The federal government is constantly out of money and always needs more. It resembles the cartoon character “Wimpy,” a friend of Popeye. Wimpy is a mooch and scam artist. He was always out of cash, but his voracious appetite for hamburgers forced him to ask all – “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” The federal government constantly asks taxpayers, “I’ll gladly properly manage your money on Tuesday for more taxpayer money today.” The proper management of taxpayer monies never happens; only more promises from our politicians to reform their government mismanagement.

The federal government is very blase about its $35 trillion national debt, and Congress uses its annual budget games to hide unnecessary expenditures in the proverbial weeds. The federal government’s budget is a camouflage to hide its financial condition – it is de facto bankrupt. Its adversaries and the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) understand the federal government’s financial stress more than American politicians. The BRICS  are attempting to create a competing reserve currency and eventually replace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. If this ever happens, the U.S. will rapidly sink into second-class status.

Since 2000, the dollar has declined in use and acceptance as the world’s reserve currency from 71% to 60%. The more the federal government uses the dollar to punish foreign adversaries for policies the U.S. dislikes, the more nations seek to displace the dollar to protect their own currencies.

It’s now time for American citizens to focus on this financial disaster facing this nation before it drifts into a financial crisis our government cannot easily fix. The BRICS know the U.S. lives on borrowed time, sustained only by its printing press and a large supply of paper and ink.

A book exposing the perils of the federal government’s fiscal health is written annually but rarely read. If the federal government and Congress won’t read it, it is time for citizens to read it and start taking control of their country.

The book  is titled “The Financial Report of the United States Government” or the “Financial Report.” While federal government agencies prepare their chapters, the significant aspect of the report is that the composite report is audited by the General Accounting Office (“GAO”), an independent arm of Congress. It is not a regurgitation of the budget, focusing on deficits, surpluses, and debt. The Financial Report focuses on the government’s net operating costs, i.e., the differences between real revenues and real costs.

How broke is the federal government? In its latest report (2022), the gross cost of the federal government was $ 7.4 trillion. While it collected $4.9 trillion in taxes, the actual net cost of government is $9.1 trillion since it must recognize an additional future expense of $2.2 trillion, which it incurred by underestimating the cost of employee and veterans’ benefits. Fortunately for the federal government, since it will not have to pay the employee and veterans benefits immediately, accounting standards allow it to show a deficit of only $1.37 trillion for 2022.

What is the value of all the federal government assets? On the asset side of the ledger, the federal government has only $4.962 trillion in assets. This amount consists of $878 billion in cash, inventory valued at $407 billion, and $1.2 trillion in property, plant, and equipment. Its largest asset is “Loan Receivable, Net,” valued at $1.434 trillion. Of that amount, $1.3 trillion is the Federal Student Loan program that President Biden wants to forgive, an act that would immediately reduce federal assets to $3.62 trillion.

What is the bottom line? After GAO makes all adjustments, total federal assets are $5 trillion, and total liabilities are $40 trillion. The federal government is in the hole for $35 trillion. Moreover, the GAO report does not consider, for audit purposes, any unfunded liabilities for Social Security and Medicare, which are estimated at $76 trillion.

If most families live paycheck to paycheck, the federal government lives from every withholding tax payment to the next. If the average American family has difficulty paying the bills, they should be terrified that for every U.S. citizen, including infants, their share of the national debt is $100,000. For families, their share is over $250,000. At some point, Mr. and Mrs. America and the kids must realize the government is penniless. It is borrowing from our children so it can gorge itself today. The federal government, like Wimpy, is a “deadbeat,” a person or entity “that is not willing to pay debts or accept responsibility.”

Every time the federal government takes money out of a paycheck for its wastefulness, it tells the taxpayer, “I’ll gladly pay you on Tuesday for your hard-earned money today.”

William L. Kovacs, author of Devolution of Power: Rolling Back the Federal State to Preserve the Republic. The book received 5 stars from Readers’ Favorite. His previous book, Reform the Kakistocracy, received the 2021 Independent Press Award for Political/Social Change. He served as senior vice president for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and chief counsel to a congressional committee. He can be contacted at wlk@ReformTheKakistocracy.com

William L. Kovacs author of Devolution of Power: Rolling Back the Federal State to Preserve the Republic. Received 5-Stars from Readers’ Favorite. His previous book Reform the Kakistocracy received the 2021 Independent Press Award for Political/Social Change. He served as senior vice president for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and chief counsel to a congressional committee. He can be contacted at wlk@ReformTheKakistocracy.com

The post How Broke Is the Federal Government? It’s Penniless! appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

It’s crucial to remember, however, that a prior liberal/Progressive SCOTUS created the regulatory powers of the Administrative State. These court-created powers lasted for many decades and greatly diminished Congress’s powers to control the Administrative State.

To prevent a return to an all-powerful, court-sanctioned Administrative State, it is imperative that Congress seizes this period of anticipated regulatory sanity to codify and expand the court’s decisions. The role of congressional action in preserving this victory cannot be overstated. After being absent from the regulatory reform debate for decades, Congress must now actively protect the benefits of these recent decisions.

The three SCOTUS decisions are excellent examples of how, in the absence of Congress, the federal judiciary can allow regulators to take on the trappings of a “Star Chamber” that can only be dismantled by a future court.

In Loper Bright Enterprises v. The Secretary of Commerce, the court reversed the forty years of deference courts gave to federal agencies under Chevron vs. NRDC. Chevron’s legal and economic impact is gargantuan. At the time of the Chevron decision in 1984, the federal bureaucracy had issued approximately 65,000 regulations since the beginning of the Administrative State. After Chevron, the tentacles of the Administrative State expanded to control almost every aspect of society, including the products made, the information provided, and the energy it used. By 2023, the bureaucracy had issued 215,500 regulations costing the economy approximately $2 trillion to implement annually.

The courts dutifully applied Chevron’s deference. Seventy future SCOTUS  decisions relied upon it, and it was cited in 17,000 lower court decisions. By removing agency deference, SCOTUS returned agency rulemaking power to Congress’s original intent, formulated in its Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”)—that judges, not bureaucrats, make independent interpretations of the law.

