You are invited to read this commentary from the Free Enterprise Foundation. It will make you think!

The Way Forward

” The future is not a gift. It is an achievement” Harry Lauder

“Cherish your visions and your dreams, as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements.” Napoleon Hill

From our earliest times on the edge of this great land, men and women have been drawn to its promise of freedom and the challenge of making a better life for themselves and their families. Together they sought to create that “Shining City on a Hill” that John Winthrop set as our duty to our Creator and those drawn to follow in their footsteps.

I have had an exciting life. It has been challenging and fruitful. In all my years, I have not seen anything but limitless horizons for us Americans to dream and to achieve. My optimism, however, has been tempered recently by the no holds barred collectivization goals of progressives running this country into the ditch in Washington. As a born and bred Washingtonian, fortunate to escape to Charleston about a decade ago, I grew up in the glow of Washington’s power elite, have served my time in and around its thruways and by ways and can say I know it intimately.

It is not the city I grew up in. It is caught up only in the pursuit of power for its leaders, their perks and their paths of power manipulation on a grand scale. They have, regardless of party affiliation, deviated from pursuing the wise and balanced relationship among the states and the Federal government. They have ignored the limitations put on Federal action by our Founders, and it must not be allowed to continue. Government must be reformed, and our Founders’ master plan must again rule the land.

Talk alone will not get the job done, nor will lamenting the unprecedented procedural liberties taken by Congress in achieving its power grabbing efforts to make us dependent on the federal government from cradle to grave. Groups such as The Tea Party have come and gone. Most have not had a lasting impact, and it is for them and all of us to make sure that this time is different. Our very future is at stake.

I listen to the news, and it amazes me that intelligent people, supposedly representing the best interest of the people of their Districts can say the things they do. Only in Oz will the Health Care Legislation be deficit neutral. Only in Wonderland will Congress actually cut Medicare by 500 Billion dollars over ten years….and they know that! I have news for them. We know it too, and that is what makes us angry. Legislating to take over 16 percent of the American economy is not a game.

I write this column for all you patriotic Americans who yearn for something positive you can work together to achieve. If asked, I look forward to working with any responsible group to achieve the restoration of our Republic for the sake of our children and grandchildren who will be forced to live in tyranny if we do not act today. Some of what I propose can be achieved by House of Representatives Rule. Some will take Constitutional amendment. None of it will happen unless we realize that the future of our country rests on our shoulders not only in what we do politically but how we relate to one another in our communities, churches and in the education of our children. We are the reason we are in a mess. We have allowed our representatives to behave in a shockingly irresponsible manner to the point our Nation is in true peril.

The task I propose will not be accomplished in a single day, nor even in a single lifetime. It becomes a job for all Americans for all the days going forward. Protection of those freedoms won for us with the blood of our ancestors is now our responsibility and will be passed to our descendants for all times. It relies primarily on personal responsibility for self. Life cannot be fully lived unless we realize that taking personal responsibility for our lives is the only course to follow to really live.

Nothing we do will ever restore the government to being a family business that could be operated out of a cigar box, nor can what I propose be accomplished in a single Congress, but there are habits of family prudence that can and need to be forced back on the government. Hamilton believed that some debt was beneficial to bind the people to its government. I doubt, however, that even he would be anything but shocked to see our debt exceed what we produce collectively as a nation on an annual basis. Our first job is therefore to restore fiscal responsibility.

Our first rule going forward must be that we will not spend what we don’t have. Even that can be gamed and it must be stopped. Trust Funds dedicated to a single purpose must, indeed, be “Trust Funds.” What is needed is that government operates out of a current account and reflects annual revenues covering current operations. Over time we must reduce our national debt down to no greater than 20 percent of annual GDP. There are various mechanisms that can be used to meet our current emergency situation, but Congressional and candidate pledges to adhere to this rule is the place to start immediately.

We must reform our collection of taxes to be free of fraud and easy to compute. Taxes should also not penalize savings and capital formation so that our economy can be put into overdrive to grow us out of the financial thicket into which we have blundered. America must declare to the world that it is open for business. We must amend the Constitution to limit service in the House of Representatives to twelve years and in the United States Senate to 12 years. There are those who would limit joint service to total 12 years, but I believe the proposal I have made is enough to make it clear that Service in Congress is not a career but a civic responsibility and an honor. I have come to my position slowly. Previously I have feared term limitations would only empower staff that aren’t elected at all but now have come to regard the current proposal as sound. Again, in order to get the benefit of this suggestion, it should be sought as a commitment this year by all candidates so the Congress that convenes next January can get right to work making our nation secure.

We must reform the relationship of the federal government with the states. States have always been intended to be the primary government to which its citizens looked for the “Welfare" pursuit guaranteed us in the Constitution. The tenth amendment makes it clear that powers not specifically delegated by the people to the federal government are retained by the people and the states. The blood spilled on the floor of Congress in recent years is testament that we continue to be a diverse people with differing regional needs foremost in our priorities.

The Constitution is designed for us to seek our differing regional needs by appealing to the states or through regional compacts. Regrettably, the federal government has created so many federal mandates on the states without fully funding them that our states’ ability to innovate and respond to citizens needs is captive of a federal leash. No more can that be true. Going forward, federal mandates must be fully funded, and to be sure that the federal government does not crowd out either the states or private industry with its programs, budgetary authority by House rule should require that a 60 percent majority be required for Congress to pass a budget that is greater than 20 percent of the previous year’s gross domestic product. After we get through the current crisis and the states have expanded their services to fulfill their historic role, 20 percent should be lowered to no greater than 17 percent.

The Federal Reserve should be legislatively required to manage our currency to maintain its stable purchasing power.

A word in closing, accomplishing these goals will not be without pain. The damage already done to our fiscal welfare requires sacrifice by us all. In response to the promise of the new Congress to operate in the manner they have promised us, every American should commit to invest a minimum of $1,000 in a new series of American Freedom Savings Bonds to pave the way to the brighter tomorrow that together we will be fashioning. I am confident that an aroused public will do its part to mend the torn fabric of our land, for to paraphrase President Reagan, we have every right to dream heroic dreams because we are Americans.

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Robert E. Freer, Jr., is president of the Free Enterprise Foundation. He is also the first BB&T Visiting Professor in Ethics and Free Enterprise Leadership at The Citadel. A regular contributor to the Mercury, Prof. Freer may be reached at robert.freer@citadel.edu. If you would like him to appear before your group or organization to speak on any of the subjects about which he writes, please contact him at The Citadel. Copies of his earlier columns may be found at The Free Enterprise Foundation

Copyright © 2010 by Robert E. Freer, Jr. All rights reserved