Of the Federal Reserve and Dreams of Success

 

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It may be easy, but I think unfair, to fault the Governors of the Federal Reserve System.  Their task is more than they can handle, and yet they are required to do it.  More accurately, I should say that their tasks are more than they can handle, and yet they are required to do them.

When the Fed was created, more than a century ago, a big concern was that it would be dominated by the financiers of New York and the politicians of Washington.  Hence, rather than a central bank, it was born as a system of a dozen regional banks, with a limited focus, to offset the liquidity risk inherent in banking.

Over time the Fed has not stayed that way.  Today, the Federal Reserve is effectively the biggest bank in the world.  Financiers in New York have an outsized influence, but the influence of the politicians in Washington may be greater.  Otherwise, how could a federal republic tolerate a handful of people at a single agency having so much sway over the daily lives and future prosperity of the individuals, families, communities, and businesses in the 50 States of the Union?  Accountability to the elected cannot long be withheld.

A great problem has been that the elected do not refrain from giving the Fed more things to do.  Its one first task has lost its focus by becoming three.  By law, the members of the Board, joined by the presidents of the 12 Fed banks, are to conduct themselves “so as to promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.”

What if they cannot succeed?  Then we fault them for failures while still pretending that they can.  We hide the goal posts in fog.  What is “maximum employment”?  Can it be today’s 62% of the adult population when we began the 21^st Century at 67%?  What are “stable prices”?  Does “stable” mean that the price of food tomorrow will be the same price it is today, or is “stable” the Fed’s official goal that things will cost 2% more each year, so that my young son’s retirement will require nearly twice as much as mine does?  Then there is the third, often forgotten requirement, that interest rates be “moderate.”  For 10 years the Fed kept quiet about that legal mandate, keeping interest rates very close to zero, a huge transfer of wealth from savers to borrowers, Uncle Sam being the world’s biggest borrower.  Is it surprising that the federal government’s debt grew during those 10 years to $30 trillion and still swelling?

What is the Fed to do?  We cannot reproach its current team, because they cannot succeed.  No government agency, regardless of excellent economists and the best computers, can manage it all.  If you read the statements, they carefully admit, essentially, “we don’t know how to succeed, but the law says we have to do something, so we will try this and that and see how it goes.”

Meanwhile, it has not been going so well.  To paraphrase liberally from psychiatrist Anthony Daniels, we should not be so beguiled by the dreamy tasks we have placed on the Fed that we cannot bear to lighten the load merely because it is not working.  

Of Rule by Experts and Rule by Law

 

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In the 1990s I was part of a congressional delegation to Argentina, when the Argentine economy was growing strongly and steadily, and inflation was low, the currency convertible 1-for-1 with the dollar.  Trade barriers were being lowered, commerce was booming.  I recall asking Argentines what could possibly darken what seemed to be a bright future.  They were quick to reply:  “Here in Argentina we have no rule of law.  You can have no confidence in getting justice from the courts.”  Not long after, political shenanigans to reward one part of the electorate by a transfer of wealth from others threw the Argentine economy into turmoil.  Momentary good policy is a tough path to walk across bogs of inadequate legal safeguards.  Freedom has rested upon rule by law rather than rule by men.

Fundamentally, the American Revolution was an assertion of the rule of law.  Most of the Declaration of Independence is a litany of abuse by the English rulers.  The Revolution was intended to take power away from man and men and rest it upon laws and rights, soon to be secured by the world’s first written Constitution.

The Progressive Movement, which thrived over a century ago, was a retreat, aggressively stepping backwards to the rule of men as an impatient alternative to the rule of law:  the Rule of Experts.  Their new view—really a very old view dressed up in modern rhetoric—was that there are benevolent experts, to whom we can safely yield our governance, for such understand the process of modern government better than ordinary people do.

It sounds akin to the ancient theory of Divine Right of Kings, that the worldly monarchs are chosen by God and invested with greater wisdom and perspective than the average man and woman.  To their benevolent expertise and fatherly care was entrusted the governance of the rest of us.

Today’s benevolent experts are invested by their colleagues with varieties of credentials certifying their expertise.  Not very democratic, they make no secret of their impatience with the Congress and other constitutional brakes on arbitrary authority.

Just as not all men are always just, not all men are reliably wise.  The American Founders thought to address this problem by the separation of powers, dividing political authority among three branches in the Federal Government and the States.

The current regulatory program rests heavily on the notion that benevolent experts should be entrusted with authority for the big questions and increasingly smaller questions, too.  It has evolved by progressively engulfing the constitutional separation of powers, merging legislative and executive—and often judicial—authority in “independent” regulatory agencies headed by unelected officials.  The unelected federal regulator writes the details of mandatory regulations, charges violators, assesses guilt, and applies penalties.

Professedly efficient, it does not work well in practice.  First, the regulators are not dispassionate umpires, limited to calling the balls and strikes.  They are also players in the game, having their own set of particular interests and incentives that they take care of first.

Second, reliance on benevolent experts assumes what is an unproven, undemonstrated level of knowledge, insight, and forecasting skills.  Regulators are not dumber than the rest of the population, but they are no smarter either.  It is just that life is too complex and the society of the living is proving too much to be run by any designated group of humans and their computers.

A third flaw is mission creep.  Even if the tasks are too great or require too much knowledge, insight, foresight, and other skills in unachievable degree, the regulators still take them on, with each failure met with calls to increase resources and power of the agency.  