In the second case, SEC vs. Jarkesy, the court struck down the power of federal agencies to act as regulators, judges, and executioners, which could impose substantial civil penalties without providing the defendant’s Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial.

While Jarkesy sought judicial review in a federal court, the SEC forced him to adjudicate the matter in-house. The agency’s administrative law judge levied a $300,000 fine on Jarkesy and ordered the disgorgement of $685,000 in illicit profits for violations of the anti-fraud provisions in federal securities law. Jarkesy petitioned the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals for judicial review, arguing that he had the right to a jury trial since the SEC sought penalties. The federal appellate court agreed with Jarkesy.

The Supreme Court upheld the appellate court’s finding. It is reasoned that when an agency seeks to impose civil penalties, the action is in the nature of punishment. Since punishment at common law was imposed by courts holding jury trials, Jarkesy was entitled to a jury trial.

The ruling in Jarkesy is significant because federal agencies hire several thousand ALJs to hear evidence and make judicial decisions. These administrative proceedings are very costly to defendants but are more comfortable for agencies since the outcome is determined by their paid-for, in-house “judges.”

Loper and Jarkesy build upon  WVA v. EPA, the case in which SCOTUS formulated its Major Questions Doctrine requiring an agency to establish statutory authority when transforming long-standing policy into a dramatically new one. EPA historically applied section 111 of the Clean Air Act only to specific energy sources at particular locations. Suddenly, the EPA “discovered new authority” and authorized itself to determine what types of electrical power could be generated and distributed to the nation. SCOTUS found that EPA lacked the statutory authority to transform its facility-by-facility approach to clean air regulation into the power to regulate the entire electricity grid. The critical aspect of its ruling is that when federal agencies suddenly change long-established policies, the agency must prove Congress granted them such authority.

In the three cases, SCOTUS reversed long-established positions that agencies could fill in the legislative blanks in the law, force citizens into trials controlled by agency-paid judges, and unilaterally extend regulatory powers to “newly discovered activities.”

The dramatic change in the court’s judicial philosophy exhibited a newfound respect for Congress as it searched for its congressional intent or any constitutional support for agency activity

For those familiar with our Constitution and congressionally written laws, it’s clear that vagueness is omnipresent in most texts. This understanding should raise concerns about the potential for a future SCOTUS with a liberal/Progressive majority to reverse the current limits. Such a reversal could allow agencies to once again operate as unsupervised lawmakers, thereby potentially making them supreme in the lawmaking process. This potential imbalance underscores the need to preserve the recent SCOTUS decisions.

While conservative Republicans in Congress for decades voiced concerns over the growth of the regulatory state, they could not secure the votes to restrain the system created by the liberal/Progressive SCOTUS.

Only the 115^th Congress seriously attempted to reform the APA and, by implication, the Administrative State through the proposed Regulatory Accountability Act (“RAA”). The RAA sought to reform the rulemaking process to ensure final rules were based on sound facts and law, inadequate science could be challenged, major rules were subject to on-the-record hearings with cross-examination, and courts, not regulators, interpreted the law.

The House passed the RAA several times. A Republican Senate even voted it out of committee; however, Senate leadership under Mitch McConnell, a patron of the Administrative State, refused to bring the legislation to the floor. This effort was Congress’ first and last serious attempt to reform the Administrative State since its creation in 1946.

In the final analysis, agencies will fight to the last rulemaking proceeding to expand their regulatory powers. The Biden administration recently proved the truth of the assertion by forgiving additional student loan debt after a conservative SCOTUS declared such actions beyond the powers granted to the Executive by Congress. While the current SCOTUS has significantly limited the power of agencies to make new laws without congressional authority, a future liberal/Progressive court could reverse these limits. It is up to Congress to place statutory limitations on an agency’s power to make laws without authority from Congress. Such action is necessary if Congress is to reclaim and retain its constitutional role as the nation’s sole legislative authority.

William L. Kovacs, author of Devolution of Power: Rolling Back the Federal State to Preserve the Republic. Received 5 stars from Readers’ Favorite. His previous book, Reform the Kakistocracy, received the 2021 Independent Press Award for Political/Social Change. He served as senior vice president for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and chief counsel to a congressional committee. He can be contacted at wlk@ReformTheKakistocracy.com

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If punishment is the desire, Congress, as the legislative branch, can’t impose it. If Congress exposes the corruption, DOJ will not prosecute it, as evidenced by the Horowitz and Durham reports of government corruption.

Since the DOJ and FBI are impeding the congressional investigations, the only viable option left for the Committees is to secure the testimony of all relevant witnesses by granting “use immunity” to the Biden family, Hunter’s business associates, and the past and present leadership of the DOJ and FBI. Congress has this power under 18 U.S.C. sec 2005.

Once receiving use immunity, the witnesses can testify free of prosecution for any testimony concerning their criminal activity. A refusal to answer subjects the witness to Contempt of Congress and could result in imprisonment.

Congress has the sole discretion to grant use immunity. Moreover, neither the DOJ nor the courts can interfere with the grant of it. Title 18 USC sec. 6005 authorizes either House of Congress to grant use immunity once an individual refuses to give testimony or provide other information based on his privilege against self-incrimination.

Historically, Congress is reluctant to grant use immunity since it usually results in an inability of the DOJ to prosecute criminals. DOJ describes the dilemma:

Congress may now be forced to choose between granting immunity to exercise its oversight and investigative functions and forgoing a grant of immunity to allow the prosecution of key witnesses.

In the present situation, however, Congress is not facing a dilemma since DOJ is unwilling to prosecute any of the involved parties.

In the Watergate trials, like today, the DOJ refused to cooperate with Congress. The US Senate sought to grant use immunity to witnesses. DOJ asserted it, and the court has the power to block the grant of immunity. Chief Judge Sirica upheld the Senate’s power, writing:

Immunity is the fixed price which the government must pay to obtain certain kinds of information, and only the government [Congress] can determine how much information it wants to ‘buy’ in light of the fixed price.

