Joint Session of the US Congress

 

The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the national government with its citizens, the states, and all those within the United States.

Unlike evolving historical constitutions, it is a prescriptive establishment of government.^[1] The first three Articles of the Constitution establish the three branches of the national government: a legislature, the bicameral Congress; an executive branch led by the President; and a national judiciary headed by the Supreme Court. The last four Articles frame federal relationships among the governments of the nation and states for the people. The Tenth Amendment confirms its federal characteristics. All powers not enumerated are reserved to the respective states or to the people themselves.

The Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787, by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and ratified by conventions in eleven states in the name of "the People". The first ten amendments to it are known as the Bill of Rights. The Constitution has been amended by the people living under its jurisdiction a total of twenty-seven times.

Writers of the Constitution are memorialized as the Framers. The oldest charter of supreme law in continuous use,^[a] it influenced later international figures establishing national constitutions. Its principles guide American society in law and political culture. Those principles are extended in courts of law by judicial review. Recent impulses for reform center on concerns for extending democracy and balancing the Federal budget.

The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Both senators and representatives are chosen through direct election. Each of the 435 members of the House of Representatives represents a district and serves a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the states by population. Each state, regardless of population, has two senators; since there are fifty states, there are one hundred senators who serve six-year terms. The terms are staggered, so every two years, approximately one-third of the Senate is up for election. Most incumbents seek re-election, and their historical likelihood of winning subsequent elections exceeds 90%.^[1]

 

 

December 31, 2011

Congress got plenty of attention this year, but it was for all the wrong reasons.

There were at least three countdowns to shutdown, there was the debt-limit fight, plus the will-they-or-won't-they drama earlier in December over the payroll tax holiday. Looking at how few bills were actually signed into law this year, one might conclude this session was mostly sizzle and not much steak.  http://www.npr.org/2011/12/31/144459614/this-year-in-congress-much-drama-little-to-show

 

OUR ECONOMIC NIGHTMARE CAUSED BY 2010 CONGRESSIONAL ELECTION

 

John B. Judis, editor of The New Republic

John B. Judis in “Doom! Our economic night mare is just beginning,” appeared in the October 6, 2011 edition of The New Republic.  In the article he writes about “those who do not know their history.”  He writes about going to hear Mitt Romney in Concord, New Hampshire, where he beforehand, he agreed to answer a few questions from reporters.  In an opening statement, Romney blamed Standard & Poor's decision on President Obama. The president's spokespeople, he said, "would substitute Harry Truman's 'The buck stops here' with a new motto: 'The buck stops somewhere else.' The truth is the buck stops at the president's desk, and he needs to reassert the leadership necessary to restore America's financial foundation."  The plan represents an attempt to achieve private-sector prosperity through public-sector austerity.

"Mr. Romney," I said, after he had fielded several other questions, "I want to ask you something about history. You know, when Herbert Hoover had to face a financial crisis and then unemployment, his strategy was to balance the budget and cut spending, and that made things worse. When Roosevelt came in, unemployment was twenty-five and went to fourteen percent by 1937. With deficits. Aren't you repeating the Hoover mistake?" Romney's grin turned quizzical. "Do you really think so?" he asked me. "I do think so, but you go ahead," I replied.

"Let's go back to the Hoover days," Romney began. "The issue in the Hoover years was what was happening in the budget that year. This year, we are spending $1.6 trillion more than we take in, and that would have made anyone in either party blush if they saw numbers like that. And the issue today is not just this year's deficit; it's deficits as far as the eyes can see. … America has to rein in the excessive spending not just this year, but over the long period of time."

I didn't think it would be proper to turn Romney's press conference into a debate about history, so I let his answer stand.  But he seemed to be suggesting that the premise of my question was flawed because deficits are much larger today and will probably continue unabated. And they are larger--but that is because our GDP and government are also larger. Meanwhile, if our deficits stretch "as far as the eyes can see," so did the deficits in Hoover's day, which continued unabated for 16 years. Romney was insisting that there was nothing to be learned from Hoover's response to the Great Depression. But, in fact, what happened in the United States and Europe in the '30s is an excellent-perhaps, the best--guide to what is happening to us now.

Yet it's not just Romney and the other Republican presidential candidates who seem oblivious to the lessons of the '30s. From David Cameron to Angela Merkel to Japan's new Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, many of the world's leaders are convinced that austerity is the way to fix our broken economy. President Obama--at least judging by his recent jobs speech to Congress--seems to understand that this approach is leading to economic disaster; but he may have waited too long to begin making this case to the American people, and the odds that he can actually get any kind of massive spending bill through Congress, now or even after 2012, remain low.

During the next year of campaigning, we are going to hear lots of uplifting slogans about America's can-do spirit and the bright prospects for our national future. That is the way politicians talk, and there is nothing wrong with that. But such optimistic rhetoric should not fool anyone about the underlying reality: Unless there is a fundamental--and difficult-to-imagine--change in the way our politics interacts with our economy, the United States and much of the world are headed for a very grim future.