An example is the Federal Reserve (commonly called the “Fed”), created with a specific and rather narrow purpose, to make enough funding available for the banking system in times of financial stress.  Before long, the Fed gained control of monetary policy and the practice of controlling interest rates.  Later, it was tasked with promoting maximum employment.  In 2010 the Fed’s role in supervising banks was enlarged to supervising any financial business considered to be systemically significant.  Each augmentation has drawn the Fed away from its narrow, objective task. 

This expansion of authority affects every business and every home.  The Federal Reserve is the world’s biggest rigger of interest rates.  Its prolonged policy of keeping short-term rates at or slightly above zero has resulted in penalizing all savers and those who live off of their savings, transferring trillions of dollars of wealth to borrowers, the biggest borrower being the Federal Government.

A partial but simple solution toward strengthening the rule of law and reducing exposure to the caprice of men would be returning to elected representatives the making of laws.  It is a messy process, exactly the messy process that the Founders intended to preserve freedom from the encroachment of arbitrary and oppressive government.  The regulators, which are theoretically part of the executive branch, should be limited to the duty of implementing the laws that the elected and accountable representatives make. 

If Congress were required to write the rules and mandates, and delegate only the implementation, the mandates of government would be circumscribed by the exposure of a legislative body held directly accountable for what it has wrought.  It is easy for legislators to complain about bad regulatory decisions, but too often, these are decisions that Congress never should have delegated to regulators in the first place.

Of Majority Rule and Minority Freedom

 

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The majority rules, the minority be damned.  That is the heart of a democracy.  The Founders of the United States wisely chose a different course.  They recognized that popular majorities are inherently unstable, ever shifting, never constant, with little patience for the minority.  Each of us, however, is always and ever part of some minority.  The Founders sought a durable nation that would accommodate variety, so they established a republic.  More precisely, they established a democratic republic, where representatives are chosen by democratic action.

A republic works, and can only work, by respecting and accommodating one another sufficient to find agreement, which is often elusive.  A representative legislature by definition gathers delegates who have their own minds, who carry with them divergent views and interests, and who cherish rights to be respected.  From my personal experience I have observed that no one in Washington is your ally or your opponent all the time.  I find that reassuring, and occasionally surprising.

This structure accommodates several things that we hold dear.  Our republic accommodates differences of opinion, or even better said, varieties of opinion.  I have rarely been in a conversation with more than two people where all were in agreement on every point raised.  I have similarly rarely been in such a conversation where I did not benefit from the interplay of ideas.  We often can reach a consensus, but it is not consensus on all things.  A republic embraces this. 

In a republic no majority mandates our tastes.  Our republic, for example, allows for an assortment of cultures.  It had to or would never have been created.  I like to bring flags to our family reunions, symbolizing our cultural heritages, from my parents’ families to those of the new in-laws as our children have married.  With preeminence for the Stars and Stripes—reminding us of the attraction of this nation—our family unity makes enjoyment of those cultural influences an enrichment, in our clothes, in our menus, in our games and sports, in our traditions.  I see that in other families.  In much the same way, the constitutional foundation of our republic fosters a commonality upon which a cornucopia of good things thrives.

A republic requires several things that we find necessary, embedded in our Constitution.  It requires freedom of religion, free speech, private property, a market economy, separation of powers, a federal system of government, among other things.  God Himself implores freedom of religion on His earth, free hearts with devotion to be freely extended to Him and expressed in love to His children.  A market economy means that we are free to exchange our time, talents, and resources with one another, without being limited to choices that only the majority favors, hence the incredible selection of goods and services, often some only favored by a few (like my argyle socks).

The Founders understood a principle of governance also articulated in scripture:

We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion. (Doctrine and Covenants 121:39)

Best to reduce the chance, especially should one profess to represent the majority of the people.  Safer, as in our federalized republic, to divide such power.  I recall Senator Phil Gramm, for whom I worked for many years, saying how frustrated he was when first elected to Congress at how little one person could accomplish in Washington.  He added that after a while that gave him great comfort.

Of Congress and Appropriations

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Why is Congress not legislating?  Congress is the national legislature.  The Constitution vests Congress with exclusive legislative rights.  Then why will the Members of Congress not legislate? 

Among the exclusive legislative jobs for Congress is to appropriate funds for the operations of government.  This is a regular, annual task.  This must be well understood:  for Congress to fail to fund the operations of the federal government is a dereliction of duty of the highest order.  Nothing prevents the Members from doing that duty, and no one else can do it.

The President cannot legislate, least of all appropriate.  That limitation is firmly placed as a check on executive power.  The President may not write a single word of legislation, he may not appropriate one penny.  If the agencies of government are not funded, it is because Congress has failed to fund them.  No one else can fund them, and no one else can fail to fund them.  Currently, Congress has not done its job for much of the federal government, and the Members of Congress have no excuse, no justification for the failure.

The President can make recommendations to Congress, he can ask for appropriations.  Congress can heed or disregard such recommendations and requests entirely at its discretion.  They have no effect except as Congress chooses.

Some might say, but what about the President’s veto?  Can he not refuse to sign an appropriation, and send the bill back to Congress?  Indeed he can.  He may send it back, but he cannot change it, he cannot add or remove a single word.  Congress can decide whether to change the legislation, do nothing, or vote to override the veto.  Those decisions are entirely in the hands of the legislators.