Obtaining an immunity order from the district court is straightforward. In this instance, a duly authorized representative of the House of Representatives or the Committee seeking the testimony shall request a court order to require a witness to give testimony. The House or the concerned Committee must give ten days’ notice of the request to the Attorney General.

The district court must grant the congressional request if it finds:

1. In the case of a proceeding before either House of Congress, the request was approved by a majority vote of the members present, or
2. In the case of a proceeding before a committee, the request for such an order was approved by two-thirds of the members of the Committee; and
3. That the Attorney General was given ten days’ notice. The Attorney General can request another twenty days to “insulate from the immunity grant any incriminating data already in his files prior to the witness’s testimony.”

Once these conditions are met, the statute is mandatory. “The court shall” issue the order. Chief Judge Sirica held section 6005 casts the role of the court as ministerial, and the Attorney General is deprived of his normal discretion concerning the granting of immunity.

Judge Sirica concluded: “[There is a] power of the Congress to inquire into and publicize corruption, maladministration or inefficiency in agencies of the Government.” Quoting President Wilson, he notes the informing function of Congress should be preferred even to its legislative function.

The American people are owed the truth about corruption in their government. The House of Representatives has the power to obtain the truth. What is more important to the nation, truth or the false hope of punishment?

William L. Kovacs has served as senior vice president for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, chief counsel to a congressional committee, and a partner in law D.C. law firms. His book Reform the Kakistocracy is the winner of the 2021 Independent Press Award for Political/Social Change. He can be contacted at wlk@ReformTheKakistocracy.com

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Congress needs to read “The Federal Spending Diet Book.”

The Federal Spending Diet Book

Reducing federal spending is about responsible governance, not Republican or Democrat power. There are relatively commonsense efforts to reduce the debt. Chapters 1 through 9 are the easy steps to reduce federal spending by a trillion dollars or more annually. Chapter 10 is for those serious dieters who want to “Make America Great Again.” It sets out a tax system that transforms a federal government from one of picking winners and losers to one that simply collects taxes to pay the necessary bills of the government.

If “[The] journey of a thousand miles begins with one step,” our federal government needs to start walking.

 Chapter 1: Do not fund laws that have not been authorized.

The easiest set of budget cuts would be to refrain from funding laws that Congress has not authorized. “In FY 2021 appropriations, the Congressional Budget Office identified 1,068 authorizations of appropriations, stemming from 274 laws, tolling $432 billion, that expired before the beginning of the fiscal year 2022.” Since House Rules prohibit such appropriations, it should be an easy savings of almost one-half trillion dollars.

Chapter 2: Review and vote on every expenditure of the Judgment Fund.

The Judgment Fund is the mother of all slush funds. It is a permanent, indefinite, and unlimited congressional appropriation continuously available to pay money judgments entered against the United States and settlements of cases in or likely to be in litigation with the United States. It is an indefinite appropriation, so secret that Congress no longer even debates what the amounts are for. The amounts are appropriated, no matter what the amount. The Department of the Treasury just pays the claims upon the receipt of the paperwork. This is the fund that President Obama used to deliver $1.7 billion in cash to Iran as a bribe to sign the Iran nuclear deal. Why should our government officials have billions in a secret fund to cover up illegal activity? Having Congress approve each judgment and settlement as it did before 1956, the U.S. could save taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.

Chapter 3:  Follow and implement GAO’s Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (“GAAP”).

Congress mandates GAO to perform a GAAP analysis of federal spending and assets and provide recommendations to ensure the financial reporting by an agency is transparent and consistent. Every member of Congress should read these reports on how our money is managed and should implement its findings.  One specific GAO recommendation is for the federal government to address the government-wide improper payments, estimated to be $175 billion.

Chapter 4: Government must operate only for a public purpose.

The issue of Congress giving away our money to private entities has been debated since the founding of the Republic. Opponents of giveaways argue taxpayer money can only be spent on matters enumerated in the Constitution. The government asserts it can spend taxpayer money on anything that promotes the general welfare. Continuing this debate is irrelevant since the courts have made it clear legislatures determine what the general welfare is. To address the excesses of gifts to private individuals, Congress should stop giving money to private parties, including tax credits for fancy automobiles, horse racing, NASCAR, and short-line railroads, and finally eliminate carried interest.

Chapter 5: Members of Congress and the President should imagine their conference tables are merely kitchen tables that invite a family discussion over finances.

The amount of information available to Congress for making smart debt reduction decisions is overwhelming. It is time Congress puts these materials to use. A simple way to approach this task would be for each congressional committee to rank each program within its jurisdiction in order of priority.  The budget and appropriation committees would work with the authorizing committees to ensure the highest-priority programs receive priority funding. The appropriation committees would work down the list until the revenue raised by taxes is expended. At that point, Congress would have to cease spending money on programs for which there is no longer any revenue, e.g., studies of shrimp on a treadmill, or admit to the taxpayers it wants to borrow money to fund programs of lesser value. This kitchen-table process of spending only up to revenues received could save hundreds of billions of wasted dollars.

Chapter 6: Re-constitute the Joint Committee on Reduction of Non-Essential Federal Expenditures, which existed from 1941 to 1974.

This committee was established after World War II to recommend ways to reduce a massive federal budget.  Its goal was to identify non-essential spending. While the committee was only a study committee, requiring its recommendations to be submitted to authorizing and appropriation committees, it had a major impact on budgeting in government. With the inability of Congress to control spending or the states to force a Balanced Budget amendment to the Constitution, an alternative would be to create a similar committee to make recommendations to Congress but require its recommendations be voted on by Congress. This process creates accountability.

Chapter 7: Enact a Base Realignment and Closure Commission (“BRAC”) that applies to general appropriations.

Due to political pressure to locate the military bases in numerous congressional districts, the U.S. constructed an excess of bases but could not close unneeded ones. To address the situation, Congress established BRAC, giving the Commission power to identify unnecessary bases and to send recommendations to Congress. The key to BRAC’s recommendations to Congress is that they became law unless Congress passed a Resolution of Disapproval and the President signed it. Using the BRAC structure, Congress could apply the same concept to all recommended reductions as a means of reducing political support for unneeded programs.

