Right Cross to EPA’s Chin

November 6, 2015 Frank Kuchar

You may have heard that the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals recently issued a stay on the implementation of the EPA’s new regulations that, if permitted, would give this fascist agency control over virtually every spot of water in the United States – private ponds, wells, low spots on property that turn into wet areas after a heavy rain, etc. There are some encouraging outcomes from this battle, but some disappointing ones as well.

First, the good thing is common sense finally prevailed and the overreach of this bureaucracy was held at bay (for the moment). The appeals court upheld a previous injunction issued by North Dakota Federal District Judge Ralph Erickson. In his ruling Judge Erickson stated that if the EPA was allowed to have its way, “the states will lose their sovereignty over intrastate waters” and that “Immediately upon the rule taking effect, the rule will irreparably diminish the states’ power over their waters.” This power grab by the Obama Administration, he declared, was “exceptionally expansive.”

Second, there are currently ten lawsuits being waged by twenty-nine different states against the EPA over these new rules. We are beginning to see the states finally rise up and fulfill the role the founders envisioned, namely that the states would be the front line defense against federal government intrusion upon the freedom, liberties and property of their citizens. Alexander Hamilton said as much in Federalist 28:

“It may safely be received as an axiom in our political system, that the State governments will, in all possible contingencies, afford complete security against invasions of the public liberty by the national authority. Projects of usurpation cannot be masked under pretenses so likely to escape the penetration of select bodies of men, as of the people at large. The legislatures will have better means of information. They can discover the danger at a distance; and possessing all the organs of civil power, and the confidence of the people, they can at once adopt a regular plan of opposition, in which they can combine all the resources of the community. They can readily communicate with each other in the different States, and unite their common forces for the protection of their common liberty.”

Third, the judiciary finally acted in its role as a check on the powers of the executive branch.

However, there are some failures indicated in this ruling as well.

First, even though the appeals panel did rule correctly, it was a two-one split decision. It should have been a three-zero ruling. So instead, we have one judge who clearly does not understand or care that the EPA is a rogue agency whose regulations and very existence are outside the boundary of the limited, enumerated powers of the government as spelled out in the Constitution.

Second, this was not a reversal of the regulations, but merely a temporary “stay” on their taking effect when they should have been completely stricken down.

Finally, the suits brought by the states are dealing with the symptoms of the problem rather than attacking it at its root, namely the existence and authority of the EPA. That is the crux of the problem and where Congress needs to step in and defund then repeal that part of the Clean Air Act that gave the stamp of approval on Richard NIxon’s executive order that created this Gestapo agency.

-November 6, 2015

What to Do – Part VI

October 16, 2015October 16, 2015 Frank Kuchar

During this election cycle we are hearing candidates spout different plans for reforming our tax code/system. Since revenue is the other side of the coin (spending being the other) that most directly impacts our deficit and increasing debt, it is an major piece of the puzzle that requires addressing. The issue raised by leftists is we need more “revenue” (i.e., taxes), but history has shown that rarely, if ever, does an increase in “revenue” result in a decrease in deficit spending, but rather spurs on even more spending on more unconstitutional programs and agencies.

Could the country use more revenue? Yes, if that additional amount is used solely to pay down our debt. To this end I would submit that once our tax system is replaced, not “reformed”, that excess revenues be required by law be applied to debt reduction. So what tax system would be best?

This cannot be fully answered in a short essay, as I’ve written in years past many pages on analyzing the various options being bandied about. I would submit that the best choice is to replace all income-related taxes with a consumption tax. There has been a bill in the House of Representatives (and a companion one in the Senate) since the early 1990s’ that leadership will not allow to come to the floor for a debate and vote that would do away with these taxes, the IRS, and call for a repeal of the 16th amendment. This bill is most commonly known as “The Fair Tax Act”.

I cannot get into the details of how this system would work, but I will list the main points:

Studies have shown that it would be cost neutral in terms of product and service prices once the transition to it has been fully accomplished as everything we purchase has built into them a 23% cost directly tied to income-related taxes. When those taxes are eliminated, market forces will cause the prices for everything to fall by at least that amount.
It gives everyone an immediate 7.65% pay increase as Social Security and Medicare taxes are no longer deducted from workers’ pay checks (a special benefit to lower wage earners).
It will actually increase revenue in that those who currently pay no taxes on income due to the so-called “underground economy” and illegal activities would now pay taxes when they make purchases.
The wealthy will pay more in taxes as they buy more high-priced items, and we all know that the higher the cost, the greater the sales tax.
We each will control the amount of tax we pay by managing our purchases instead of the government extracting what it determines we should pay and when it must be paid from our earnings.

In 1997 a Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation issued a report compiled by a number of leading economists who had conducted a modeling analysis of our current income tax system with some modifications that were being proposed at the time along with models of changing the system completely to a consumption tax. On page 19 of their report it states

“From the medium to long-run perspective, the consumption tax produced a stronger positive growth effect than the unified income tax….” Then on page 34 it goes on to state that “…tax restructuring in the form of a consumption tax will ultimately produce higher economic growth….”

The benefits that aided in producing these results were spelled out to be the following:

“…reducing the cost of capital through less taxation of capital provides an incentive for additional investment; reducing the marginal tax rate on labor provides an incentive for increased labor effort; increasing the returns to labor through capital deepening can provide an incentive for more labor; and,…reducing distortions in investment decisions by eliminating differential taxation of different types of capital promotes a more efficient allocation of resources.”