It is no excuse for legislators to say that they cannot find sufficient agreement whether to override a veto or even to pass a law.  Whose fault is that?  True representative legislatures (not the rubber stamps of communist dictatorships) have always had the difficult job of dealing with disagreement.  That is why we have legislatures with numerous members.  It is expected that there will be varying points of view.  The legislators’ responsibility is to resolve these differences sufficient to pass necessary laws.

Appropriations for government operations are necessary laws.  They are also among the most malleable of questions.  When the consideration is money for government projects, there is a compromise to be found.  We will not pass anything is not an acceptable option.  It is legislative failure.

Presidents may say that they will veto a bill that does not meet certain standards.  That is a President’s prerogative, but the Constitution is careful to make it a surmountable obstacle.  The Members of Congress, working through the legislative process, may either find a sufficient majority to pass a law that the President will not veto or a sufficient unity of view that will allow them to override the veto.  Doing nothing until the President changes his view is dereliction.

Presidents have had vetoes overridden.  Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a Democrat, vetoed 635 Acts of Congress passed by strong majorities of fellow Democrats.  Congress overrode several of those.  Ronald Reagan vetoed 78 Acts of Congress, several of which were overridden. 

Most often, a significant number of Members will sympathize with the President’s view.  That calls for legislative efforts to find a formula reasonable enough that the President does not reasonably veto it.  That is what the national legislature traditionally does and is expected to do.  That is what this Congress has so far failed to do.  That failure is entirely the fault of the Members of Congress.

Of Presidents and Training for the Job, 2015

More and more I have been struggling for the words to express my concern over the frightening incompetence of the current President of the United States.  Barack Obama's economic blunders deepened and prolonged the recession and bequeathed to us the most anemic recovery of modern times.  Most of us have been seriously harmed by those policies, some more than others.  Unfortunately, the extent of his economic errors are obscured by the benighted economic management in Europe, which amazingly is managing even to underperform ours.

President Obama's politics have yielded the opposite of what he publicly promised:  division in place of unity, secrecy and deception in place of open government, exclusion of those who disagree with him in place of inclusive embrace of open debate, privilege for the few in place of opportunity for the many, racial bigotry for political gain in place of a "post racial" society, rule by breaking laws and ignoring the Constitution in place of rule of law.  I am sure that you could easily lengthen the list.  Again, these perfidies have been to some degree obscured by congressional Democrat leaders far too willing to compromise their duties of office and the rights of the legislative branch of government, all to cover up and support the Obama Administration's outrages on the nation and the political institutions of the Republic.

Most frightful of all, however, is President Obama's dangerously bungling foreign policy.  No friend of the United States is safe from this Administration's blunders.  Vladimir Putin, the boss of a second rate economic and military power—albeit one with a formidable nuclear arsenal—has been able to engage in 19th Century military adventures of invasion, conquest, and territorial acquisition against little more than vacuous bully talk from Obama, the emptiness of which has produced similarly pitiful responses from the leading Powers of Western Europe, derision from Moscow, and fear among America's friends only recently escaped from the Soviet Union.  China commits aggression against India and the Philippines, threatens Japan, and toys with close relations with Russia to isolate the United States, while openly engaging in cyber attacks on the U.S. government and American industry.  Islamist barbarians increasingly brutalize Muslims, Jews, Christians, and humanists alike, undeterred by inchoate responses from Obama, who asserts leadership while failing to lead, other than with his transparent policies of pusillanimity and indecision.  American allies in the Middle East feel abandoned or betrayed, while enemies are emboldened; the best counter strategy that Barack Obama is able to envision is a plan that might delay but will not prevent the nuclear arming of the mullahs of Iran—committed to the incineration of Israel, the more Jews killed the better.  Each day seems to extend the list of foreign policy failures.

While considering the consequences of an amateur in the Oval Office, I came across a brief note I wrote during the 2008 presidential campaign.  It might be immodest for me to point out how correct my warnings proved.  I can make no claims to perspicacity, as all of this was rather obvious.  No self congratulations are in order.  It is too dangerous a world to trust the Presidency of the United States to one whose inexperience is only matched by his hubris.  This is what I penned August 25, 2008, just before Barack Obama received the nomination of the Democrats:      


There are some jobs you just cannot safely do without proper training and experience. Flying an airplane is one that comes to mind. Driving a bus is another. I would put being President of the United States in the Twenty-First Century on the list, too.

President of the United States was a tough job in the days of George Washington. It was even a challenge in the days of Millard Fillmore. It has not become any easier in recent years, and next year it will be a very big job. Considering the global responsibilities of the United States, with several irresponsible oil-drunk regimes threatening peace and freedom (ours and other’s) around the world, can we afford to enroll our new President in a foreign policy on-the-job-training program?

Economically as well, there is little room for error. So far we have gone through a year and a half of the housing market bust without falling into a recession. But our economic growth is anemic. A small false step or two can put us into a full-blown economic decline, exploding banking and financial markets that will then take years to recover. It is important that economic policy next year be led by someone who understands economic growth and how to promote it. The formula for growth—low taxes and steady prices—is well known to those who have learned the lesson; we do not need a novice who does not have enough experience to know that you cannot tax and spend your way to prosperity. We cannot afford his experiments with our jobs and livelihood.