Chapter 8: Establish a Budget & Waste Reduction Director in every agency to identify unnecessary expenditures.

Federal agencies have recycling and permit streamlining directors to help implement certain laws. Due to massive budget deficits, there should be a similar position to identify ways an agency can eliminate unneeded programs. The person should report directly to the head of the agency. All reports must be addressed by the head of the agency, and reasons for “No Action” must be publicly justified. Each director would recommend a 10% reduction in agency expenditures. Give the director a big bonus for meeting the target.

Chapter 9. The federal government needs to seriously re-think the massive subsidies it gives to private parties to buy green products.

In the recently enacted “Inflation Reduction Act,” Congress authorized $370 billion in new tax credits for corporations and individuals if they purchase green energy products or build green energy facilities. The tax credits are to boost sales of electric vehicles, the installation of rooftop solar panels, the development of solar power systems, heat pumps, water heaters, space heating, electric stoves, circuit breaker boxes, additional home insulation, and exterior windows, to name a few private beneficiaries. This is in addition to federal regulations imposing energy efficiency requirements on at least sixty products and $577 billion in tax credits and grants for green energy projects since 2004.

The IRA was passed only a week after Congress authorized $280 billion to incentivize the semiconductor industry to build plants in the U.S. The semiconductor industry is a very profitable $573 billion industry that is expected to grow to $1.4 trillion by 2029 due to high demand for its products.

Chapter 10: Enact a fair, simple tax code that raises money to operate the government rather than legislating personal behavior.

For those in Congress and presidents serious about the future of the United States, its time for Congress to stop using the tax code to pick winners and losers and to let the market allocate the goods and services wanted by consumers.

This simple solution is to repeal the 8-million-word tax code and replace it with the 1913- four-page Form 1040. Few deductions and low rates, but requiring everyone to pay some tax, including the wealthiest. Another benefit of this simple approach is it captures a greater amount of tax owed by closing the Tax Gap.  The IRS defines the tax gap as the difference between true taxes owed for a given tax year and the amount that is paid. The gap is caused by the under-reporting of income, non-filing, and tax evasion. While the exact amount is unknown, the IRS estimates it to range from $574 to $700 billion annually. A complex tax code invites under-reporting and manipulation, whereas a simple tax code fosters greater participation and prevents large-scale manipulation encouraged by complexity.

Starting a diet requires acknowledgment of being overweight and the desire to lose weight. The same is true with overspending. It cannot continue for the health of the nation. If overspending continues, the long-term consequences will be extremely harmful to the nation, especially future generations. While not every step in the diet book needs to be followed, if, however, the federal government implements four or five of the steps, it is guaranteed to reduce spending by a trillion dollars.

The post Shrink Your Bloated Government With This One Easy Trick appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

For decades, there have been concerns about the federal government’s growing power, size, and cost. Nothing, however, has been done to address it. It just expands. Why? Is it an uncontrollable deep state, an unmanageable bureaucracy, or just too complex? While a solution is always available, the federal government benefits significantly from the Administrative State. It opposes change.

The term Administrative State describes the power of Executive branch agencies to create, adjudicate and enforce their own rules. Congress enacted the Administrative Procedure Act in 1946 (“APA”) to exert control over the administrative State by establishing procedures for federal agencies to make and enforce regulations. Unfortunately, over time the agencies, with the help of the courts, found ways around APA restraints.

Unfortunately, Congress has been unable to substantively amend the APA in the 76 years since its enactment, notwithstanding that the federal courts have expanded agency power by granting deference to their interpretations of the law. Judicial deference is a critical component of the Executive’s regulatory power. Applying it diminishes the lawmaking power of Congress by tipping the scales in favor of Executive branch interpretations.

Today, the Administrative State is a massive collection of unelected federal officials, except the president, that has issued 212,271 rules since 1976. Its regulatory tenacles control almost every aspect of society, from the food we eat to the health information given to us. Regulatory costs are estimated at $1.9 trillion in 2021.

Can the administrative State be reformed?

The 115^th Congress made a serious attempt to reform the APA, and by implication, the administrative State, through the Regulatory Accountability Act (“RAA”). The RAA sought to reform the rulemaking process to ensure final rules were based on sound facts and law. The House passed the RAA. The Senate voted it out of committee; however, Senate leadership refused to bring it to the floor. This effort was Congress’ first and last serious attempt to reform the administrative State.

While Congress has shown little ability to control federal agencies, the courts are now recognizing that the U.S. has an out-of-control regulatory process in need of restraint.

In December 2022, the Ohio Supreme Court, in TWISM Enterprises v. Board for Registering Professional Engineers, rejected “[A]ll forms of mandatory deference.” The case involved a rule that independent contractors could not be in charge of engineering projects since they were not full-time company employees. The Ohio Engineering Board received judicial deference for its interpretation from the lower courts. The Ohio Supreme Court reversed, finding there was no statutory language precluding independent contractors from serving as full-time managers of an engineering firm. It held the principle of separation of powers precludes any mandatory deference to agency regulations that interpret a statute. Under the principle of separation of powers, only courts can interpret the law, not agencies. Deference to agencies produces “systematically biased judgments” that permit the executive branch “to say what the law means,” a clear intrusion into judicial authority.

The Ohio court also noted, “Roughly half the states in the Union review agency interpretations de novo.” The Ohio court’s decision provides the reasoning the U.S. Supreme Court needs to restore the principle of separation of powers at the federal level, a principle it abandoned in Chevron when it granted agencies almost unfettered discretion to create law.

Moreover, the U.S. Supreme Court is also moving to restrict agency lawmaking. In WVA v. EPA, the court reviewed an EPA rule that relied upon section 111 of the Clean Air Act to regulate the types and amounts of energy that could be carried on the electricity grid. Before EPA’s “new found authority,” it applied section 111 only to specific energy sources at specific locations.

