So what the difference between Davy Crockett and Senator Obama? Davy Crockett made a mistake while he was in Congress and learned a lesson and refused to repeat it.

One day a bill came before the House to appropriate money for the widow of a naval officer who served in the war of 1812. Ever body thought this officer a fine officer but he didn't die in the war. There were the usual speeches in support of the bill and finally before the bill called for a vote Davy Crockett rose to speak.

“Mr. Speaker-- I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the grounds that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the Government was in arrears to him. This Government can owe no debts but for services rendered, and at a stipulated price. If it s a debt, how much is it? Has it been audited, and the amount due ascertained? If it is a debt, this in not the place to present it for payment, or to have its merits examined. If it is a debt, we owe more than we can ever hope to pay, for we owe the widow of every soldier who fought in the war of 1812 precisely the same amount. There is a woman in my neighborhood, the widow of as gallant a man as ever shouldered a musket. He fell in battle. She is a good in every respect as this lady, and is as poor. She is earning her daily bread by her daily labor, and if I were to introduce a bill to appropriate five or ten thousand dollars for her benefit, I should be laughed at, and my bill would not get five votes in this House. There are thousands of widows in the country just such as the one I have spoken of; but we never hear of any of these large debts to them. Sir, this is no debt. The Government did not owe it to the deceased when he was alive; it could not contract it after he died. I do not wish to be rude, but I must be plain. Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as a charity. Mr. Speaker. I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I'm the poorest an on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week's pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to ore than the bill asks.”

To shorten the story, Davy Crockett was out trying to get elected. He came upon a farmer plowing his fields. Rep. Crockett was finally able to engage the man, Horatio Bunce, in conversation where he told Crockett he had voted for him in the past but could not any more. When asked why it was explained that Mr. Bunce followed the papers from Washington. He had read where there had been a great fire in Georgetown that Davy Crockett and others had helped put out leaving thousands of men, women and children out on the street with nothing but the close on their back. The House passed a $20,000 bill to rebuild Georgetown.

Mr. Bunce in the conversation asked Colonel Crockett “Well, Colonel, where do you find in the Constitution any authority to give away the public money in charity!”

Well Colonel Crockett was stumped and tried to justify the decision to vote to give the money to Georgetown. Mr. Bunce responded, “it is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the Government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing to do with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means.”

Senator Obama told Joe the Plumber that he wants to spread the wealth around. He is a multi-millionaire. If he wants to spread money around let it be his weeks pay. I give my weeks pay to those who I think can do the most good with it, our local food bank.

So please show me where in our Constitution there is the right for Congress to spread it around? I don't think you will have any better luck finding it that Davy Crockett. Sen. Obama needs to learn this lesson also.