That is why it is breathtaking that a major political party is on the verge of nominating for President someone so inexperienced as Barack Obama.  I am unable to recall a single nominee for President, by any major party, less prepared for the office than Barack Obama.  Really, there is the challenge for you. Name a nominee—Republican, Democrat, Whig, Federalist—less prepared than Obama.

Barack Obama likes to liken himself to Abraham Lincoln. I cannot claim to have known Abraham Lincoln or assert that he was a friend of mine, but I do say, Barack Obama is no Abraham Lincoln. Even liberal exaggerations of Obama’s undistinguished career cannot make it compare favorably with the long and grueling life experiences that schooled Lincoln for the White House.

In short, Obama does not have the training for the job. It may be that the Democrats’ talent pool is so thin that he will be nominated. But the job of President is too important—to all of us—to be extended to someone so unready.

Of Compromises and Congresses

The beginning days of 2015 have brought the convening of a new American Congress.  It is fair to say that expectations and skepticism are high. 

Both are merited.  Our Constitution was inaugurated with high expectations, not that the end to all problems was at the door but that the means were available to deal effectively with the problems of government for the new nation.  The people who wrote the Constitution and those involved with implementing it (many the same people) were also deeply skeptical of government, including the one that they had just created.  Memorable and personal experiences had shaped their skepticism.  For that reason, the adoption of the Constitution had been a close thing, the opposition coming chiefly from those who thought that it imposed too much government on the people.  There may have been some contemporary views that the proposed national government would be too weak and light, but I have not found any examples.

No surprise, then, that an early use of the new Constitution was to adopt the Bill of Rights—a set of fundamental rights to protect individual people from their government.  If this new government were really self-government (a misconception reflected today in such bromides as, “Don’t worry about the national debt, we owe it to ourselves,” and “we should not fear the government because we are the government,” as well as much similar foolishness), then these first ten amendments would all be unnecessary.  They have since proven to be very necessary, sometimes breached by our government, but more often employed to preserve and protect us from government offense.

Much as with the convening of the First Congress in 1789, the 114^th Congress convenes after a troubled period of bad government.  Hopes and wishes abound that errors can be corrected, freedoms restored, troubles addressed.  As then, so today patience is in order.

A great virtue of our Constitution, an intentional feature, is that no one person can do much, for good or ill, in the federal government.  It takes a lot of people cooperating together to get things done.  Both Houses of Congress, usually with significant majorities, must agree to identical—word for word identical—legislation for it to be sent to the President, who must agree enough to add his signature to make it law.  And then the President and his colleagues in the executive branch must actually execute the law, which as we are seeing with this President is no sure thing, despite a solemn oath to do so.

All of that coming together of many people, with varying ideas and backgrounds and interests, seldom happens quickly.  For a people who do not need a lot of laws and direction from government to know how to live their lives, that is a fact to be celebrated.  As the Founders envisioned, making law requires compromise and accommodation of the many interests of the many who compose our great nation.  That takes time, as it should. 

It is a mistake to banish the use of compromise from republican government.  Those who would eschew compromise in our Republic would doom us to the fate of the Roman Republic.  The members of the Roman Senate lost the ability or willingness to compromise.  In so doing, they were doomed to inaction—not just slow deliberation—in the face of crisis, followed by reliance upon dictators, whom they fancied they could limit if not control.  They sometimes chose wise men, sometimes they trusted their liberties to demagogues, invested with nearly unilateral authority for an entire year.  The Republic and Roman freedom regressively devolved into the rule of the Caesars.

I understand the impatience that many have with compromise, people who would wish bold and decisive action in response to the would-be Caesar currently in the White House.  To these I would say, do not despair of the strength of the Constitution, even as the chief executive seeks to violate it.  In such times strengthening the Constitution and reinforcement of its checks and balances are the orders of the day, not further erosion of accommodation and compromise that have held our nation together (even through a Civil War) for two hundred years and more.  It is true that some compromises are bad; despotisms or anarchies are not much good.

One of the most important compromises involves idealism and realism.  American legislation requires a marriage of idealism and realism.  Idealism can offer the vision of a free and prosperous nation and the inspiration to action to protect and promote our liberties.  Realism, when operating in the light of idealism, focuses our work on what can be achieved now, without exhausting our energies and resources on quixotic quests that may do little more than tear the national fabric.  Realism would teach that much of the policy errors of years will take years to unravel.  With idealism and realism together, we can know what can and should be done today to make things better and get national policy moving in the right direction.

While a realistic view of the doable is essential to good legislating in a Congress of free men and women, the key and fundamental principles of our idealism help us discern a good compromise—one that makes things better and enables further progress—from a compromise that walks us closer to the abyss.  President Reagan made many compromises, but he had a vision and knew where he was going, each compromise uniting our nation for more prosperity, greater freedom, and stronger security.

We should rejoice that no one in the Republic by himself can bring about much change, however well meaning.  That virtue of our Constitution is why it has taken many steps and many mistakes to come to the many calamities our nation now confronts.  In the same way, because of this Constitution, it will take seemingly many steps along the way to optimal answers.  Every reason to be about the work and not tire of it.

Of Presidents and Derelicts

Barack Obama is no fan of the Constitution.  He has been known to criticize it for its focus on limiting government, for telling governments what they can and cannot do.  He prefers a Constitution that focuses more on telling governments what they should do, at least telling governments to do what he would like, including seeing to the “redistribution of wealth,” or what he calls elsewhere “redistributive change.”