In contrast to the usual post-World War II recession, our current downturn, like the Great Depression, is global in character.  During the typical recession, a country suffering a downturn might hope to revive itself by cutting its spending. That might temporarily increase unemployment, but it would also depress wages and prices, simultaneously cutting the demand for imports and making a country's exports more competitive against those of its rivals. But, when the recession is global, you get what John Maynard Keynes called the "paradox of thrift" writ large: As all nations cut their spending and attempt to devalue their currencies (which makes their exports cheaper), global demand shrinks still more, and the recession deepens.

Politicians today might not want to remember, but, in the first phase of the Great Depression, the major economies, oblivious to the paradox of thrift, took steps that made things much worse.

As Bass was leaving, I asked the owner whether, in proposing that Obama reduce government spending, he wasn't cutting off his nose to spite his face. He was taken aback and took a moment to reply. He began by denying that cutting federal spending would have any effect on his business, which was mostly local, but then acknowledged that schools and offices now had less money to buy filters. It was as if he had never made the connection before between his deep-seated cultural assumptions about government and the fate of his own business--and by extension that of other businesses.

IN THEIR INITIAL response to the recession of 2008, leaders in the United States and Europe appeared to heed the lessons of the Great Depression. Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy each backed generous government spending programs to revive the economy, and they also advanced proposals for reforming the increasingly dysfunctional international monetary system.

But then problems began to arise. Obama's initial stimulus proved woefully insufficient to stem the rise in unemployment. The $787 billion federal stimulus included $288 billion in tax cuts, which were as likely to be saved as to be spent; meanwhile, the stimulus was partially offset by an estimated $425 billion in state and local spending cuts and tax increases. The need for more spending was evident to Romer and to liberal economists, including Paul Krugman and former Council of Economic Advisers head Joseph Stiglitz; but Obama failed in his first year to press energetically for additional spending. His influential treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, believed that, after the initial stimulus, the recovery was proceeding on its own, and Obama's attention was focused on passing health care reform. By the end of 2009, the failure of the recovery to take hold had emboldened the Republican opposition and given birth to a new right-wing movement, the Tea Party that called for a drastic reduction of government spending.

Republican victories in the 2010 election led Obama to backtrack. He embraced the rhetoric of austerity--calling on government to "tighten its belt"--and accepted spending cuts in order to pass a budget and win Republican agreement for raising the debt ceiling. Most of these cuts are slated to take place over a decade, but as much as $30.5 billion is to be cut in 2012. In acceding to the uncompromising Republican opposition, Obama made it less likely that the United States would recover from the recession during his first term. Recently, as Obama's popularity sank, even among Democrats, and as the economy has continued to flounder, he has changed course, calling for $400 billion in new spending and tax cuts to create jobs; but the odds that Republicans will go along with him seem low.

In the American political culture, opposition to "big government" has become an article of faith that brooks no contradiction. When I was in New Hampshire this summer, I accompanied Republican Congressman Charlie Bass on a visit to a small factory that produces industrial-strength air-conditioning filters. Bass asked the factory owner what he would do first if he were Obama. The owner replied immediately: "Cut spending." Later, as I was touring the plant, I learned that schools, government buildings, and the military bought their filters there.

In dealing with the downturn and financial crisis, the president was cautious-as evidenced by his choice of Geithner, who had presided over the Federal Reserve Bank of New York during the crash. Like MacDonald, Obama harbored a dream of bringing the parties and interest groups together behind his program. As The Financial Times’ Martin Wolf put it, "Mr. Obama wishes to be President of a country that does not exist. In his fantasy US, politicians bury differences in bipartisan harmony." After the bruising battle over the debt ceiling, Obama may have finally put his dream of a post-partisan politics to rest and adopted a more aggressive political style. But the narrow opening for dramatic change that existed in early 2009 has probably closed.

TO EXTRICATE THEMSELVES from this mess, the United States and other leading nations are going to have taken the same kind of steps that the West took after World War II--steps that led to 25 years of prosperity. After World War II, governments came to play a much greater role in national economies, particularly in the United States. In 1929, U.S. federal spending accounted for 3.68 percent of GDP. During World War II, it rose to 43.6 percent; by the mid-'50s, it had leveled off between 17 and 23 percent. This spending helped complement private investment and sustain consumer demand.

It has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

It has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, it has utterly neglected to attend to them.

It has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

It has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

It has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

It has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

 

 N.H. Voters Look For Calm Amid Economic Jitters

December 29, 2011 from NHPR

The economic fears and hopes of the electorate in early-voting states like New Hampshire will play a significant role in determining who emerges from the pack of Republican presidential candidates.

And despite the Granite State's financial stability, lots of Republican voters see cloudy skies ahead. http://www.npr.org/2011/12/29/144394190/n-h-voters-look-for-calm-amid-economic-jitters

 OBAMA IS UNLIKELY to get substantial spending increases through the Republican House during the next year, and, even if he wins reelection, he probably won't have large enough majorities in Congress to force through the kind of spending the economy needs. Indeed, as a second-term president, he would likely be in the same position as MacDonald in 1931, presiding over a national government that he ultimately does not control.