Like the Ohio court, the Supreme Court examined the power Congress granted the agency. It described EPA’s attempt to assume “unheralded” regulatory power as a “transformative expansion in [its]regulatory authority” over the American economy. It concluded Congress did not grant the agency the authority to set emission caps based on shifting the percentage generation of fuels that could be carried on the grid.

Recognizing that agencies use “vague language of a long-extant, but rarely used statute[s]” to create new law,” it announced the “Major Questions Doctrine, requiring agencies to point to “clear congressional authorization” when issuing expansive rules.

The uncontrolled growth of the administrative State results from the Executive constantly seeking more power, courts that, until recently, fostered the expansion of executive power, and a Congress that has failed to provide aggressive oversight of agency actions and spending. If the courts continue to restrain the expansion of agency power, reform of the administrative State will be accomplished without Congress performing its constitutional duties.

If the U.S. Supreme Court, in its next deference case, adopts reasoning similar to the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision and it actually enforces its “Major Questions Doctrine,” it will put federal agencies back into their constitutional boxes. At that point, going forward, all that is needed to maintain our constitutional separation of powers is for each branch to do its job by constantly checking the powers of competing branches.

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The rights of all members to fully function as legislators had been taken away by Speaker Pelosi, who legislated in small, secret groups. She knew knowledge was “power.” She used her power to manipulate the legislative process by bringing multi-thousand-page bills to the floor without giving members the ability to read the proposed law or the right to offer amendments. Pelosi treated backbenchers as lemons.

Now, as the hard work of legislating begins, Conservatives should never forget, “No plan ever survives contact with the enemy.” This point is critical since real conservatives have fought excessive spending and increasing national debt for decades, but their efforts have many times been thwarted by Republicans who spend just as much, or more, than Democrats. Based on fiscal year spending, Republicans are bigger spenders than Democrats.

The necessity of member participation. Since every member of Congress is elected by a congressional district of similar size, the average number being 761,169 people, each member should have similar rights to represent the legislative needs of their districts in Congress. Those rights include the right to know what they are voting on and to offer amendments to change bad legislation.

Through a combination of Rules changes and commitments from the Speaker, members will have 72 hours to read legislation before they must vote on it. And, if the legislation is only on one subject, it will be more understandable to them and the American people. All legislators will have the right to offer amendments to cut spending as opposed to being forced to endlessly increase it.  Additionally, special interest riders will need a two-thirds vote for approval. There were 7,200 legislative riders in the $1.7 trillion Omnibus Appropriations Act.

Putting conservatives on the Rules Committee makes them part of the legislative process.  The #Freedom 20 secured the Speaker’s commitment to appoint three real conservatives to the House Rules Committee. If honored, it will give conservatives real input on what is debated on the floor of the House. If the Speaker does not keep his promises, any member can move to remove him.

 Every member of the House is now responsible for addressing the national debt. Now the #Freedom 20 and every member of Congress can run the government for the people, not the special interests. That will be an extremely difficult task. Jimmy Carter left office in 1980 with a $997 billion national debt. Today after four Republican and three Democrat presidents, the national debt is $31 trillion. As the great philosopher Pogo (a comic strip character) stated, “We have met the enemy, and it is us.”

Congress must recognize it created this spending and debt problem. Congress is responsible for addressing it. That said, the #Freedom 20 needs to convince many more members of the House and likely most of the Senate to attend “Spenders Anonymous.” Already, Republicans are on cable tv objecting to cuts in the military. If one department can be left off the table, all departments will be left off the table.

Since a point of order is merely the opening act, conservatives need to do the hard work of proving to spenders the need for budget cuts and debt reductions. Soon the #Freedom 20 will find that a “Point of Order” is great theater but is easily dismissed by a majority of spenders. For over two decades, the Congressional Budget Office identified hundreds of billions of dollars in congressional funding for thousands of expired authorizations stemming from hundreds of expired laws. All points of order were overruled.

In its last report, the CBO identified $461 billion in congressional funding for 1,118 expired authorizations stemming from 442 expired laws. House Rule XVI already prohibits such appropriations; however, the House merely voted to wave the rule and fund the expired programs.

Now however, with the empowerment of all members and a rule that requires all committees to review expired programs, each Republican member of the House should agree to review five expired laws to determine whether they should be reauthorized, amended, or let lapse and report their recommendations to the committee chair. Such a review would analyze the entire list of 1118 expired laws that are being funded. It is a chance to immediately save almost one-half trillion dollars.

# Freedom 20 also secured the right to offer a “Balance Budget Amendment” and a Constitutional proposal to impose term limits on members of Congress. These are two significant issues that most members of Congress would like to ignore. Most members of Congress want their privileged positions for life. Without accountability, however, members of Congress are free to do as they choose and still be reelected. Over 90% of incumbents are reelected, a percentage similar to the reelection rate for the Russian Duma.

There is some camouflage in the new rules. The select committees do not have subpoena power, which must be approved by the chairman of the relevant standing committee. The select committees, however, can waive the 5-minute rule on questioning witnesses, a huge benefit in seeking the truth. They can also make legislative recommendations.  Unfortunately, these select committees will have less investigative power than the Democrats’ infamous “January 6^th” select committee.

 The real dark and cold reality facing the #Freedom 20 is the Senate. The Senate cares little about members of the “lower” House. The Constitution created the Senate to represent states, not people. Notwithstanding the XVII Amendment, Senators view themselves as closer to being a presidential deity than commoners in Congress. A Senator’s function, even Republican Senators,  seems to be distributing taxpayer money to special interests. Eighteen Senators supported the Democrats’ passage of the most recent 4000-page, $1.7 trillion Omnibus Appropriations Act.

The House needs to find leverage that makes the Senate take it seriously. This standoff brings us to the very brutal part of politics. In the final analysis, the #Freedom 20, or the House in general, has only two ways to leverage its power. The House can refuse to increase the debt limit unless it receives concessions. This tactic forces the Senate to confront the debt reality, but it puts every member of the #Freedom 20 at risk of causing an economic calamity. Worse still, Democrats and many Republican Senators will run to the cameras to call the House members crazy, insurrectionists or anarchists.

