My Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition provides two definitions of “constituent” that we should consider: 1constituent n [F constituant, fr. MF, fr. prp. of constituer to constitute, fr. L constituere] (1622) 1 : one who authorizes another to act as agent : principal 2 : a member of a constituency 3 : an essential part …
Recently, as I researched and wrote my book, A Broken Sausage Grinder; Is Our Government Fundamentally Flawed?, I discovered what I believe is an unconstitutional provision in the Standing Rules of the Senate. Specifically, the United States Constitution, Article I, Section 5, para. (1) states: “Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns …
On Thursday night the Speaker of the House of Representatives was working to get his so called “Plan B” passed by the House. When he couldn’t twist enough arms successfully, he finally withdrew the motion rather than put it to a vote presumably to avoid the embarrassment of making the members publically state their positions. …
When we say our vote counts, it is natural for us to be thinking in terms of being heard more than in terms of the actual counting of the ballots. All of us have ideas about how things should be working in the United States of America and our Constitution mandates that our ideas are …
Every time we have to endure another senseless tragedy involving the use of guns to take innocent lives, the fringe elements on both ends of the spectrum find their way to the microphone. From the left we hear statistics and pleas for some form of controls to make it more difficult to get ahold of …
The President still wants Congress to extend the Bush tax cuts for those Americans with an annual income of less than $250,000. He also wants to allow the tax cuts to expire for incomes greater than $250,000. The Speaker of the House of Representatives stands steadfastly against such policy. This is just more political theater …
The media is filled with stories about how the Democrats want to tax the rich when the rich already pay a disproportionate amount of our nation’s tax revenue. The stories occasionally will imply that these higher tax burdens will drive wealthy Americans into financial ruin. If we think about this objectively, we know that the …
The election is over and the lame duck session is in full swing and we are hearing from the President and from the Speaker of the House as they restate (very carefully) the same positions they have been holding for months. It’s like we are listening to a record with a scratch and the music …
Doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result? With a few small adjustments, the American citizens have returned the same ideologues to Washington and we should all be wondering why. The dysfunction in our government was the source of some of the lowest approval ratings for Congress in our history. We were …
If we listen to the politicians we would think that there is a direct relationship between tax cuts for corporations and those corporations hiring new employees. In fact, some of the politicians put a pretty tight bow on that package. We would be smart to trust our skepticism. Let’s look at the books. The cost …
