March 29th, 2010
Well, the final gavel is ready to fall on the 2010 session. It was a quick 80-days that saw a lot of policy being past. The session created significant policy that will affect each Iowan this coming year. (both good and bad) I have noted several of these policy issues below.
Property taxes will increase – In July, each homeowner and business will receive their property tax bill. The bill will show an increase in all school levy rates. This increase is because the State didn’t do their job and cut approximately $167 million in state funding to schools. Schools will fill this cut by increasing the property tax levy.
Increase in Fines – I urge each of you to obey traffic laws. As of July 1st, nearly every traffic fine will go up by 2 to 3 times its current rate. (example, a seatbelt violation will go from $94 to $170) Very poor policy!
Lost Tax Credits – Many of you have already filed your income tax for the state. You might have realized that there were several tax credits that were not allowed this year. The Iowa legislature would not allow Iowans to couple with the Federal income tax credits. This, in essence, is a tax increase for many Iowans.
Banning Cell Phones or Texting while Driving – All drivers that are, ages 18 and below, will NOT be allowed to use their cell phone or text while driving. This law goes into effect as of July 1st. This is a positive bill.
Nuclear Energy Study – A study will be completed over the next three years to look at the viability of creating a Nuclear plant in Iowa. This is a positive bill.
Government Reorganization – The legislature tried to create some government reform. This is always a good idea. However, it was not taken far enough this year. The legislature must look at the public sector in creating substantial changes to government next year.
Final overview – The session might be over but the ramifications to our schools, businesses, and homeowners will be felt for a long time. Schools will be cutting programs and shutting doors because of the Iowa legislatures actions. Business and home owners will see increased property taxes. I view this legislative session as policy and budget that were driven by politics rather than what’s best for Iowans
It seems that many people are starting to understand that America, in its founding was special. They are seeing that now, particularly as our government is so aggressively taking over the car companies, the banks, health care and other private entities, that something is seriously amiss.
People have this nagging sense something is changing and that this “change” is not good. They are right in that thinking. While they may not totally understand our founding documents, they know certain rights are declared in our Declaration of Independence and are protected in our Constitution. This supreme law of the land, our Constitution, guarantees people the safety and liberty we enjoy today.
As Orrin Hatch states in the book The 5000 Year Leap, “Although many will say this Constitution is outdated and obsolete, our Constitution is no more out of date than is the desire for peace, freedom and prosperity. Our Founding Fathers did not custom build this document for a certain age or economy.” They were building a document on which to build a country that understood human nature, both our strengths and our weaknesses.
However, we are quickly becoming a nation based on the whims of man, rather than the rule of law, which changes, is arbitrary and puts us and our country on precarious ground.
Unfortunately, few of us were ever taught the greatness of our founding documents or have an understanding of why the Constitution says what it does. We, as the Tea Party Patriots of Sheldon, Iowa believe the Constitution is still as relevant today as it was in 1787.
Because we believe this, our Patriot group believes we have a responsibility to help today’s citizens better understand the thinking and rationale behind our Constitution. To that end, we sought and found radio spots produced by the National Center for Constitutional Studies. They are short, 2 to 4 minute segments that put forth the relevance of our Constitution to today’s Americans in our Founder’s own writings.
We are hoping to air these radio spots on Sheldon’s 1550 AM station five days a week, Monday through Friday. We are seeking donations in order to accomplish our goal. Please contact us if you would consider a donation to help us launch these programs.
March 22, 2010 by Bob Livingston
For 15 months there has been a growing opposition to the increasing encroachment of the Federal government over the rights of its citizens. It finally reached a crescendo last week as the House worked to steamroll Obamacare through despite objections by the vast majority of the electorate. The past 12 months have been extremely frustrating for many. People voiced their opposition to Obamacare, Cap and Trade and stimulus bills to their Representatives and Senators, but it seemed that most of their opposition fell on deaf ears. The Tea Parties were formed, and the shouting grew louder. Many of the elected class who were supporting the growing government—both Democrats and Republicans—found their town hall meetings to be unpleasant places to be. But still, government grew and spending increased… and the march to Obamacare continued. Deciding that their voices weren’’t being heard and their marches on Washington were being ignored, voters wanting smaller government and a return to Constitutional principals voted in droves. The results were upsets in New Jersey, Virginia and finally, in Massachusetts. The election of Republican Scott Brown to the late Ted Kennedy’s senate seat seemed to end the threat of Obamacare by eliminating the Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority. Supporters of small government and Tea Party activists breathed a sigh of relief. But, despite President Obama’’s promise to focus on jobs, Obamacare didn’’t die. It continued to fester and so the shouting got loud again. But still the elected class, pushing their socialist agenda and seeking to control us from cradle to grave—seeking to enslave us with unconstitutional mandates—didn’t listen. Writing in Anti-Federalist letter No. 1, Brutus (Robert Yates) said that in a free republic, all laws are derived from the consent of the people and passed by representatives who are supposed to know the minds of their constituents and possessed of the integrity to declare this mind. Unfortunately, the representatives holding the majority don’t possess this integrity. So Brutus wrote: “If the people are to give their assent to the laws, by persons chosen and appointed by them, the manner of the choice and the number chosen, must be such, as to possess, be disposed, and consequently qualified to declare the sentiments of the people; for if they do not know, or are not disposed to speak the sentiments of the