CONK!
The House of Representatives impeached Alexander Mayorkas, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, alleging he lied to Congress in his various testimonies and has refused to enforce the Nation’s immigration laws. The Senate promptly dismissed the charges refusing to hold a trial to weigh the evidence in the articles of impeachment.
In short, Senate Majority Chuck Schumer acted as judge and jury by asserting there is nothing in the House impeachment articles to warrant a trial thus setting a precedent for future Senate leadership to ignore impeachment articles.
If lying to Congress is indeed a felony, then does that not rise to a “high crime and misdemeanor”?
Nevertheless, the House and Senate could “punish” Mayorkas for his disingenuous testimonies and failure to vet migrants. Inasmuch as Congress holds the power of the purse, it can reduce his salary and those of others in leadership positions at the DHS to $1 (even that would overpay them). Let’s see if Congress will hold Cabinet secretaries accountable to the American people.
The border crisis is a humanitarian disaster and a financial nightmare for the American people. Thousands of unvetted men, women, and children crossing America’s borders who are consuming billions of tax dollars so they can obtain food, clothing, shelter, and medical care. This expands the welfare state exponentially.
In other words, supporting open borders is support for more statism.
The solution: Anyone who wants to immigrate to American must have a sponsor who would be financially responsible for a migrant or a migrant family. The sponsor would help them find housing and assist the breadwinner get a job. No taxpayer dollars would be used to support migrants.
There is vast nonprofit social service network to help migrants such as HIAS which helped my family when we arrived in America in August 1949. That’s the quintessential American way. The current border disaster is right out of the Democratic playbook to transform America to a one-party government. In fact, the case can be made we have a one-party government for more than five decades.
After President Nixon imposed wage and price controls and removed the last link between the dollar and gold on August 15, 1971, I concluded, at that time, there is only party in DC—the Washington Party. Now pundits are calling it the Uniparty.
Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel usually writes insightful critiques about the federal government’s statist policies. However, last week she wrote: “A sizable majority of Congress, and of the country, wants to fund Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. The only reason that aid isn’t already law is because a determined minority—one that loves to preach “regular order” and “debate” and the “will of the House”—has taken obstruction to new levels.”
(If most Americans support witchcraft, would Strassel call for the establishment of cabinet department of witchcraft? There is nothing sacred about “democracy.” In fact, given the state of the union, democracy has failed to impose fiscal discipline in DC, given us endless wars, onerous taxes and regulations, and created a central bank that has robbed the people of their money’s purchasing power.. In short, democracy sucks.)
In other words, opposing the interventionist foreign policy is unjustified because according to recent polls most Americans want to support UIT. Would the American people support the miliary industrial complex if the Biden administration imposed let’s say a 10% surcharge on their income taxes, payable immediately?
Every dollar spent on the conflicts in Ukraine and Israel and to support Taiwan must be borrowed. This is fiscal insanity on steroids. The national debt is approaching $35 trillion and the annual interest costs on the debt will soon be one trillion dollars.
Both Democrats and Republicans are responsible for this debt disaster. Uniparty indeed.
The so-called two-party system is a sham. Last week Congress voted to spend another $95 billion on aid to UIT revealing our bipartisan foreign policy is unequivocally pro war. The Wall (War) Street Journal viciously criticized the GOP “isolationist caucus” for voting against the military-industrial complex monstrous gift. This is another example of the mainstream media spewing the DC party line.
WSJ editorial makes this egregious assertion: “Like Republicans in the 1930s who slept while Hitler and Tojo advanced, these Republicans apparently think America can sit out these fights in splendid isolation. But history suggests that if they prevail, American sons and daughters would eventually have to fight. Better to help allies who want to help themselves.”
According to WSJ the American people must cough up tens of billions of dollars because they are our “allies,” and if they don’t, American troops would eventually have to fight over there. This is pure bullshit.
We intervened in Vietnam, and the communists eventually took over. Vietnam did not attack its neighbors as the so-called domino theory asserted. We intervened in Afghanistan for 20 years and left $80 billion in military equipment. After two decades of intervening, the Taliban got control despite at least one trillion dollars spent by both Democratic and Republican administrations.
US taxpayers have been fleeced for decades to pay for the Welfare-Warfare State and the chickens are coming home to roost. The winner of the next presidential election will not reverse the “road to serfdom.” Fortunately, what’s left of the free enterprise system is keeping the economy afloat for the time being.
The clock is ticking. We must restore the republic, and that means phasing out the WWS ASAP.
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Every Wednesday at 11:05am talk show host Gary Nolan and I discuss the economy and politics. The Fort Myers Mises Circle presentations are available online. My Ludwig von Mises Lecture at the Institute is also online.
Latest podcast on healthcare with host Johnathan Westover; Incentivizing wellness podcast with Bernadette Pajer; the Human Action podcast with Bob Murphy on my American journey; Joseph Cotto and I discuss Argentina and the US, and the Human podcast with Bob Murphy on healthcare; Robert Scott Bell and I discuss healthcare on the second hour of his podcast.
Murray Sabrin, PhD, is emeritus professor of finance, Ramapo College of New Jersey. Dr. Sabrin is considered a “public intellectual” for writing about the economy in scholarly and popular publications. His book, The Finance of Health Care: Wellness and Innovative Approaches to Employee Medical Insurance (Business Expert Press, Oct. 24, 2022), and his other BEP publication, Navigating the Boom/Bust Cycle: An Entrepreneur’s Survival Guide (October 2021), provides decision makers with tools needed to help manage their businesses during the business cycle. Sabrin’s autobiography, From Immigrant to Public Intellectual: An American Story, was published in November, 2022.
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