‘Another Bloated Omnibus Bill Shows Need to Restructure FedGov’

 

The rushed passage of cringe-inducing federal omnibus spending bills just before Christmas is fast becoming the third certainty in US life, along with death and taxes.  The 2024 version has arrived with plenty of things to make folks irate, like its 1,500 pages bursting with billions in ‘emergency spending’ and its pay raises for Congress critters, which would make their salary about $180,000 per year (Lisa Mascaro and Kevin Freking, ‘Government funding plan collapses as Trump makes new demands days before shutdown’, apnews.com).

Such things were predicted by the Anti-Federalists during the ratification debates in the States from 1787-8.  Patrick Henry of Virginia put his finger precisely on the pay raise issue:

‘ . . . at the Virginia ratifying convention in June 1788, Patrick Henry, an Anti-Federalist and staunch opponent of ratifying the Constitution, objected to allowing Members of Congress to determine their compensation by themselves, without limitation or restraint.³ He stated that Members may therefore indulge themselves in the fullest extent by making their compensation as high as they please.⁴ Henry argued that having the state legislatures fix Members’ compensation would impose some measure of restraint on the national legislature⁵’ (‘Amdt27.2.3 Congressional Compensation and Debates over Ratification of the Constitution’, constitution.congress.gov).

Mr Henry’s solution - giving the State governments more power over the federal government - is one we need to seriously consider in our time of irresponsible behavior by the federal congress, which, as most folks know by now, has racked up an astronomical debt of $35 trillion, with no signs of slowing down.  We will touch briefly on two simple ways this could be done, (1) by making the State governments responsible for setting the salaries for federal congressmen and senators and for paying those salaries, and (2) by allowing the federal government the power to raise only part of the revenue needed for the federal budget, with the other part being provided voluntarily by the State governments.

It doesn’t take an overly active imagination to see how these proposals would bring beneficial changes to the current chaotic situation.  The States’ ability to check detrimental federal actions via written constitutional provisions is currently non-existent.  There is the unwritten provision of State nullification (grounded in the 10^th Amendment of the federal charter), but that is most effective against federal laws and regulations and rulings that violate specific long-standing customs, rights, etc.  It can do little to affect the federal budget.

But give State legislatures the recommended powers, and things could change dramatically.  They would have the ability to affect the budget process in DC very directly.  If federal legislators continued to raise the debt/spending level in spite of warnings not to, the State governments could simply withhold the pay of the federal congressmen until the fever of the latter for deficit spending subsided.  Likewise, if the federal government had to ask the State legislatures to provide funding for its budget, the States could refuse to comply until any troublesome items in the budget were addressed.

The Federalists who supported the ratification of the current federal constitution were concerned that the States would have too much influence upon the federal government, preventing it from operating with the robustness they thought necessary.  They were wrong; the opposite has happened.  It is actually the Anti-Federalists whose fears have come to pass:  that the federal government would become an overbearing menace to the States, trampling on the individual sovereignty and uniqueness of each one and consolidating them into one dull, uniform despotism ruled from DC.

Cato (George Mason) offered some representative warnings:

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The rest is at https://thehayride.com/2024/12/garlington-another-bloated-omnibus-bill-shows-need-to-restructure-fedgov/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!