board, and mete out punishment when they publish the wrong sorts of secrets.
###
Republished with permission
Next News Network Interviews Jim Babka from DownSizeDC.com
03 months ago
Gary Franchi from NextNewsNetwork interviews Jim Babka from DownSizeDC.com. Topics discussed include proposed bills, Congress and Senate actions, the influences behind the decisions we see out of DC along with the need to fix the two party system to open up future elections.
Happy 100th Birthday U.S. Federal Income Tax
03 months ago
H/T to http://www.blacklistednews.com
Source: http://www.zerohedge.com
By Tyler Durden
On February 3rd, 1913, one of the two most historic events in US history took place: the ratification of the 16th amendment, which established Congress’ right to impose a Federal income tax on Americans, and overturned Article I, Section 9 of the US Constitution which explicitly prohibited a general income tax. The amendment was brief and to the point, and read as follows: “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.” And with that, the US Federal Income Tax was born and has been with us for precisely 100 years.
The amendment itself:
The result: the first ever iteration of what would henceforth become the most hated form in US history.
From OurDocuments.gov
Passed by Congress on July 2, 1909, and ratified February 3, 1913, the 16th amendment established Congress’s right to impose a Federal income tax.
Far-reaching in its social as well as its economic impact, the income tax amendment became part of the Constitution by a curious series of events culminating in a bit of political maneuvering that went awry.
The financial requirements of the Civil War prompted the first American income tax in 1861. At first, Congress placed a flat 3-percent tax on all incomes over $800 and later modified this principle to include a graduated tax. Congress repealed the income tax in 1872, but the concept did not disappear.
After the Civil War, the growing industrial and financial markets of the eastern United States generally prospered. But the farmers of the south and west suffered from low prices for their farm products, while they were forced to pay high prices for manufactured goods. Throughout the 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s, farmers formed such political organizations as the Grange, the Greenback Party, the National Farmers’ Alliance, and the People’s (Populist) Party. All of these groups advocated many reforms (see the Interstate Commerce Act) considered radical for the times, including a graduated income tax.
In 1894, as part of a high tariff bill, Congress enacted a 2-percent tax on income over $4,000. The tax was almost immediately struck down by a five-to-four decision of the Supreme Court, even though the Court had upheld the constitutionality of the Civil War tax as recently as 1881. Although farm organizations denounced the Court’s decision as a prime example of the alliance of government and business against the farmer, a general return of prosperity around the turn of the century softened the demand for reform. Democratic Party Platforms under the leadership of three-time Presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, however, consistently included an income tax plank, and the progressive wing of the Republican Party also espoused the concept.
In 1909 progressives in Congress again attached a provision for an income tax to a tariff bill. Conservatives, hoping to kill the idea for good, proposed a constitutional amendment enacting such a tax; they believed an amendment would never receive ratification by three-fourths of the states. Much to their surprise, the amendment was ratified by one state legislature after another, and on February 25, 1913, with the certification by Secretary of State Philander C. Knox, the 16th amendment took effect. Yet in 1913, due to generous exemptions and deductions, less than 1 percent of the population paid income taxes at the rate of only 1 percent of net income.
This document settled the constitutional question of how to tax income and, by so doing, effected dramatic changes in the American way of life.
As for the other historic event of US history, ironically it, too, took place in 1913, on December 23: this was the day when the Federal Reserve was founded.
The charts below summarize what has happened next:
Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act Hits Congress
13 months ago
Source: http://freedomoutpost.com
On January 3, 2013 Congressman Paul Broun, Jr. (R-GA) introduced HR 73, The Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act. The thrust of the legislation is to “abolish the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal reserve banks, to repeal the Federal Reserve Act, and for other purposes.” It looks like Ron Paul’s consistent cries for dealing with the Federal Reserve have not fallen on deaf ears, nor has the idea dissipated from elected representatives since he left office.
This piece of legislation was not the only one to be introduced. House Resolution 77, the Free Competition in Currency Act of 2013, was also introduced by Rep. Broun. This legislation seeks “to repeal the legal tender laws, to prohibit taxation on certain coins and bullion, and to repeal superfluous sections related to coinage.”
But Broun wasn’t about to stop there. He also introduced two other pieces of legislation: HR 24, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2013, which is put forth “To require a full audit of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal reserve banks by the Comptroller General of the United States,” and HR 33, the Audit the Fed Act of 2013, which purpose is “To amend title 31, United States Code, to reform the manner in which the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is audited by the Comptroller General of the United States and the manner in which such audits are reported.”
All of these pieces of legislation are very similar to those proposed by former Congressman Ron Paul.
The Federal Reserve is a huge problem from America and this is not some recent news. It has been going on since the early 20th century.
Felix Bronstein wrote a piece in which he cited a piece on proposals to help cut the Federal budget written for The Heritage Foundation in 1986 by Warren T. Brooks. Bronstein writes,
Brookes began by stating that “conservatives need to understand that without basic monetary reform there is no way to balance the U.S. budget, with or without tax increases and budget cuts, and even with the most optimistic GNP growth projections.” He then offered a 3 part solution:
(1) “the nation must return as quickly as possible to gold-based money and debt” (Heritage’s Policy Review published another piece endorsing a return to the gold standard as a key component of balancing the budget, in the next issue, by the late Congressman, HUD Secretary and Vice Presidential candidate — Jack Kemp, My Plan To Balance The Budget, Spring 1986)
(2) we should allow “free exchange of gold and silver, both public and private, setting up a parallel monetary system on a free market basis, allowing the public to choose,” (Heritage’s Policy Review published another piece endorsing the idea of Hayekian currency competition or privatization, also in the next issue — Richard W. Rahn, Time To Privatize Money?, Spring 1986) and
(3) “the Federal Reserve would be phased back to its original role as a bank-owned clearing house, thus eliminating its huge and costly presence in the money markets where its open market operations now run as high as $1 trillion a year.”
With all of the talk about the “fiscal cliff” and raising the debt ceiling yet again, it is clear that the problems of the Federal budget and debt, and especially the cost of servicing the Federal debt, have certainly not gotten any better since Warren Brookes’s [sic] solutions were published (and ignored) in 1986.
So far we have seen that Washington is not serious about the fiscal cliff or the debt ceiling. So now, we’ll see how serious they are about dealing with the Federal Reserve. So far, each of the bills have been referred to committee. It would behoove us to inform our representatives about these pieces of legislation and to push them through committee for a vote on the House floor.
Hat tip: American Vision News
This is a work in progess, a self learning tool and fun little project. Please excuse the slow development as it seems the needed proper time is always lacking. It is my hope that the combination of content and links to other sources of information in this simple blog may help awaken a few of the sleeping masses and encourage and inspire others to initiate their own research, ultimately for each person to be a light to help awaken others. Opinions expressed belong to me, myself and I. Also, a big thank you to all that take the time to visit, it is appreciated :)