Of course, that is a mischaracterization.  Not a mischaracterization of Obama’s views but of what the Constitution says.  It does limit government, but it also gives government specific responsibilities and the power to exercise those responsibilities.  Article I, Section 8 provides a very clear list of the federal government’s duties.  It is noteworthy that those enumerated responsibilities and powers are in the Article that establishes the Congress.  The list includes such things as providing for the common defense, borrowing and paying government debts, regulating foreign and interstate commerce, establishing standards for weights and measures, and so forth.

There are plenty of other provisions that limit the powers of the government and how it operates.  The Constitution is a balance of governmental duties within a structure intended carefully to limit the government.  As a limited government our Republic has prospered.  It has struggled either when its duties were neglected (as in the days of President Buchanan, who did nothing while he watched state after state rebel from the Union) or when the limitations have been eroded (as we have witnessed through much of the twentieth century and in the first 14 years of the twenty-first).

The President has specific powers and duties, too, nearly all of which are carefully linked with the role of the Congress.  For example, while the President does not make the laws—Article I, Section 1 gives “All legislative Powers” exclusively to the Congress—the President is authorized to make proposals to Congress and has the authority to veto legislation (but not change it) that Congress has approved.  Once an act of Congress becomes law, the President then has the explicit obligation to, “take Care that the Laws be fully executed” (Article II, Section 3).  

Note the words, “fully executed”.  The President takes an oath to fulfill those duties, and nowhere in oath or Constitution is the President authorized to execute the laws only as much as he likes or agrees with them.  Once something has become a law, the President may not set aside this or that part of the law or decide that he will only enforce the law so far.  His obligation is to take Care that the laws are fully executed.

Average Americans may not like this or that provision of law, but we are not at liberty to ignore any law that applies to us just because we do not like it.  The President is not exempt from that common responsibility of all citizens, either. As the chief government executive, who sought to hold his high office of public responsibility, he is even more obligated not only to obey the laws but to execute them, fully.  The President may not make the laws, he may not amend the laws, he may not change the laws, and he may not disregard the laws.  His duty is to execute the laws, and when he does not he is derelict in his duties. 

This is all in accordance with the important division of labor, the separation of powers that the Founders put into the very structure of the Constitution to combat the tendency of all humans to abuse power once it comes into their hands.  By dividing the power of government among three separate but coequal branches, dividing legislative power even further between House and Senate, and yet again separating government power between federal and state governments, the Founders went to clear and elaborate lengths to create checks and balances. 

Under the American system of government no branch, no person, no group of people in government, are to be able to do very much on their own without getting the other elements of government to go along.  Where they are not able to agree, where there is no consensus, for the safety of our freedoms government is prevented by constitutional law from moving forward unless substantial consensus among the different branches can be reached.  Those checks and balances again and again, throughout the more than two centuries of our Constitution, have forced the very human people in government to revisit their differences and come to terms with one another, however much they may disagree and be disagreeable.  There is safety for you and me in that.  And it helps keep our Union together, repeatedly forcing our leaders (and the parts of the nation that they represent and whose authority they exercise) to work with one another, like it or not.

Recently, President Obama has expressed impatience with the Constitution’s checks and balances.  After all, he personally, in and of himself, embodies an entire branch of government.  The other branches, Congress and the courts, have many different people with a messy variety of ideas.  President Obama complains that Congress cannot decide what it wants to do as quickly as he can.  In his view, why wait? 

By design, Congress of course has something of a multiple personality.  It is a gathering of elected representatives, reflecting the diversity of views among the people of the nation.  Appropriately, it takes time to build a consensus that accommodates those views, as it should.  But President Obama cannot wait.  He sees the need to accommodate no ideas other than his own.  He has decided that on this issue or that—today it is immigration laws—there is a limit, defined by himself, as to how much time Congress can take to consider things.  When time is up, he, the executive branch, will take the matter into his own hands, and pretend to the authority to do it.

His tool of choice today is to abjure his duty to execute the laws fully and instead to execute them partially, just to the extent and manner that suit his own desires, as he engages in another round of redistributive change.  That he is endeavoring to violate rather than execute our national, founding law, and his constitutional oath of office, apparently does not trouble him.  It is the Constitution itself that troubles him. 

But from where does he think he gets his authority to do anything.  When he breaks the Constitution, does he not break his very authority to act in the office that the Constitution created?

Of Majorities and Modesty

Perhaps with some weeks enough dust has settled to allow a few reactions to the recent American elections, with more perspective than can be gathered from listening to reporters interviewing reporters.  I will offer views that focus mostly on the results of the congressional elections, drawing upon experience from more than two decades of work in the Senate. 

I do not, however, wish to minimize the importance of the elections for governors and state legislatures.  In fact, I suspect that the next President of the United States will more than likely be a current or former governor than a Washington politico.  Most Presidents, historically, have come from the state governments, which I find encouraging for our federal system.  Moreover, judging from what we have seen, former Senators do not seem to make very good Presidents.  I cannot name one to whom we can look with admiration for what he accomplished in the White House.  There seems to be too much Washington blindness in them to govern effectively for our whole nation.

I am straying to an election yet to come, though.  Back to this year’s results, I will begin with the view that we should expect, with the media-scorned Republicans holding the majority in both House and Senate, that the finger of blame for all problems—real or imagined—will be pointed at “Congress.”  Disputes between legislative and executive branches will tend to be cast as exposing the nation to great danger as a result of congressional intransigence and/or “politics,” as if no real issues of policy—no questions of life, freedom, or wealth—are involved.

