Herman

Cain

Read Herman's bio and previous columns

March 30, 2009

Conservatives, Don’t Just Sit There!

Get off the sidelines and fight!

Just to be clear, my definition of a conservative is someone who believes in less government, less taxes and more individual responsibility. This happens to be 100 percent consistent with the Constitution of the United States of America.

More government, more taxes and less individual responsibility is called liberal. And this is 100 percent inconsistent with the Constitution.

Federal agencies have been created over time by Congress with the intent of protecting the public from such things as fraud, scams, harmful products and dishonest business practices. But their regulatory powers cannot conflict with the Constitution. Putting the issue of too much regulation aside for the moment, as well as the inefficiency with which some agencies do their jobs, as well as the issue of some agencies abusing their powers, the public does receive some protective value.

The Federal Depositors Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is a good example. They protect our money in banks up to an account value of $250,000. If a bank’s operating metrics become unstable and unsustainable, then the FDIC can take over the assets of the bank, pay off the depositors where possible and sell off the remaining assets to another healthier bank.

Unlike the FDIC, the Treasury is not a good example. They have mishandled the TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program) funds by insisting that some banks take the money even if they did not need it, overextended funds to some banks and then attempted to place restrictions on executive compensation and bank lending practices after the fact.

Next, after whipping the media and the public into a mob frenzy over the AIG melodrama with the help of President Obama and Democrats in Congress, who failed in their foresight and oversight, the House passed a “Bully Bill” to help Secretary Tim Geithner undo the embarrassing mistake.

Most recently, Secretary Geithner has asked Congress to grant him broad new powers to seize non-bank financial institutions even if they have not received any government assistance. I suspect it would not take much for some political scribe of the new powers to drop the word “non-bank”, just as some scribe conveniently dropped the restrictions on bonuses in the bailout bill.

Geithner is the same guy who did not pay some taxes, which President Obama called an honest mistake, and was confirmed by the Senate anyway. This is the same guy who, when asked about dumping the dollar in favor of a “world currency,” answered “no” in the morning and “maybe” in the afternoon of the same day.

This is the same Treasury Secretary who does not see his request as radical or unconstitutional, which is the opinion of most honest legal professionals.  

Wake up people! The Obama Administration and the Democrats have already mortgaged the future of our grandchildren by nearly doubling the national debt if Obama’s budget proposal is approved, which I hope it will not be.

This is the most serious government power grab since Congress authorized stealing from the Social Security funds to spend our money on everything from bridges to nowhere to mule museums. I am not making this up!

Just say no to granting unconstitutional powers to the Treasury or any other agency of the federal government! It’s called separation of power.

Write, e-mail, call, fax, join something or attend one of the tax day tea parties around the country on April 15, 2009!

Conservatives, don’t just sit there!

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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