Romney and Rick Perry, the two leading candidates to replace Obama, are both business conservatives who can be expected to take their cues on economic policy from the Chamber of Commerce, Wall Street, and the Business Roundtable rather than from the Tea Party. Romney, who cherishes the image of himself as a pragmatic turnaround artist, may prove more adaptable to economic circumstances than Perry. In his appearances, Romney sends out dog whistles-audible to liberals--that he is not as economically radical as his opponents. For his part, Perry should not be dismissed as an anti-government activist. A Tea Party enthusiast would not have established the Texas Emerging Technology Fund, which uses government money to boost high-tech business ventures.

If they are faced with a continuing slowdown, Romney or Perry would be likely to support what they would think of as a stimulus program--one that is heavily weighted toward reducing business costs through cutting corporate tax rates, eliminating capital gains taxes, reducing or eliminating regulations, and discouraging unionization. The hope will be, as Romney has put it, to make "American businesses competitive in the global economy." But such a strategy assumes that there is a backlog of demand for U.S. consumer and capital goods that firms would meet if government increased their potential profit margins. In a global downturn, that's not necessarily the case. Such an approach would probably do what Calvin Coolidge, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush's economic proposals did: redistribute wealth and income from the bottom toward the top--out of the hands of people who are most likely to spend what they have and into the hands of people most likely to save rather than spend. In a downturn, that's not a good strategy for getting the economy going.

In the '40s, it finally took a world war to bring about the conditions for reforming the world's leading economies. The war established the United States as the unchallenged leader of world capitalism, and it convinced Washington that a renewed strategy of "beggar thy neighbor" would be self-destructive. The popular New Deal reforms also established a floor under government's role. Western Europe and Japan followed America's lead. Will it take another global catastrophe to convince the leaders of the United States, Europe, and Asia to halt the repetition of past errors--to recognize that they need to establish a new economic order? What will it take to convince the people of the United States that they have to overcome their cultural predilections against big government? These are the questions that will have to be answered over the years, but, in the coming election, I would expect they would meet with the same Cheshire Cat grin that I received when I asked Romney whether he wasn't calling on America to repeat Hoover's mistakes.

 

Members of Congress failed to reach many agreements this year, and that didn't go unnoticed by the American people. Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center, tells Linda Wertheimer that polls shows "historic levels of public discontent with Congress." http://www.npr.org/2011/12/29/144413787/constituents-are-disgusted-with-do-nothing-congress

 

 

WE GOT WHAT IT TAKES

  

  

This idealized depiction of (left to right) Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson working on the Declaration (Jean Leon Gerome Ferris, 1900) was widely reprinted

 

John B. Judis asks the magic question, “What will it take to convince the people of the United States that they have to overcome their cultural predilections against big government?”  The Founding Fathers in their zeal against tyranny left US a template for freedom and revolution against fascistic elements installing itself within the Union and destroying the Republic: The Declaration of Independence.

The first sentence of the Declaration asserts as a matter of Natural law the ability of a people to assume political independence, and acknowledges that the grounds for such independence must be reasonable.^[72]

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

The next section, the famous preamble, includes the ideas and ideals that were principles of the Declaration. It is also an assertion of what is known as the "right of revolution": that is, people have certain rights, and when a government violates these rights, the people have the right to "alter or abolish" that government.^[73]

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,^[74] that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

The next section is a list of charges against [The 112^th Congress], which aim to demonstrate that he has violated the colonists' rights and is therefore unfit to be their ruler:^[75]

Such has been the patient sufferance of these [United State]; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present [the Congress of the United States] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

It has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

It has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

It has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

It has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

It has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

It has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

It has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation. . . .

 

 

 

December 31, 2011

Even as President Obama relaxes with his family in Hawaii over the holidays, he knows what's on the horizon when he returns to work in Washington.

He will start where he left off, facing new skirmishes with Congress over a push to extend a temporary cut in payroll taxes. That temporary extension was approved just days before Christmas after a high-stakes gamble that finished only after most of Congress had left for the year.

http://www.npr.org/2011/12/31/144488241/after-a-year-of-struggles-obama-finds-his-footing

 

 

WHAT IT TAKES TO SURVIVE IN THE 21st CENTURY

 

 

 

President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and members of his National Security team receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House. A classified document seen in this photograph has been obscured.

 

December 31, 2011

One of the most important things to understand about global affairs is how much lies beyond any one country's control, even for the most powerful country in the world.

Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies says the limits on American power were especially apparent this year.

"American power has always had many real-world limits," he says.

In some ways, he says, that makes President Obama's accomplishments all the more notable.

At the end of 2011, the global landscape looks completely different from one year ago. The Iraq War has ended; Osama bin Laden is dead; and the 40-year rule of Libya's Moammar Gadhafi is over.

"You have a world in which there is political turmoil in many countries. You have the worst American economic situation in recent memory," Cordesman says. "You have almost partisan paralysis in the Congress that affects foreign policy as well as domestic policy."  http://www.npr.org/2011/12/31/144442535/obamas-grade-in-foreign-policy-2011-incomplete