Help Wanted, Lawyers and Legal Resources, To Fight The Invisible Empire, Part 3: Suing The Political Class To Save Our Democracy

Three previous posts this week were focused on how ordinary Americans might be able to retake control of our democracy since the Washington political class seems to be very uninterested in protecting our democracy and doing their Constitutionally required jobs:

• On Monday we reviewed the massive $46 TRILLION lawsuit that has been filed in Brooklyn Federal court in an attempt to reverse the banking cronyism that has resulted in the political class redistributing taxpayer wealth to Wall Street bankers and others (“banksters”) in return for campaign donations and political support.
• On Tuesday we reviewed how delinquent and inept our politicians in Washington have been in carrying out their Constitutional and legal mandates when it comes to putting together coherent and detailed budgets on time.
• On Wednesday, we reviewed the dire financial situation we are in as a nation, mostly as a result of our politicians being unwilling or unable to do their jobs, most notably implementing coherent and rational budgets as required in the timeframes required.

These three posts lead us up to today’s proposal. Since it is obvious that our needs and priorities are not compatible with the election and personal enrichment priorities of the politicians in Washington, we need a new approach to reclaiming our democracy. The political class controls the country’s election processes via gerrymandering of Congressional districts, using taxpayer funded earmarks to buy support for their continual reelections, controlling the membership and activities of the toothless Federal Election Commission, allowing billions of dollars from organized entities (unions, corporations, PACs) to overwhelm individual citizen needs and priorities, etc.

This control does not mean we should not take steps to continue to regain control and get back to election processes that actually reflect the desires of ordinary Americans. Many of these steps are outlined in “Love My Country, Loathe My Government” and also include the critical step of instituting term limits so that all Washington politicians are “one and done.”

However, using the $43 TRILLION lawsuit as a new paradigm, we need to go to court to reduce the power, corruption, cronyism, and liberty reduction activities of our political class. This post proposes two approaches. After reviewing them below, we will ask for support and guidance on how to move forward on this track.

Before going into the two judicial processes, let’s review some recent Federal government budget results and disasters:

• Recall from our posts earlier this week that the U.S. Senate, and consequently the entire Federal government, has not passed a comprehensive, coherent, and Constitutionally mandated Federal budget since April, 2009.
• Thus, for fiscal years, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013, the American political class has failed miserably in accomplishing one of the basic requirements of their job description.
• If we go to the official White House budget website, (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals), we see that from 2010 through the expected results of 2013, the Federal government will have spent $14.658 TRILLION.
• In that same timeframe, the Federal government collected $9.837 TRILLION in taxes/revenue, incurring a spending deficit of $4.821 TRILLION.
• I contend that this $4.821 TRILLION deficit would not have occurred if there had been actual budgets passed and adhered to, like what is supposed to happen in our democracy.
• There are about 315 million Americans living in the U.S. today.
• If we divide the deficit spending over the past four years by the number of Americans, I contend that because of the lack of a formal budget, the political class has illegally overspent its revenue stream and wasted taxpayer wealth to the tune of about $15,000 per American ($4.8 TRILLION deficit divided by 315 million Americans.)
• We recognize that Congress has the power, as laid out in the Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1, to collect taxes: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United State.
• However, under the Constitution’s Appropriation Clause, Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 and the laws on budget processes that have been implemented to support the Appropriations Clause, Congress and the Federal government are required to pass and adhere to timely budgets: No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.
• The Heritage Foundation provides a coherent definition of what is required as a result of this clause: The Appropriations Clause is the cornerstone of Congress's "power of the purse." It assigns to Congress the role of final arbiter of the use of public funds. The source of Congress's power to spend derives from Article I, Section 8, Clause 1. The Appropriations Clause provides Congress with a mechanism to control or to limit spending by the federal government. The Framers chose the particular language of limitation, not authorization, for the first part of the clause and placed it in Section 9 of Article I, along with other restrictions on governmental actions to limit, most notably, executive action.
• Given these two clauses from the Constitution and the Heritage Foundation’s interpretation that the Constitution requires Congress have a mechanism to control or limit spending, we contend that by not passing detailed budgets in any year since 2009 that Congress, specifically the Senate, has failed to implement the mandated mechanisms to control or limit spending, resulting in catastrophic and unnecessary deficit spending.

This deficit spending has resulted in every American being burdened with an unnecessary $15,000 of national debt. Thus, we intend to sue Congress, specifically Harry Reid and the Senate, for damages to the tune of $15,000. This $15,000 could be paid in any number of ways:

• Harry Reid, as Senate Majority Leader, and the reason for the failure to produce a Federal budget for the past several years, could write us a personal check for $15,000.
• The members of the Senate Finance Committee and Budget Committee, all of whom bear some responsibility for not doing their jobs and building annual Federal budgets, could all chip in individually to come up with the $15,000 total.
• The least attractive option, but one that we could accept, is for the $15,000 to come out of Federal tax streams. The unattractiveness of this option is that those responsible for the budget and deficit crises do not feel the pain of their negligence.

However, we would consider an alternative settlement in lieu of the $15,000:

• As a result of his inability to lead the Senate to the completion of one of its most basic duties, producing a coherent annual budget, Harry Reid would step down as the Senate Majority Leader and never chair another Senate committee as long as he was in Congress.
• The Congress and President would agree to a new law that would suspend the salary payment and all benefits of the President, members of the House of Representatives, or members of the Senate whenever a mandated budget deadline is missed. Their salary payment would commence again once they fulfilled their budget development responsibilities but they would never regain the salary that was loss because of their tardiness. Its called accountability in the real world and accountability comes with consequences.
• If two consecutive annual budget deadlines are missed in either the House or the Senate, the Speaker of the House and the Senate majority Leader would be permanently removed form those positions.

That’s the situation and that’s the strategy. There has to be another way to levy accountability on these Washington politicians who are failing to execute a primary responsibility of their position, developing and adhering to a responsible budget. By making them accountable, either by writing a $15,000 check or suspending their pay, we hope to finally make them do their job.

However, I am certainly not a lawyer, legal expert, or have any idea how to start and operate this process. Thus, if there are any readers, with any kind of legal expertise, out there that feel this might be a worthwhile effort to finally make politicians subservient to the needs of Americans and not to their own self enrichment and political careers, please consider helping us out.

I believe that there are two options available:

1. Sue the Federal government locally in my home area of Tampa Bay, either in small claims court or any other local venue.
2. Sue the Federal government in Federal court and make this effort a class action suit on behave of every American whose family will eventually have to pay upwards of $15,000 for the government’s wild, budgetless spending.

I am pretty sure if this is done properly that media and press attention would be quite wide. It is a novel approach to make government efficient and effective as opposed to what we have been living with over the past several years. I believe that the last thing politicians want is to be called out into the sunshine of accountability and this approach would hopefully do just that, with the resultant media coverage and pressure.

Is this a pipe dream and just a flight of whimsy? Possibly, but I know of very few other ways that we could use to finally get the Federal government under control, get its spending under control, make the politicians in Congress actually do their job, and save our fiscal future for our kids and grandkids. Can anybody out there help get this approach launched?

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w