The second option is simply to refuse to appropriate money for items of concern to the Senate or the administration until debt concessions are made. The is no provision of the Constitution or any law that requires any member of the House to appropriate money. This approach will require waiting for the next round of appropriations.  A possible first step would be to refuse to appropriate money to fund a federal agency important to the big spenders. My nomination would be the Department of Education. It is the most important agency t Democrats and is owned by their biggest donors, teachers’ unions. Democrats will make concessions to save that Department for the unions.  House Republicans should find an agreement to defund an agency they never wanted.

As the 118^th Congress unfolds, the American public will discover if the #Freedom 20 and Republican House have crossed the Rubicon or whether they are merely taking a siesta on its banks.

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2022 is no exception. Since 1991, Congress has failed to pass its twelve appropriations bills. To avoid public failure, Congress takes the easy route. It bundles all spending into the proverbial secret Santa grab bag called an Omnibus appropriation. The corporatists and social advocates, like children opening presents, must wait to find out what they got until they can read the new law. The timing is usually the end of the year before Congress goes home for Christmas.

While Republicans claim they want to stop the next giveaway, they want their share of gifts even more. For this year’s share, several Republicans will likely help the Democrat business community keep their prize gifts, favorable tax treatment for research and development, and carried interest. The social activists want billions of dollars of higher childcare tax credits. The final deal is always more spending, never less.

Since the beginning of the republic, there has been a debate over the scope of Congress’s power to spend our money and then tax us to generate more money for Congress to spend. James Madison argued Congress could only spend on the items enumerated in the Constitution. Alexander Hamilton argued the Constitution’s Spending clause is independent of the enumerated powers, thus allowing Congress to tax and spend as it deems necessary. The only limitation – spending must be for the general welfare, and Congress is the only institution that determines the general welfare.

Continuing to debate the limits of Congressional spending is a waste of time. The Supreme Court has made it clear that Congress can spend on whatever it wants as long as it promotes the general welfare.

Such a broad interpretation of Congress’ ability to tax and spend has resulted in a massive expansion of government and a $31 plus a trillion national debt.  The growth of the national debt will likely force posterity into involuntary servitude to the federal government. Most troubling is that the general welfare has morphed from building canals, bridges, and highways to make the U.S. an economic superpower into trillions of dollars of gifts to special interests and friends. These gifts to private entities come in the form of grants, tax credits, low rates, loan forgiveness, and paycheck protection plans.

Listed below are a few of the thousands of congressional gifts to private parties.

Suspending  $20 billion of student loan payments for two years and now seeking $600 billion more in student loan forgiveness based on the Higher Education Relief Opportunities Act of 2003, an act that addresses national welfare emergencies.

$ 721 billion was given in grants to states as a bribe to manage federal programs enacted outside the constitutional authority of Congress to legislate.

Forgiving tens of billions of dollars of federal Paycheck Protection Program loans made to organizations controlled by the elite rich such as Paul Pelosi (husband of the Speaker of the House); Khloe Kardashian, Tom Brady and Reese Witherspoon, Forbes Media, Ruth Chris Steakhouse, The Washington Times, and more than a few members of Congress.

$16 billion was given in farm aid to offset losses suffered by farmers on tariffs imposed on products sold to China. The top 10% of farmers receive 70% of the subsidies. This top 10% includes insurance companies, multinational corporations, and corporate farms.

Flood insurance subsidies are given to insure high-end housing in flood-prone areas, i.e., beach front properties. This insurance program is potentially liable for $1.3 trillion in flood claims while only collecting $3.5 billion in annual premiums. The program already has $25 billion in losses taxpayers will have to pay.

The $330 billion prescription drug industry received $64 billion in federal research funding, along with  immunity for any harm their drugs may cause.

Most recently, through the falsely named “Inflation Reduction Act,” Congress authorized $370 in new tax credits for corporations and individuals if they acquire green energy products or build green energy facilities. These tax credits are in addition to federal regulations imposing energy efficiency requirements on at least sixty products and $577 billion in tax credits and grants for green energy projects since 2004. The tax credits are to boost corporate sales of electric vehicles, the installation of rooftop solar panels, the development of solar power systems, heat pumps, water heaters, space heating, electric stoves, circuit breaker boxes, additional home insulation, and exterior windows, to name a few beneficiaries.

A week before the passage of the IRA, Congress authorized $280 billion to incentivize the semiconductor industry to build plants in the U.S. and invest in new research. The $ 573 billion semiconductor industry is expected to grow to $1.4 trillion by 2029 due to high product demand.

With a $31 trillion-plus national debt, citizens need to appreciate that every taxpayer owes $247,882 as their portion of the debt.

Christmas gifts to children are rewarding when parents see happiness in their eyes. Unfortunately, as some of these children grow up, they still expect gifts from the real Santa Claus, the federal government. The federal government likes playing Santa but never considers the immutable fact that the only money the federal government has is what it takes from taxpayers. The federal Santa game is simple. The federal government sees the glimmer in the eyes of its friends when they find out about the billion-dollar gifts they received for doing nothing. This tradition is the true meaning of a Washington, DC Christmas.

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It will be a trying time since the loudest voices will seek retribution against Democrats through much-needed investigations. Undertake a few very well-structured investigations to expose the corruption in the Biden administration, but, please do not forget your Commitment to America. Some of it can be accomplished with control of only the House. Republicans promised to right the ship of state. You will be doing this for the country, not to satisfy primal urges of revenge.

As part of your Commitment to America, you pledged to “Curb wasteful government spending that is raising the price of groceries, gas, cars, and housing and growing our national debt.” A similar promise was made by the Republicans in its1994 Contract with America. The national debt in January 1994 was $4.4 trillion. The national debt in 2022 is almost $31 trillion. Most concerning, Republican administrations increased the national debt during that period by $14.05 trillion, about 53.6% of its increase. Democrats increased the national debt by $12.15 trillion, about 46.4% of the additional debt in that period.