It is happening already.  In one bizarre report I heard this week on a major network “news” report, some Amtrak railroad drawbridge in the northeast is over a hundred years old and prone to getting stuck when it opens to let ships pass.  Amtrak wants a billion dollars or so to fix it, but, as the “news” story would have it, Republicans in the new Congress “are not looking for ways to spend money.”  That was the story.  Note the nothing new here.  The bridge has been around for a hundred years and did not suddenly become prone to malfunction this November.  But the election has now made it a story; a problem is arising, not because the President or the Democrats in Congress for several years did not seek to fix it, but because the new Republican majorities are not interested in spending money.  The bridge is not the problem in the story, the Republicans are.  Expect more of this kind of media “news.”

Second observation:  in recent decades Congress has increasingly surrendered more and more authority to the executive branch, including to the regulatory agencies.  The Senate, under the misleadership of Majority Leader Harry Read, has given up even more power and authority (perhaps in another post I will expound on lessons from the Senate of Rome, which by avoiding decisions paved the way for the Caesars—who were all too ready to make decisions).  The Democrats retain full control of the executive branch.  No small thing. In the remaining two years of the Obama Administration look for more aggressive activity from the White House and the regulators as they test just what they can try by regulation and regulatory fiat, without any detours to Capitol Hill.  To quote Jacob Marley’s ghost, “Much!”

When it comes to big Republican plans to make major changes, the quidnuncs will be fed explanations of the thinness of the Republican majorities, along with the “responsibility” of Republicans to share power with Democrats that the Democrats failed to win at the ballot box.  When it comes to work that needs to be done, the repeated common wisdom will be that the Republicans have the majority, so nothing should stop them from getting on with the job.  There will be little mention that the President can veto what Congress passes, and that Democrats  in the Senate will likely filibuster anything that the White House threatens to veto, saving the President the trouble—and political risk. 

Yet, there are things that the Republicans, even with working but not overwhelming majorities in Congress, will be able to do.  Most important, they get to set the agenda.  They get to decide what issues will be debated, what hearings will be held, what will be put to a vote, even when they may not have the votes to break Democrat opposition in the Senate.  It will be some relief that instead of the familiar series of proposals to curb liberties, raise taxes, or stifle economic growth and opportunity, the agenda will tend toward ideas of freedom and prosperity, though actual accomplishments will of necessity be modest against the strong opposition of the President and his media allies.  I will take modest improvements over the calamitous policy fails of the past several years.

Of Dysfunction and Governing the Nation

It seems that no more evidence is needed. The establishment press, normally loath to criticize the federal government, has at last become even fond of proclaiming that “Washington is dysfunctional,” although they do so as if announcing something worthy of being “news.” The Senate has not passed a budget in some four years. The House of Representatives regularly passes budgets that the Senate will not even consider. The President—who has no budget-proposing role under the Constitution—proposes budgets that are routinely disregarded while declaring his intent to govern without the Congress. At the same time, people feel more alienated from their government than ever before, in ever increasing numbers considering the nation headed in the wrong direction, regardless of the party in control of national policy.

In the most recent demonstration of the Washington breakdown, the Congress this year failed to pass the annual appropriations bills before the current ones expired. Or, better said, the House passed appropriations bills, the Senate demurred, and the President announced that he would veto any appropriations legislation that offered either more or less than what he wanted.

The establishment press, amplifying executive branch efforts to promote panic and stampede the public, announced that “the government would shut down,” and yet 83% stayed open. Some prominent public operations (that do not require any appropriations to operate) were closed at the President’s bidding, like the Lincoln Memorial and the various veterans and war memorials, but the President seemed to have enough money to travel to various campaign-style rallies to complain about the government shut down. There was national confusion and consternation.

Perhaps what is news is that there is, at last, general agreement, and the President has helped demonstrate, that the federal government has become dysfunctional, by which we may mean, not doing what it needs to do. I also notice that this condition has not been getting any better. In addition to the recent, visible indicators, I would offer some longer-term measures.

Economic growth is depressed and has been declining for decades; employment is also down, with millions leaving the work force. Government welfare rolls have expanded dramatically, suggesting that a very large portion of the population is either not able to take care of itself or has surrendered its responsibility to do so. The federal balance sheet approaches ever closer to insolvency. To avoid being gloomy and doomy, I will not recount dismal education trends, eroding family formation patterns, the precarious condition of national infrastructure, or our worsening international relations (with allies and opponents).

Yet, the federal bureaucracies are far larger, taxes—visible and hidden—are higher, red tape has become ubiquitous, and federal subsidies have fallen behind promises even as they outdistance the ability of the federal government to pay for them. If government is the solution, then why is more government not making things better?

How could this happen? Have we as a nation lost our ability to govern ourselves? Have “partisan politics”—as though something new rather than part of our national intercourse since 1796—frozen the ability to consider, set, and follow national priorities? Have the problems of modernity exceeded the ability of policymakers to resolve them?

A case could probably be made for each and all of the above explanations. I think, however, that they are all symptoms of a more fundamental problem, one recognized long ago, at the founding of the nation.

