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July 26, 2011

Solving the debt-limit crisis requires 'tectonic changes, not minor fiddling'

In his must-read piece over at The Corner today, Mario Loyola gets right down to the most basic reason why we're now facing a debt-limit crisis, and points out a fact that liberals refuse to recognize ... that we have allowed the federal government to grow so far beyond its enumerated powers that we are up against artificial debt limits as virtually a last defense against its relentless growth. At its core, this is not a fiscal crisis -- it is an attempt to halt the very accumulation of federal power that the Federalists promised us would never happen. It's a constitutional crisis, and it cannot be fixed merely by holding the line on taxes and securing deep spending cuts in the short term. What we really need are 'tectonic changes' ... not 'minor fiddling':

[...] What has long been clear to many constitutional scholars is now intuitively obvious to Americans of all stripes: The relentless expansion of federal power is destroying self-government at every level of society besides the national one -- and with it, the self-reliance and independence that made this country great. It is difficult any longer to see what stands between us and a statist tyranny of the majority. Supporters of the balanced-budget amendment are trying to erect a shield against unrestrained federal power. Conservative skeptics should to do more than say, "Well, that won't work."

As Arthur Brooks writes in an instant classic on what's really at stake in the debt-ceiling talks, "We need tectonic changes, not minor fiddling." If not a constitutional amendment, then what? Arthur Brooks's column is a call to action -- "hard work for at least a decade." But what exactly is our objective, if not to revive constitutional protections against the vast accumulation of central government power that the Framers equated with tyranny, and which Brooks terms "statism" and "the welfare state"? Brooks supports Rep. Paul Ryan's plan -- but it would require supreme political will to carry that plan through, and as soon as we let our guard down, we'd be right back where we are now. That's because tectonic changes over the past 70 years have taken us away from a Constitution of limited powers and toward a dynamic of unlimited federal expansion.

Like Loyola points out later in his piece, Conservatives need to achieve a consensus on a way to revive constitutional limitations and protect against the manipulation of the federal machinery by those bent on confiscations of property as the means to achieve "social justice." If you don't like the constitutional amendment proposed by 47 Republican senators and all the conservatives in the House of Representatives, then what's the alternative that will prevent what has essentially become unlimited federal expansion?

Posted by Richard at July 26, 2011 8:22 AM

• Solving the debt-limit crisis requires 'tectonic changes, not minor fiddling' - Jul 26, 2011