Worst still, 97% of our national debt has increased dramatically since the end of the presidency of Jimmy Carter, the last president to preside over a national debt of less than a trillion dollars. In those forty years, using fiscal year calculations, the Republicans added $17.46 trillion to the national debt (59%), and the Democrats added $12.15 trillion (41%). It is imperative that the national debt matter to Republicans when they have the power to do something about it. Pontificating about it on cable television is not sufficient.

Interest payments on the national debt over the next 30 years are estimated to exceed $66 trillion. Each taxpayer’s share of the national debt today is $245,191. The average personal income in the U.S. is $63,211. If Americans are concerned with inflation, wait until they get the bill for the national debt. The national debt will become so burdensome to future generations that it will undermine democracy. If the federal government taxed current citizens the amounts needed to pay for today’s government, a tax revolt would topple the government.

How did the government put us in this position?

The framework of our Constitution has few guardrails for the type of government formed by our elected leaders. Today’s federal government combination of capitalist, socialist, oligarchy, kakistocracy, and woke cult. Moreover, the federal government can tax us as much as it needs to satisfy its wants. From 1932 to 1981, the marginal tax rate in the U.S. ranged between 63% – 91%.

Since it is unlikely, we will pay off the national debt in our lifetimes, our federal government and every American must recognize, we are living on the future productivity of those who have no say in creating our debt. The national debt is unjust to those who will have to pay tomorrow for our spending today.

What can House Republicans do today without control of the presidency?

Our Constitution reads, “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.”

For Congress to spend more of the taxpayer’s money, it must appropriate new money by enacting a law that requires the approval of both Houses of Congress and a Presidential signature. To spend no money, however, one House of Congress merely needs to do nothing. No provision in the Constitution gives anyone the power to force Congress to spend money. Moreover, Congress is the only government institution controlling the nation’s purse. The House of Representatives can shut the purse.

A few simple ideas for a Republican House to cut almost one trillion dollars from the budget by Just Saying “No.”

Do not fund unauthorized laws. Almost a half-trillion in savings can be achieved by following congressional rules prohibiting the funding of laws that are not authorized. All Congress needs to do is refuse to fund unauthorized laws.

The Congressional Budget Office annually issues a report on “Expired and Expiring Authorizations of Appropriations” for the Fiscal Year. While CBO prepares this report according to the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, the report is to assist lawmakers in complying with House rules by identifying unauthorized laws that should not be funded. Its 2022 report identifies 1,118 authorizations of appropriations that expired before the beginning of FY 2022 and an additional 111 that will expire during FY 2022.

CBO estimates Congress appropriated $461 billion in 2022 to fund unauthorized laws. Moreover, CBO identifies each committee of Congress that has failed to authorize laws under its jurisdiction and the amount of money appropriated to fund these unauthorized statutes. Forty-four percent of the unauthorized laws being funded expired over a decade ago. If Congress is unwilling to review these laws and reauthorize them, that lack of interest alone should be sufficient to let them expire.

Reduce agency budgets for refusing to provide Congress with the information requested. Congress has a constitutional responsibility to oversee federal agencies. Many times, however, federal agencies refuse to provide Congress with the information requested. Usually, Congress, especially the party in opposition to the Executive, must live with the refusal until a president from its party occupies the White House. Then matters are reversed. One mechanism for addressing this issue would be for the House of Representatives to reduce the agency’s appropriations by some percentage each time an agency fails to provide the information requested.

Use spending power as bargaining power. Since Congress cannot be compelled to spend money on any activity, it needs to leverage this power to ensure the Executive implements the policies Congress enacted. From day one the Biden administration refused to protect the southern border of the United States. The border is open to all comers, no matter how much the Republicans complain. By being in charge of the House, however, Republicans have solid leverage to negotiate with the administration by withholding money for programs Biden deems essential.

The leverage should be the Department of Education (“DOE”) since it is owned and operated by Biden’s most significant political supporters, the teachers’ unions. The DOE is a perpetual pay-off to the teachers’ unions. The teachers’ unions donated $43 million to liberal groups in the 2020 election cycle.

By controlling DOE, teachers’ unions foster the teaching of Critical Race Theory, impose mask mandates, and torture children’s minds by telling them they are born racists. The mere possibility of the teachers’ unions losing this power will likely persuade Democrats to accept the reality that building the border wall and enforcing immigration laws is a cheap price to pay to keep DOE.

If Biden concedes, the House Republicans will get the border wall and immigration enforcement. If Biden refuses to negotiate, the Republicans get to eliminate the agency they have wanted to eliminate since 1980, when it was created.

Require all federal agencies to implement GAO’s Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (“GAAP”) or suffer budget cuts. Congress mandates GAO to perform a GAAP analysis of federal spending and assets and provide recommendations to ensure the financial reporting by the agency is transparent and consistent. One specific GAO recommendation is for all agencies to address the government-wide improper payments, estimated to be $175 billion. A Republican House should refuse to fund agencies failing to implement this recommendation.

By implementing these four recommendations, Republicans can reduce the budget by over $850 billion. Only time will tell if Republicans mean what they promise in their Commitment to America. Republicans’ this is your “put up or shut up” moment.

William L. Kovacs, author of Reform the Kakistocracy, winner of the 2021 Independent Press Award for Political/Social Change, and former senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

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For 256 years, the U.S. has elected representatives, but their duty of loyalty to whom or what is vague. Of course, all take an oath to the Constitution and represent constituents, but such responsibilities are so abstract they are meaningless.

The writings of John Locke, Edmond Burke, and James Madison reflect a fundamental belief that no power is granted to our representatives as individuals. These representatives are fiduciaries that must act to achieve the public good. As fiduciaries, they cannot act beyond their legal authority and must administer laws impartially. Unfortunately, today this view is rejected by what Madison terms “factions,” groups of citizens united in a common interest adverse to others in the community.

These factions are today’s political parties and interest groups that build their brand, raise massive amounts of money and acquire power by preaching division. The academic literature supports this self-interest by arguing that public officials cannot be fiduciaries since it would be impossible to give loyalty to the many diverging interests confronting elected officials.