As early as 1787 the Founders recognized that a central government would not work for the United States. Even with just the original 13 states and 3 million people, the nation was too vast to be governed in detail from one capital. That is why they created a federal system, under which the few, truly national concerns—such as national defense, trade, international relations, national standards of measures and sanctity of contracts, preservation of freedom and the rule of law, together with the means to fund these activities—would be handled by the national government. All else was reserved to the States.

Note that I did not say given to the States. Remember, the States and the people in them created the national government. The States and the people in them gave to the national government its authority and power.

Today, the United States stretches across a continent and reaches to the isles of the sea, with over 300 million inhabitants. It is even more impossible than ever to govern from a single capital, by a centralized government. We all have seen the evidence, in addition to the growing dysfunction of Washington. Everyday, people all over the nation struggle with rules made by the federal bureaucracies, rules that are often nonsensical where people live and work and play, rules governing the volume of water in our toilets, the content of our children's food, the gasoline in our cars, the content of our communications, the form of our financial affairs, and many other elements of daily, personal life. Even worse, they have become too vast and complex to be administered faithfully or complied with loyally.

We could fault the executive branch bureaucrats who make them or the Congressmen and Senators who write the laws, but these people are no smarter or dumber than the rest of us, and just as well meaning. They just have an impossible job. No one can know enough to run so many things from Washington.

Consider the big issues that seem to have Washington all tied up in knots—in turn afflicting all the rest of us. The new national healthcare systems are breaking down even as they get started. National rules for farmers have Congress stuck over who should get subsidies and who should not. National tax plans designed to take from some to give to others divide the people into winners and losers. Environmental regulations impose costs on some in order to subsidize someone else. National education programs follow each other in rapid succession, each with a new and high-sounding name, none of which do much to stem the continued decline in education. And ever present with all of these national rules are unintended consequences that were not and probably could not be foreseen but which crush people’s businesses, destroy jobs, and disrupt lives.

These are all issues that the Founders never intended for the national government, issues that if governments should address at all should be left to State and local governments, where decisions can be made closer to the people who have to live with the results.

We have at hand a better, competent government, or at least its blueprint. It is found in the structure of our Constitution that created a federal system. Our Constitution is the recognition that only through a system that keeps governing as local as possible can a great nation exist in union and harmony.

What we are seeing play out before our very eyes is that our nation not only should not be governed by a central authority, but that it cannot be. The sooner we recognize that and return to the federal plan of the Founders the happier, and the sooner Washington will be able to function as it should for the benefit of all rather than frustration for all. The task is too big otherwise and doomed to failure. It will not be a pleasant failure.

(First published October 27, 2013)

Of Global Poverty and Washington’s Struggles

It was tough getting out of Washington this evening.  You might suppose that with the partial shut down of the federal government, traffic in Washington would be on the light side.  I have not seen much evidence of it on the streets of the city or in the Washington suburbs.  I know that many, many people must be out of work, because the establishment media keep saying so, television and radio.

I do not refer, however, to experiencing the normal evening outbound Washington traffic.  Traffic was unusually heavy today, especially on 19^th Street, N.W., south of Pennsylvania Avenue.  The world financial diplomats are back in town to attend fancy parties in the cause of poverty.  For several blocks the lanes were clogged, nose to tail, with their black limousines.  The global party goers gather in D.C. each October two out of every three years (they take one year off to congregate somewhere else for variety).  The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are holding their annual meetings as they have for going on 70 years.

Inching along 19^th Street, which is Main Street for the World Bank and the IMF (they have bought up nearly all of the Washington real estate between the White House complex and George Washington University), I was able to have a long, good study of a series of monster posters draping the north side of one of the World Bank office buildings, posters reaching no less than eight stories high, proclaiming the simple bold motto, “End Poverty.”  That is a good idea, probably the product of a high level committee of experts tasked with developing a theme for the Annual Meetings.  It conveys a sense of purpose.  The professional poverty bureaucrats have done little to end global poverty, but they have spent hundreds of billions of dollars to maintain it—at least judging by the results. 

In all fairness, perhaps the annual World Bank/IMF festivities help to fight poverty in the Capital Region.  Washington, D.C., and the Maryland and Virginia suburbs are already thriving from the Administration’s economic stimulus program.  They have some of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation, with the exception of the pockets where the energy fracking revolution is booming.  Nevertheless, at least for a while Washington is drawing money from the rest of the World as it does every day from the rest of the United States.

Focusing on ending poverty is a good idea, and there are ways to do it.  Undoubtedly, much of the discussion, however, in the IMF and World Bank meetings this week has focused on the budget and economic crisis in the United States.  “Dysfunctional” is surely a common word used in conversation by the visiting diplomats in the salons to describe the condition of the U.S. Government, since that is the label regularly applied by the establishment media talking heads, and it would resonate.  The vast majority of the financial officials attending come from nations where government is much more efficient.  Their economies may be dysfunctional, but their governments are models of efficiency.  What the big guy in the big office in the big house wants he gets. 

The American system is a lot messier.  The big guy in the room without corners in the big White House does not seem to be getting what he wants, at least not since the 2010 election.  After that election that put a majority of opposition Republicans in control of the House of Representatives and reelected them in 2012, he has declared his intention to govern without Congress. 

The last couple of weeks have brought home to the President that he cannot quite do without Congress.  Congress still has some role, albeit one greatly diminished from that extended to it by the Constitution.  It turns out that the “government shutdown” actually has shut down no more than 17% of Federal Government operations; 83% continues to pump along spending money with no attention by Congress needed. 

