Congress Is Out Of Scale and Has Been Since At Least 1929

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Mandeville, LA – This Clip of The Day was originally aired and published on Jul 2,2012 and is part of the Founders Pass Flashback Collection.

Exclusive Audio and Transcript – The idea or the theory that the House of Representatives represents the people in their political capacity ended in 1929.  That was the first time in the history of the United States when the Congress decided that they would not use the census to determine representation in the House.  They froze it.  It’s been at that same number ever since.  Although the population has increased tenfold, members of the House of Representatives have not.  Hell, the population has increased 15 times and the members of the House have not.  It is, I think, folly and foolish to even think that the House of Representatives represents the people in their political capacities.  You can’t represent 790,000 people.

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Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  Judge Roberts knows there’s another court case coming, so he set this one up as a t-ball so that he and his buddies can strike the next one down?

Caller:  It’s possible, I don’t know.  I guess they can only impose a sales tax, income tax, excise tax and I’m not sure what other taxes.  They didn’t declare which type of tax this is.

Mike:  Yes, he did.  It’s a direct tax. According to the Wall Street Journal — by the way, you shouldn’t be watching any other television or media broadcast or listening to anything other than this show. This is the mainstream.  You’re getting confusing, conflicting information and this is part of your problem today.  Did you find Bobby McFerrin?

AG:  I see it in here, yeah.

Mike:  Okay.  You need a dose of it, man.  I can’t send piña coladas up there.  Let me get into the Wall Street Journal.  This won’t cheer you up, but Bobby McFerrin will.

[reading]

Roberts’ first error is the act of rewriting the plaint text of a law, instead of practicing the disinterested interpretation that is the task of the judiciary, regardless of the partisan outcome.

[end reading]

Mike:  Thank you.  You don’t even need to go past all this.  All of this wrangling over whether or not he made it a direct tax or not, he didn’t have the authority to do that.  This is what is so troubling about this.  People are trying to give cover and calling Roberts a genius and he saved conservatism.  He saved conservatism so he could do what, tax me directly, allow a Congress that is not controlled by conservatives tax me?  Are you kidding me?  This is how you achieve a victory now?  And you wonder why some of us call these people fake, phony, fraud conservatives?  This is the strangest of all bedfellows.  Wall Street Journal goes into the details here.

[reading]

The Chief Justice’s compounding errors deprive the taxing power of any viable limiting principles.  Article I, section 8 gives Congress an independent grant of power to “lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.”  Taxes must originate in the House, the political body designed to be most responsive to voters.  There are also important additional safeguards on the type of exactions known as “direct taxes.”

Indirect taxes—“duties, imposts and excises”—are taxes on activities and products.  They are passed on by a seller, triggered by a transaction and more or less optional: Consumers don’t have to buy taxed goods and services.  Direct taxes, on the other hand, are those that the federal government is empowered to impost on individuals as citizens.  They cannot be avoided because they are levied on the existence of people.

American has its origins in a rebellion against arbitrary and pernicious taxation and the Framers wanted to make it extremely difficult to impose or raise direct taxes.  These can easily morph into plenary police powers, the regulation of private behavior and conduct that the Constitution vests in the states.  For this reason, while the taxing  power in addition to raising revenue can achieve regulatory results, those regulatory results must be constitutional themselves.

[end reading]

Mike:  That’s how you get this whole Supremacy Clause, which many people love to refer to.  [mocking] “What about the Supremacy Clause?”  What about it?  The Supremacy Clause only applies to laws that — it will be the supreme law of the land only when it is made in pursuance thereof.  In other words, if a law or an act is not constitutional, then it cannot be the supreme law of the land because it is not made in pursuance thereof.  This is very clear stuff.  I am not breaking new ground.  Barry is in Ohio.  Hello, Barry.  How are you?

Caller Barry:  I’m doing very well this morning, looking forward to a day or two off this week.  How are you doing today?

