As 2018 came to a close, we witnessed the antics that have become all too common in our federal government.
Instead of debating and passing a budget, as they are constitutionally obligated to do, a series of Continuing Resolutions were passed and signed by the President.
This continued until the federal government “ran out of money.”
That statement would be funny, if it weren’t so sad. Our country is burdened with nearly $22,000,000,000,000 in fiscal operating debt. That is a sum counting all federal revenues and subtracting all federal expenditures (kind of) since our founding.
If you add the federal government’s promises of future payments, our total debt is over $200,000,000,000,000.
The federal government “ran out of money” long ago.
The federal government is spending the earnings and savings of generations yet unborn. The federal government is committing fiscal child abuse.
So now we’ve entered into another partial government shutdown. We were told in the media how reckless and irresponsible this was. We heard that government employees would not receive a check during the holidays. (Government employees had already received their final check for 2018.)
The media reported that government services that people rely on would not be available, even though 75% of the government was fully funded. Then we heard about “essential” and “non-essential” workers.
There is no question this is at least an inconvenience for the affected government workers. We should keep in mind a couple things.
First, in the private sector “non-essential” workers generally do not exist. Second, if the private sector operated as poorly as the federal government, there would not be a partial shutdown. Those companies would not exist. There would be a permanent shutdown.
A partial “government shutdown” sounds scary, because the federal government is too involved in people’s lives. Imagine if the federal government operated within its enumerated powers. Most decisions would be made at a local and state level. While there would still be disagreements in policy, We The People could have much more influence on the decision making process.
The Swamp will never hand back the governing power they’ve taken from the states voluntarily. The Framers understood this. That is why they unanimously included the Convention of States process, in the Constitution.
Now, it is up to We The People to fulfill our constitutional obligation and use it.
Missouri was the twelfth state to pass the Convention of States resolution, but this is a national issue. We must continue to educate our fellow citizens and grow our grassroots army.
If we do not take action to reverse the unconstitutional flow of power to D.C., our individual liberty with continue to erode. The result could mean this grand experiment in self-governance fails. I do not think it will.
But we have to be the ones to make that happen.