people, the people do not govern, but the sovereignty is in a few.” That’s were we are now—with sovereignty in the hands of a few. So now it’s time to take the next step. Fortunately, we have the words and deeds of some of our Founding Fathers to direct us. Since its beginning the Federal government has sought to grow and even those who took part in the framing of the Constitution have tested it’s parameters by trying to intrude on the rights of Americans. The second president, John Adams, signed legislation that made it a treasonable activity to publish “any false, scandalous and malicious writing.” This was one of the laws that became part of the Alien and Sedition Acts. As a result, 25 men, most of them Republican supporters of Thomas Jefferson were arrested and their newspapers forced to shut down. One of those arrested was Benjamin Franklin’s grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache, editor of the Philadelphia Democrat-Republican Aurora. In response, Jefferson, then the vice president, secretly wrote the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798. In them he argued that the Alien and Sedition Acts were acts of usurpation—that the Federal government had overstepped its bounds and was exercising powers which belonged to the states. After all, the 10th Amendment states: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. He saw the Constitution not as a document that restrained the people, but as one that restrained the Federal government. And he believed that was a good thing. As an aside: Obama has stated just the opposite. He has said he finds it unfortunate that the Constitution contains the restrictions on Government that it does. Jefferson corresponded with James Madison (known as the father of the Constitution) about the Kentucky Resolutions and Madison drafted similar Resolutions for Virginia. Both Kentucky and Virginia adopted the resolutions which essentially said that when the Federal government assumes undelegated powers—those not enumerated in the Constitution—those acts are un“authoritative, void, and of no force.” These came to be known as the Principals of ’98. It’s time to lobby your state representative and state senator and governor and push for a law to prohibit the enforcement of Obamacare and other unconstitutional laws in your state. It’s time to resurrect the Principals of ’98. Both Virginia and Idaho have voted to sue the Federal government over Obamacare. You must push your state to do the same. The overreach has gone on for far too long. In addition to Obamacare there is the looming Cap and Trade legislation, there are restrictive gun laws and, under George W. Bush, there was the USA PATRIOT Act and the REAL ID Act (which states have resisted). Resistance to a tyrannical government is very American. And if the Federal government continues its oppression then it will be time to consider other steps. Writing to Madison in 1787, Jefferson said, “I hold it that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms are in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people, which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is medicine necessary for the sound health of government.” And then there is one more step to consider. It was commonly understood prior to 1861 that the states reserved the right to secede. There had been talk of secession by the northern New England states many times. Even Abraham Lincoln, as a representative, recognized the states had the right to secede—he only changed his mind after he held the reins of the presidency. In 1825, Jefferson wrote: “If every infraction of a compact of so many parties is to be resisted at once as a dissolution, none can ever be formed which would last one year. We must have patience and longer endurance then with our brethren while under delusion; give them time for reflection and experience of consequences; keep ourselves in a situation to profit by the chapter of accidents; and separate from our companions only when the sole alternatives left are the dissolution of our Union with them or submission to a government without limitation of powers. Between these two evils, when we must make a choice, there can be no hesitation. But in the meanwhile, the States should be watchful to note every material usurpation on their rights; to denounce them as they occur in the most peremptory terms; to protest against them as wrongs to which our present submission shall be considered, not as acknowledgments or precedents of right, but as a temporary yielding to the lesser evil, until their accumulation shall overweigh that of separation.” For too long we have failed in being watchful of every “material usurpation” of our rights. But for the last year at least, we have protested them. And our protests have fallen on deaf ears. Dissolution must be in the back of our minds now. But, we’re not ready for that step… not yet.
Bob Livingston
Prior to the founding of America, the only other kinds of governments that existed in the world were monarchies, military governments or dictatorships. Then, in the late 18th Century, on American soil, a few notable men gathered to create a nation of free men. A republic—something untried ever before in human history, where men consented to those who governed over them. These men, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and many others formed our Constitution for the sake of a free people in the summer of 1787. Yes, the Colonists had declared their independence against the strongest nation on earth in 1776 but after winning that war, these loosely, tied-together states were on the verge of self-destruction themselves. These men, with their vast knowledge of history, in-depth studies of prior governments and an understanding of human nature forged one of the greatest documents of all time: our American Constitution. Today, we are familiar with the terms in the Declaration of Independence such as “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” “unalienable Rights,” “consent of the governed” “equal rights” but how were those terms arrived at, why were they chosen, how did they impact the Constitution and are they still valid? If you have an interest in the Founder’s thinking as they wrote the Constitution and how that relates to you as an American 223 years later, please join this 10 week class on Monday nights from 6:30 to 9:00. Using the book The 5000 Year Leap, study questions and DVD presentations, we will learn the 28 principles of our Constitution and how they are as applicable today as they were in 1787. The book and study materials will be included with the cost of your class, but you will also need to bring a 3-ring binder and extra loose-leaf paper. Class size is limited to 12. $59. If you or anyone you know might be interested, please give NCC a call 712.324.5061 Thank you for your concern in our Nation’s Founding and future.