Great Expectations

Along with a new year, we have a new session of Congress.  The 1^st session of the 114^th US Congress recently convened with the Republican Party holding a majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.  While many have great expectations that a Republican-led Congress can steer the country in the right direction, a majority of Americans believe that Congress will accomplish no more in 2015 than it did in 2014. It’s a pretty bleak outlook, but with an approval rating hovering around 10% for the last few years, even a few accomplishments would be an improvement.

The Republicans in Congress have a long to-do list and if they have any hope of remaining in office and getting a Republican elected to the presidency in 2016, they better make some meaningful progress.  But the tasks are formidable; immigration reform, deficit reduction, improving the economy, repealing or restructuring Obamacare are just a few of the big-ticket items.  Democrats, especially potential presidential candidates, and the media are poised to pounce on any misstep.  And, the Republicans have only two years to make meaningful changes.

But, the American public, especially the conservative segment, needs to have realistic expectations.  While some issues appear to be recent in nature, such as Obamacare, most of them began long ago and have been allowed to fester because we elected individuals who chose to avoid addressing the issue.  Other issues arose early in the last century, the Progressive Era, but we’ve blindly allowed them to grow and multiply in the name of progress and social justice.

While some good came of the Progressive Era, exposing government corruption, social reform that lead to women gaining the right to vote, and imposing child labor laws that protected children, there was much that, while sounding good, began undermining the principles and freedoms that our founding fathers fought for.

The progressives, such as President Woodrow Wilson, were, according to political scientist Charles Murray, “advocates of rule by disinterested experts led by a strong unifying leader. They were in favor of using the state to mold social institutions in the interests of the collective. They thought that individualism and the Constitution were both outmoded.”  Wilson said it himself in a campaign speech in 1912, “All that progressives ask or desire is permission—in an era when “development,” “evolution,” is the scientific word—to interpret the Constitution according to the Darwinian principle”. Since then, we’ve allowed progressive elected officials and the activist judges they’ve appointed to interpret the Constitution to further their molding of social institutions as they see fit.

The federal income tax was implemented during Wilson’s term.  Franklin Roosevelt, appointed judges that were sympathetic to his New Deal programs, replacing judges that had initially rejected his programs as unconstitutional.  And one of his New Deal crown jewels, Social Security, is taking up larger and larger chunks of our federal budget.  President Truman, who stated that “Every man should have the right… to worthwhile job…” continued the implementation of progressive policies. And payroll tax-funded Medicare and Medicaid were signed into legislation during President Johnson’s Great Society. These are few of the more blatant examples of progressivism.  There are plenty of other blatant examples, but there are many examples of progressives using the state to mold social institutions that are more subtle, and some may argue, more sinister.

Activist judges have found supposed “rights” in the Constitution and legislated from the bench, changing policy and setting precedence for legal “rights” that do not exists in the Constitution.  Separation of church and state?  It’s not in the Constitution, but court decisions have essentially put it there.

The federal government has been able to increase its power, oftentimes through bribery and coercion.  Remember the 55 mile per hour speed limit?  The Carter Administration thought it would be a good idea, and save lives and gasoline.  How was it implemented, when neither Congress nor the President has the power to set state speed limits?  Simple, threaten to withhold federal funding if the states don’t implement a 55 mph speed limit and reward those that do with highway funds.  Yet these funds came from us, the taxpayers.  Either comply or we won’t let you have your money?  It obviously worked, the 55 mph limit was a nationwide limit for a number of years.  And this is just one of many examples where the federal government has bent the states to its will using authority not allocated to it by the Constitution.

The Republicans don’t have an easy job ahead of them.  As Thomas Paine wrote in “American Crisis” during the winter of 1776, “Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” And we are fighting tyranny.  President Wilson defined it for us when he said, “By tyranny, as we now fight it, we mean control of the law, of legislation and adjudication, by organizations which do not represent the people, by means which are private and selfish… We mean the exploitation of the people by legal and political means. We have seen many of our governments under these influences cease to be representative governments, cease to be governments representative of the people, and become governments representative of special interests, controlled by machines, which in their turn are not controlled by the people.”  The Republicans aren’t simply trying to undo six years of Obama policies but nearly 100 years of progressivism.  Be patient and applaud them for every positive step they take in trying to reign in the federal government, but don't throw them out if they fail to achieve every goal in the next two years.  And communicate with them to remind them that they are YOUR elected representatives, not the special interests.