August 2016, Will The Center Hold? Is It Time To Start Ignoring Washington?

On a semi-regular basis, we run a discussion on whether or not “the center will hold?” In other words, what happens if and when Washington issues a law or a decree and the rest of the country simply ignores it, will the center hold? Never in my life have I seen the country so divided and struggling to push back on the over reaching politicians in Washington.

From gun control to school lunches to warrantless spying on citizens to Common Core education standards to health care to many other issues, states and individual citizens are more and more taking formal and informal action and telling Washington types to butt out of our lives, our wallets, and our freedoms. We have gotten to the point where state legislatures are actually passing legislation saying that they will not abide by certain Federal decrees and laws and making such compliance a crime within their state borders.

To review the many previous posts we have done on this question, enter “will the center hold” in the search box above to see the widespread resistance that is building up across the country. For the latest push backs against Washington, continue reading below and you decide: will the center hold?

1) The Obama administration made it very easy for Americans to get Federal government food assistance during the Great Recession which was probably a humane thing to go since so many Americans had lost their jobs. However, after the recession ended, one would have thought that the food stamp/assistance rolls would have declined since Obama bragged that he had saved the U.S. economy from destruction. 

However, from 30 million Americans getting food assistance at the start of the recession, the Federal taxpayer currently still provides over 45 million Americans with food assistance every month. Which means that the economy is not healthy, Obama’s bragging notwithstanding, or there is massive fraud going on that the Obama is doing nothing to stop.

But as we have found out in this series on “will the center hold,” often individual Americans and politicians below the Federal level are actually doing the right thing when it comes to common sense and taxpayer wealth. Nathan Mateer and Rachel Sheffield, writing for the Heritage Foundation, pointed out some of those instances of sanity:

• Seven states decided to reinstate work requirements in order to receive food assistance, a requirement that the Obama administration suspended at the onset of the Great Recession.
• One of those states, Maine, saw its food assistance rolls drop by a whopping 80% within just a few months after re-establishing its work requirements.
• Another of the seven, Kansas, saw its food assistance enrollment go down another whopping 75%.
• A study by Foundation for Government Accountability found that 60% of the Kansas residents who dropped out found employment within twelve months and that “their incomes rose by an average of 127 percent per year.”
• Within six months of putting its work requirements back in effect, Indiana saw its food assistance rolls drop by 68%.
• Indiana’s Family and Social Services Administration found that: “Nearly 5,000 Hoosiers who were receiving benefits in July are no longer receiving assistance because they obtained gainful employment and now have an income that exceeds eligibility standards.”

Another example where some state politicians are telling the Federal politicians and Washington bureaucrats to go pound sand and do the right thing, rather than the political thing, saving the taxpayers millions and millions of dollars without putting undue hardship on citizens. 

2) The American News website has our second example of the country telling the Federal government to get away. President Obama has often acted like a five year old when he did not get his way, that others in the world actually had a difference of opinion with him. Unfortunately, rather than act as a leader, Obama often has a temper tantrum and issues an executive order, under cutting the Constitution and our democracy.

Lately, Obama has discussed the distinct possibility that he might issue another executive order to place carbon limits on the country’s use of fossil fuels. But rather than rollover and just accept this tyranny, five state governors immediately spoke up and stated they will oppose any such order. The states pushing back include Texas, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Oklahoma.

Which gets us to the same question we continue to ask in this series of posts: what if Washington issued an edict, passed a law, or signed an executive order and the rest of the country ignored it? Would the center hold?

3) A recent article on the Fix This Nation website gets us back to food assistance and how the states are pushing back on Washington. Back on January 1, 2016, the state of Alabama had 49,000 of its residents signed up for Federal food assistance. Half a year later, after the state politicians reinstated a work requirement in most counties, that 49,000 number has plummeted to only 15,375 still on the program. This action has saved the taxpayers over $6 million.

Thus, we have another state that is bucking the trend of the Federal government by making common sense changes to its food assistance programs and seeing dramatic results without the backlash of people starving in the streets. Makes you wonder why Obama and the rest of the Washington political class are not doing the same thing if they had protecting taxpayer wealth as a priority, which they obviously do not.

4) Several months ago, the Obama administration put out a directive to all public schools in the country, strongly suggesting that all public schools in America allow transgender students access to the bathroom or locker room matching their gender identity on any particular day. This edict would allow teenage boys to declare that they are females anytime they wanted and gain access to girls' school restrooms, locker rooms, and teams.

This is obviously a huge social and moral issue, which was not an issue until the Obama administration decided to make it one. An issue this big should be part of a national discussion and the creation of appropriate laws on the issue once it is discussed and debated. That is how it is supposed to work in a free country. 

But apparently not on Obama's watch. As he is prone to do, if he does not get his way, he pouts, blames others for his lack of leadership, and tries to get around rules and laws with executive orders and these types of edicts. Well, as with other issues that states and individuals are pushing back on from an overreaching Federal government, many states and their governors are not going to go along with such dictatorial approaches to life and bathroom usage.

As of a couple of months ago, 11 states had already banned together to defy the Obama transgender bathroom “suggestion” in a joint lawsuit. Those states include:

• Texas
• Alabama
• Wisconsin
• West Virginia
• Tennessee
• Oklahoma
• Louisiana
• Utah
• Georgia
• Maine Governor Paul LePage
• Arizona Department of Education

A sample of the reasons for the pushback and lawsuit include the following:

• Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton accused the Obama administration of “creating new law outside the bounds of the Constitution.”
• Missouri Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder, wrote in an open letter: “The letter and its demands are an unconstitutional abuse of authority by your executive branch. It is a blatant attempt to change established law, which is a function reserved for the legislative branch by the Constitution. By threatening local school districts with the loss of federal funding, your administration is seizing local control from public schools while threatening the privacy rights of Missouri students. Further, the demands set forth in the letter directly violate the Constitution’s 10th Amendment, which states that those powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states, respectively, or to the people.”

As you can see, it appears that many local politicians and other Americans outside of the Washington area have a far better grasp of the Constitution than Obama and the other political cronies inside the Beltway. Just another example where this administration wastes its time on unnecessary and probably un-Constitutional activities where other major important issues of our times go unaddressed and are allowed to fester or grow worse.

That will do it for this round of “will the center hold.” State governments pushing back on Federal intrusions into their business and the freedom and liberty of its citizens, from bathroom policy to food stamp fraud and waste to the environment. We have a system of government that was established by the Constitution. But the Washington political class, and this administration in particular, seem to think that they can do whatever they want whenever they want in whatever aspect of their lives they so deem. 

But as we have pointed out dozens of times, the rest of the country is starting to resist this overreach. Which always brings us back to our central question: what if Washington issued a law, edict, or executive order and the rest of the country simply ignored it? That day seems to be coming closer and closer.

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Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w