Email This Post
Federal Tipping
March 7th, 2010I’m not sure when it happened, but I know for certain what happened.
The People lost control of government when they lost control of their money. After all, people not in control of their earned wealth are called slaves. At some point in American history The People lost control of their money, and that occurred when the Federal government began eating most of it.
Solid is the philosophy of local. Local taxes solving local problems provides, if nothing else, local control. From experience I can attest that grabbing a local elected official by the lapels and instructing him on what to quit doing produces the desired results. Doing the same to your Congress Critter, less so. Hence, when control over taxes and spending shifted from your county commissioner to 535 competing and corrupt(able) conmen in Congress, control over your wealth and your destiny disappeared.
Veronique de Rugy, the ever alert number cruncher for Reason magazine, cobbled together some statistics for which I lacked the gumption to gather (click the chart to enlarge). As things stand today – and which is hopefully a temporary condition – the Federal government absorbs more than 60% of all government revenues. It in turn spits out about half a billion bucks (about 19% of revenue) to the states in all manor of pork and social engineering. The net effect is that no state and likely few localities get more than they pay, especially since Uncle Sugar always takes his cut off the top.
This creates the unseemly situation of 535 elected employees jousting to steal as much tax money as possible. It also explains Barack Obama bringing Chicago-style bully and bribe politics to Washington, though this merely deepened that cesspool. An effect of this untidy scheme is that federal money defines action. Whatever cabal is in power uses your tax money not to improve your locale, but to make you and your neighbors do the cabal’s bidding (see the earlier slavery definition). Complaining to congressmen is useless as they reliably blame the other 534 grandstanding gangsters who are allegedly more evil and intellectually deficient.
Grabbing your congressman by the lapels does no good, though sudden crotch kicks might.
The trend line is unpromising. Aside from the Reagan years when the number and total dollar amount of federal grants to states dropped – and which incidentally ushered in the longest running era of prosperity in modern memory – Federal largess with your lucre has been accelerating, and took a tremendous spike with the 2010 projections. In constant dollars, the degree of Federal financial manipulation of states has grown from about $25 billion in the post-war years to half a trillion today, or about a 20 fold increase.
Looked at from an angle of clarity, you have 1/20th the control you once had over your state and by proxy your local government.
Aside from armed insurrection or the Supreme Court finally conforming to its oath of office, there is little hope for change, especially with the current Hope and Change merchant in charge. Indeed, most of his unstimulating stimulus is in the form of expanded grants to state governments with the express purpose of growing state employee roles. Your representatives, if I may misuse the word, hungrily grab every stack of such cash while bemoaning the culture of corruption that is Congress, unable to see that they are at best a tapeworm in that intestinal tract.
I have wondered of late what the cure might be, and I think there is one, albeit an audacious and somewhat dangerous display of federalism. In theory (remember, theory and practice are entirely different creatures) a state could:
* Itemize unconstitutional Federal programs and programs for which it chooses not to accept federal fund.
* Calculate their residents’ share of the overall tax burden.
* Unilaterally declare that their residents are not liable for said taxes (i.e., tell their residents that they can shave xx% off their final calculated Federal income taxes).
* Bar all IRS agents and federal judges from the state that dare audit or arrest a citizen for taking that deduction.
* Levy fines against the Federal government for not refunding pre-paid taxes, and since the Feds will never pay the fines, follow-up by allowing in-state companies to reduce employee Federal income tax collection by protection of state law.
Predictably, this would devolve in two ways. The Federal courts would rule the whole thing illegal and demand that the renegade state submit to the power of Federal law. Of course, since there are fundamental questions about the constitutionality of the programs in question and the whole ugly issue of Federalism, a state could initially thumb its nose at the judges. The only action that the Federal government could then take would be military.
There lay the complication. Would any President order the military to take action against a state to enforce tax collection? In theory they could not for the writ of the Posse Comitatus Act, which limits the use of the military for law enforcement. The other branches of the Federal government combined wouldn’t have the firepower to subdue but the smallest of states. If a big joint filled with rough and independent minded people – let’s say Texas – were the instigator, then the Feds would have no choice but a full invasion.
Which would not work. First, it is doubtful any sitting president – not even Obama the Omnipotent – would militarily invade a state. Doing so, especially in these cantankerous times would invite all-out civil war. If the instigating state also had a significant military presence, and given the fidelity the military has to The People over the president, odds are whatever military tools were in state would instantly belong to that state.
Imagine tea partiers with nukes.
It is an ugly scheme and one I hope nobody takes. Yet being a student of history and knowing how free people will fight to stay free, this is not an unimaginable outcome. Heaven help us if Texas elects Ted Nugent for governor … it might just come to pass.