Mike:  I’m wonderful, sir.  It’s Independence Week.  Some of us are going to be shooting fireworks for the right reasons.  That’s a great question to ask the audience today.  Why will you be blasting fireworks on Wednesday night?  Let me ask you, we’ll start with you, why will you be blasting fireworks on Wednesday?

Caller Barry:  I don’t know if I’ll be blasting fireworks.  I know I will be shooting several muzzle loaders on Wednesday.  Ohio is one of those odd states where you can buy fireworks, but unless you have a license, you can’t legally shoot them off.  That doesn’t stop anybody.  I have two points to this call today.  First, you made a comment that our congress people are not listening to us.  I think they’ve been tone deaf for a long time, but for a while they were at least listening a little bit.  I can remember when the Dubai ports deal was such a big deal and people flooded Congress’ phone banks and mailed and emailed.  Congress relented on that.  I can also say the same thing happened with McCain’s gang of 14 and his amnesty attempt at that point.  I think it turned around in 2008 with the banking bailouts.  Definitely the height of public opinion was against giving any money to the bailouts.  I think a majority of people wanted to see the banks crash and burn and pick up from there and see what happened again.  I think that’s when they started to just ignore us in general and not respond.

Mike:  I kind of disagree because I don’t think they have been acknowledging your existence for a long time.  I think they acknowledge it because they want to get reelected and they pretend like they have to acknowledge it, but again, they do great services and work miracles for the real people they work for, which are the privately-held corporations that have paid for access and need those rules, regulations and taxes and all those other things so that they can remain “profitable,” so they remain fat and happy.

The idea or the theory that the House of Representatives represents the people in their political capacity ended in 1929.  That was the first time in the history of the United States when the Congress decided that they would not use the census to determine representation in the House.  They froze it.  It’s been at that same number ever since.  Although the population has increased tenfold, members of the House of Representatives have not.  Hell, the population has increased 15 times and the members of the House have not.  It is, I think, folly and foolish to even think that the House of Representatives represents the people in their political capacities.  You can’t represent 790,000 people, Barry.

Just imagine if all 790,000, let’s say half of them are voting age and adults.  I’ll give you 350,000.  Let’s say all 350,000 people decided they wanted to have a conversation with their representative.  How’s that going to work out for them?  Even if you went to town hall meetings, how many town hall meetings would you have to have in order to meet with 350,000 people?  This is so ridiculous.  I can’t even believe we call ourselves technologically advanced and intelligent to even consider the possibility that these people represent us.  Of course they don’t.  But, they can pretend all the while raising tens of millions of dollars and feathering the nest for the future when you get tired of them.  [mocking] “That’s it.  I’m kicking him out of office.”  Do you really think x-member of Congress cares?  They are going to be far better off than they ever were when they were in the House of Representatives.  They’re going to be able to milk that experience for tens of millions of dollars and everyone they know is going to live fat and happy for the rest of their lives.  Nice work if you can find it, actually.

The first thing you got to do, Barry, is reject this ridiculous notion that the House of Representatives represents the people.  It doesn’t; it can’t.  It’s out of scale.  You want to talk about something on Independence Week?  Answer this question.  How many people — now bear in mind, in the First Continental Congress, John Adams said what, 1776?  It’s a good thing I’m around to keep real history in the purpose for the damn Independence Day and the damn Independence Week alive.  I don’t see anything about it on any of the — I’m watching three networks right now.  I’m watching Fox, MSNBC and CNN.  I haven’t said a peep about the silly fireworks displays about Independence Day.  It’s just like I wrote in 2007.  Like the Constitution, it’s just an excuse to get a day off from work, barbecue some hotdogs and get drunk.  Nice.

John Adams in January 1776 didn’t think a Declaration of Independency, as he called it, could ever pass the Continental Congress because the Continental Congress, like the population, was made up of one-third Tory, one-third timid and one-third true blue.  Well, the true blue were actually able to carry the day by the time that it was July 1776, as we know.  That was not an easy task and we chronicle this in Road to Independence the movie.

End Mike Church Show Transcript