The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

That Saucy Memeorandum

Posted on | July 24, 2011 | 7 Comments

by Smitty


NTTAWWT, mind you; one is pleased that the political will of New Yorkers has been expressed. Whether or not the Almighty will be impressed remains to be seen, but hey: not my problem.
Sprinklerman and BHO, on the other hand, are a two guys making decisions that affect a large number of people. This debt debate really isn’t about either of them. The question of whether an organization should wallow in debt until it collapses really gets at basic notions of integrity and forthrightness.
Over at Alan Colmes’ joint, Karthiks quotes Paul Starr at The American Prospect, who busily wrecks Hamilton’s Federalist #30 argument, emphasis mine:

During the [Constitution] ratification debate, those fiscal powers were at the heart of the Anti-Federalist case against the Constitution—to which Hamilton responded, in “Federalist No. 30,” that limiting those powers would be unwise because there was no telling what demands the government might face in the future.
Hamilton was right. The nation would never have flourished if the Anti-Federalists had gotten their way. Now the Republicans—true heirs to the Anti-Federalists—are trying to entrench the kind of arbitrary fiscal limitations and requirements for congressional supermajorities that the Founders rejected.

Nice throw-away counter-factual, Starr.
Curiously missing from Starr’s analysis is the ~125 year gap between the Constitution and Woodrow Wilson, when things really started going sideways, as a result of the Federal Reserve Act and 16th Amendment.
Those beating a Constitutional drum today are not necessarily anti-Federalist; those debates were held and concluded in Hamilton’s day. Many are anti-Federal-Over-Reachist, decrying the way the vertical separation of powers between local, state and federal government has been substantially erased in the last century.
Maybe Mr. Starr will get some word of this post and follow up on the question of just how much federal government is too much.

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