In short, moving to the Fair Tax, according to this report, would be the stabilizing boost our economy so desperately needs:

“The broad consensus of all the modeling approaches, that moving from the present-law income tax base to a uniform consumption tax base will result in a long-run increase in GDP, capital investment, and labor effort,”

In closing, I will answer the matter I mentioned in Part V of this series, namely what to do with the employees of the IRS when that agency is reduced. In order to increase enforcement of our immigration laws and auditing of businesses to ensure their compliance in not hiring illegal aliens, many of these individuals could be moved over to the Immigration and Naturalization agency, thus solving a manpower requirement there without having to increase the number of government employees.

-October 16, 2015

What to Do – Part III

September 25, 2015 Frank Kuchar

What to Do? – Part III

Since FDR’s New Deal, the general government in Washington has grown into an insufferable Medusa. To “slay” this “Medusa” (and no, I’m not suggesting destroying our government) so that it becomes the small, constitutionally limited government it was created to be will require more than just stopping spending (What to Do – Part I) and eliminating unconstitutional and overlapping agencies that have been created over the past 70 years (What to Do – Part II) .

To rein in these agencies we must get to the source of the power these agencies have over our lives, namely the repeal of the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946. You may not have heard of this legislation, but it was what gave life to the regulatory, enforcement and adjudication powers of these myriad agencies that we seek to eliminate. The Act provides the procedural guidelines that all agencies are expected to follow in two major areas – rulemaking (which is nothing more than legislating) and adjudication (which is simply rendering judicial decisions regarding the rules they have promulgated). The Act requires that public notice be given for public comment and input before implementing any proposed new regulation, and Congress, by the passage of a joint resolution, has the authority to disapprove any such proposed rule within 60 days of its finalization.

There are several problems with this Act which should make any constitutionally-minded member of Congress eager to support its repeal. First and foremost, it is the very embodiment of James Madison’s definition of tyranny:

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny…the preservation of liberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct” (The Federalist Papers, No. 47).

As pointed out above, in passing the APA Congress granted all three of these powers into the hands of these agencies.

Second, as these regulations are given the standing of law, enforced as law, and we are judged against them as though they are law, the Act violates the Constitution and thereby should have been stricken down before the ink of President Truman’s signature on it had dried. Article I Section 1 of the Constitution begins by stating that “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States”. Article II Section 1 begins “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” Article III Section 1 similarly leads off by stating “The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” The language in these three sections are very clear – in no wise are these powers to be shared between the three branches or some other entity, period! For these agencies to hold all three powers indisputably places them in violation of the Constitution.

Third, as far as public notice and Congressional review goes, consider these facts. In 2014 alone the Obama Administration issued 75,000 pages of new regulations. In the first three days of 2014, the Feds released 141 new regulations, and since Obama became president there have been 21,000 new regulations issued as of December 2014. What citizen, much less representative or senator, can possibly have time to review such a mountain of rules?

So here is the next step in the process of reducing spending and cutting our government back to its constitutional limits: repeal of the APA, return the responsibility of legislative action to the Congress, and either pass real legislation revoking the unconstitutionally created regulations these agencies have created over the years or simply proclaim them to no longer be in force as they were not law to begin with. That will be a huge task to accomplish, but again, freedom and the restoration of our liberties is worth the effort.

That’s Not Fair!

August 28, 2015 Frank Kuchar

Such outbursts as this by children are seldom tolerated by parents, if at all. Yet we hear this all the time from the Fascists in our government, especially President Obama. He is constantly talking about individuals who have been successful in their efforts of not paying “their fair share” in taxes (even when they pay the lion’s share of the confiscatory “revenue” the government takes in). We see it in youth sports where there are no winners or losers, for all get “participation” awards (even though if you ask the players, they know the real result).

So, in fairness, I would pose the following questions:

Is it fair to our children and grandchildren to saddle them with an insurmountable debt that will crush their future, their freedom, their aspirations, dreams and happiness? Thomas Jefferson set forth the following principles in a letter to James Madison on September 6, 1789:

“…no generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of its own existence….But with respect to future debts; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age,…?”

Is it fair for the government to confiscate my personal property, such as my income, when John Locke correctly observed that personal property is the very bedrock of liberty?

“…every man has a property in his own person; this nobody has any right to but himself. The labour of his body and the work of his hands we may say are properly his. Whatsoever, then, he removes out of the state that nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property”? (Second Treatise on Government)

Is it fair when the government takes our money and then subsidizes private companies and industries such as President Obama just announced he was going to do again by giving the “green energy” industry another one billion dollars, and thus create an uneven playing field in the marketplace?

Is it fair when the government uses my property which it confiscates from me to pay for immoral activities such as the murder of innocent babies?

Is it fair when the government fails to fulfill its fundamental duty to protect the citizenry from the unwanted invasion of illegal individuals who perpetrate murder and crime against them and who undermine employment opportunities for those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder?

Is it fair when the government refuses to execute justice equally and impartially on all citizens, regardless of their status in life or positions (or former positions) of power? It was Madison, writing in Federalist 51, who stated that such was the very reason for the existence of government:

“Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty b e lost in the pursuit.”

Yes, when we ask whether something is “fair”, what we are really asking is “Is it just?” I could continue my line of questioning about the actions our government and would end up with a book instead of an essay, but when we reflect upon Madison’s dictum we should be alarmed for this government’s pursuit of what it deems to be “fair” is truly the exhibition of multiple injustices, and in its pursuit of them our liberty is being lost.

-August 28, 2015