While divergent ideas are essential and constitutionally protected, the fiduciary’s duty of loyalty does not apply to individuals, groups, or political parties. Instead, it applies to the Constitution’s separation of powers structure that allows society’s many contestable issues to be debated rationally to foster a consensus around the public good. The process includes a Congress that formulates laws after listening to all sides of a debate; an Executive administers those laws, and courts resolve the controversies between branches.

For this structure to work, each branch of government has an independent duty to act as a check on the other branches. This tension is necessary to achieve the public good. Unfortunately, when elected representatives function as politicians, they distort the constitutional structure by placing their loyalty to political parties and interest groups ahead of the institution they serve. Displaced loyalty diminishes the Constitution.

Since our Constitution is held in trust by our elected representatives, for the American people, it is protected when these officials vigorously defend the powers and duties of the branch they serve. Such defense is the best mechanism to ensure government is limited to the powers given it by the Constitution.

Today’s political climate illustrates this point. We have one political party controlling Congress and the Executive. We have an Executive making new laws, (student loan forgiveness), or refusing to enforce existing law (immigration). While the Executive’s party in Congress may have a majority of members in its caucus, at times, it still may lack the votes needed to authorize the Executive’s actions. In instances when the Executive acts without congressional authority, his party in Congress generally has the power to block the minority party from preventing the Executive’s arbitrary accumulation of power. As an end run around the Constitution, the politicians in Congress, rather than dealing with the difficulties of the legislative process, abandon their oath to uphold the separation of powers by allowing the Executive to make law through regulation, Executive Order, or simply not enforcing laws.

In theory, the Constitution works well. In practice, however, the constitutional mandate of separation of powers is regularly abused. When Congress ignores its duties to defend the separation of powers, it limits the ability of the constitutional structure to fully allow the multitude of interests a voice in the debate needed to achieve a governing consensus. For several decades party-line voting (Democrats vote one way; Republicans oppose) has become the norm. In the 1960s, party-line voting was around 60%, but by the Trump administration, it reached 90%. Without letting the structure of the Constitution work, these representatives breach their fiduciary duty to the Constitution by allowing the Executive to enhance its power by diminishing the power of Congress.

When loyalty to political parties and interest groups eliminates the separation of powers protections in the Constitution, citizens must rely on the interest groups named Democrats or Republicans for protection. Today such actions are arbitrary political power. Tomorrow it could be tyranny.

This article was first published in TheHill.com

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The answer is simple – it comes from the Judgment Fund which is the mother of all slush funds. Nothing in the world is comparable to it other than dictators stealing the treasury of a nation. In the U.S., Congress has made such secret payments legal and routine.

The Judgment Fund pays judgments against the United States and settlements agreed to by the Department of Justice. It is a fund that does not disclose the receipt of the payments or settlements even when the actions establish major agency policy or when requested by congressional appropriators. It is a fund without accountability or transparency since the federal agencies making the payments will not provide Congress or taxpayers information about who was paid by the fund.

How does the Judgment Fund work? It is a permanent, indefinite, and unlimited congressional appropriation continuously available to pay money judgments entered against the United States and settlements of cases in or likely to be in litigation with the United States. As an indefinite appropriation, it is so secret that Congress no longer even debates what the amounts are for. The funds are appropriated, no matter what the amount. The Department of the Treasury just pays the claims when the proper paperwork is presented to it.

How did such a fund come about? Prior to 1956, Congress actually appropriated funds to pay for every single judgment against the United States. Under this procedure, Congress was actually aware of what claims were being made against the United States and was able to evaluate the actions of the agencies being sued.

In 1956 Congress passed the Judgment Fund Act to provide for payment of most judgments against the United States without the need for individual appropriations. The congressional justification was to enhance the efficiency of the appropriations process. In 1961 Congress amended the statute to pay for settlements in addition to judgments but with a ceiling on such payments of $100,000. In 1977 Congress eliminated the ceiling and now the fund is available to pay any covered judgment or settlement, regardless of amount.

The Judgment Fund functions as an automatic withdrawal from the nation’s treasury. Moreover, the payments made to satisfy a judgment against the US or to settle the alleged illegal activity of the agency, do not come out of the agency’s budget.  There is no penalty to the agency for misconduct or illegal activity since payments do not have to be reimbursed unless Congress appropriated funds to the agency for such payments. Simply, agencies are not required to pay for their misconduct or unlawful activities.

What payments have been made under the Judgment Fund? While the Department of the Treasury provides a list of payments and the amounts, it does not identify who received the payments. In a 2016 article, Politico described how federal agencies, using the Judgment Fund, hid more than $4.3 billion in payment to settle sexual harassment complaints. In 2020, the Judgment Fund paid out nearly 7,500 payments totaling over $14 billion.

Even after the House and Senate, Committees on Appropriations requested details concerning the names of claimants, the amounts to be paid and a description of the facts, the Treasury continued its refusal to provide the information to Congress. Moreover, the Obama administration settled over sixty lawsuits with environmental groups. It is likely it utilized the Judgment Fund since there was no other money appropriated to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to settle lawsuits. Unfortunately, it is impossible to know since the EPA, like all federal agencies, refuses to release the names of the recipients

Are there limits to these secret payments? Unless there is a specific statute authorizing payments in a different manner, there are no limits to payments from the Judgment Fund. According to a September 7, 2016, House Judiciary Committee report, Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice, the Obama administration likely used the Judgment Fund to settle the $1.7 billion payment to the Islamic Republic of Iran for claims made on the sale of military equipment before the 1979 Iranian Revolution. This is the incident in which the US flew planeloads of cash, in foreign currencies, to Iran as part of what could be termed a ransom payment for American prisoners.

It is time for Congress to take seriously one of its main legislative responsibilities; its control over the nation’s purse as required by Article I, section 9, clause 7 of our Constitution. It can no longer leave the Executive branch with blank checks to be used when needing money to make secret payments, most times for wrongdoing. It is time for our government to be honest with us about what it spends and the recipients of its spending. After all, it is our money!

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