Compromise and the Constitution
Compromise can be a good thing. When a company and a union are able to form a contract, it’s because both sides compromised in order to reach an agreement mutually beneficial to the parties involved. The same is true when an individual buys a car, accepts a job offer, or decides with their husband or wife how to manage the family finances.
In each of those cases, we’re talking about a compromise that deals with opinions, with economic contracts, etc. We’re not talking about compromising bedrock convictions.
Sadly, that distinction appears to be lost on Washington of late. We’ve heard a lot in the last few years about bi-partisanship, about “reaching across the aisle,” about politicians that bargain away this, that, or the other in order to “get something done” and avoid gridlock.
Compromise is fine when we’re discussing how many F-22s to buy, or what salary an official at the State Department should make. But my elected representatives must not compromise my Constitution!
Our recent President, George W. Bush, ended his tenure in office (and any respect I once held for him) by declaring, “I’ve abandoned free market principles to save the free market system.”
I’m sorry. Where in the Constitution did the people of the United States of America give the power to the President or Congress to make welfare payments to banks or insurance companies? Go ahead and look. You won’t find it. What you will find is the Tenth Amendment, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
On the Constitution, there’s no compromise. A bill is either within the strict bounds or of our highest law, or Congress is usurping power that doesn’t belong to it.
Our former Congressman, Jim Leach, was a compromiser – and not only on the Constitution. Our current Congressman, Dave Loebsack, is far worse. He believes the Constitution is outmoded and obsolete. When asked where the Constitution authorized the health care bill currently under debate, his reply was:
“No, there are a lot of things that we’ve decided on as a society that are not in the Constitution, that we should have. And we’ve done that throughout our history.
If we go back to the Constitution itself, which I know some people want to do, but there would be a lot of things that we do that wouldn’t get done. And I think all you have to do is start thinking about the sorts of things.
I know for a lot of people that’s a good thing, but I appreciate there’s nothing in there, exactly, about what you’re talking about. There’s nothing in the Constitution, per se. That’s right.”
This kind of attitude from a man who has sworn to uphold the Constitution is simply not acceptable. It borders on treason.
Iowa’s Second District needs a Congressman who refuses to sell out our basic law, as our current Representative has done. But Congressman Loebsack was right about one thing: Congress has already gone a long way beyond the powers granted by the Constitution.
We need a Representative that will not only uphold the Constitution in new law, but will seek to return the federal government to it’s lawful boundaries. Yes, that means a lot of departments and programs get cut. All the way from the New Deal to the Great Society, through Medicare part D, bank bailouts, and government ownership of car companies. It’s time to roll back the federal behemoth.
I’m not fool enough to think that this could all be done overnight, but we need a Congressman (as well as a federal judiciary and executive) that will stand up for the rule of law, and begin to dismantle the unconstitutional programs, departments, and bureaucracies.
Is there something that the American people truly want the government to do, that the Constitution doesn’t allow for? The amendment process is open. Let’s not allow any more lawlessness in our highest legislature.
No compromise on the Constitution.