The chief executive is trying to magnify that 17% by making its absence as painful as possible, the rest of us the insect absorbing the sun’s rays under the focus of the glass in the President’s hand.  The executive hope is that public pressure will force the Congress to surrender what remains of its authority and agree to whatever the President demands, backing away from asserting any policy role of its own.  Just give the President a clean bill to keep doing what he has been doing, and move along.

Congress is not making that easy, passing bill after bill to open or ameliorate this or that hardship.  The President has rejected nearly every effort.  Of course, that is odd if you buy the rhetoric from the White House that the Congress has taken hostages.  Working with that metaphor, I know of no hostage examples where anyone having the interests of the hostages at heart would object to release of any one of them.  Who would send the released hostages back to their captors and say, “we will receive no freed hostages until you free them all”?  Yet that is the White House position.  Who is hurt by that?

You would not hear such questioning from the establishment media.  They are doing their best to hide the fact that what we are experiencing is a constitutional crisis, a battle that our Founders anticipated, which is why they created a structure of shared power that requires cooperation of all branches and domination by none.  The media are happy demeaning the struggle as a sporting event with winners and losers, and time clocks, and sports commentators, and favorite teams.

They miss the central point.  We cannot suffer to have any team “win”, and we are not spectators at a stadium.  Our freedom is at stake.  The design of the Constitution is that there can be little governing without all three branches being involved, the whole nation and its many parts represented.  Today we are engaged in a great struggle testing whether that structure of government, limited to prevent tyranny by either the President, the Congress, or the Courts, can endure.  So far it has.  The partial government shut down is the evidence.  Were that to end by either one branch or the other capitulating—rather than House, Senate, and President coming together—it is our freedom that would suffer.  There would remain much less check on the arbitrary and capricious actions of the victor.

Many of the elite financial diplomats at the World Bank/IMF meetings would understand that result and feel right at home.  American government, for 200 years a mystery to the rest of the world, would then become much more understandable and familiar to them.

Of Closed Governments and Coming Together

Battered and bruised and stretched and torn, our Constitution still has life in it.  One of its central principles is that no one person can do much by himself in Washington, for good or ill.  We are watching that play out in this year’s appropriations process.  We see that it is impossible for one man, the President, to make a new law.  It is similarly impossible for one House of Congress, whether Senate or House of Representatives, to do so alone.

Under the Constitution, all appropriations bills must originate in the House of Representatives, where they are given their initial shape and substance.  Next, the Senate must concur or amend.  If the Senate chooses to amend, the bill goes back to the House, which can either agree to the Senate amendment, disagree, or disagree with a further amendment.  If there is disagreement, representatives from House and Senate can meet to resolve those differences.  If they do and succeed, then each House, first one and then the other, passes the bill, after which it is sent on to the President.

It is still not a new law.  According to the Constitution, the President may not amend the bill that has passed both Houses of the Congress.  He can choose to sign it, making it a law.  It does not become a law unless he does.  He can choose to veto it.  In the latter case it goes back to the Congress, where it can only become law if both Houses override the President’s veto.

I lay this process out in some detail, because to listen to the institutional media and most of the pundits you might think that they have all forgotten, or never learned, how the constitutional process of making laws works.  It is not an easy process.  In fact it was meant to be difficult.  Some seem to wish it were easy, at least for enacting the policies that they favor.  They would wish to make one or more constitutional parties to law making redundant and of no separate account or purpose other than to do the will of their favorite other.  They should, instead, take comfort that it is easier to defeat policies that they oppose.

The genius of the Constitution for making laws is that it requires three separate parties of people, sometimes with very different views, to come together to make anything a law.  The Founders made it difficult because they were not very fond of new laws.  They knew that an abundance of laws could mean a scarcity of freedom.  And so it is today, but it has taken over 200 years to build up the awesome pile of laws that regulate so much of our lives, and yet it still is harder to make a new law than many would wish.

Our Constitution requires that a lot of people have to work together to make a new law.  When they do not, nothing happens.  That is why much of the federal government has run out of money and has “shut down.”  A new law is needed to appropriate the money for these shuttered parts of the federal government to open. 

They will continue to be without operating money until the elected representatives in the House and Senate and the President work together to make a new law.  The Constitution forces them to work together.  Nothing will happen until they do, whether that takes a day, a week, or longer.  The Constitution requires sufficient cooperation for law making.  For either House, or Senate, or President to be able to make laws without the other would impose the tyranny of one set of views over the rest.  The Constitution will not allow that.  The Constitution forces a meeting of the minds, either by persuasion or by compromise, or in practice some of both.

The Constitution is a beautiful thing.  I rejoice in it.  I can be patient for a while as it does its work and forces our elected leaders to come together.  The issue is not keeping parks open. The issue is preserving our freedom and our society.  The Constitution still has some power to do that.

Of the Constitution and the States

It must be the least employed part of the Constitution.  In fact, “never used” may be a better description.  I am not sure but that it may be the one part of the Constitution not only never used but never really tried.

I draw your attention to Article V, which offers procedures for amending the Constitution.  Article V has been successfully invoked 27 times--25 or 26 times if you reconcile the count for the fact that the Twenty-first Amendment repealed the Eighteenth Amendment, the prohibition of intoxicating liquors.

So why do I refer to Article V if it has been used on more than two dozen occasions?  I have in mind an important but neglected part of Article V.  Article V provides two methods for amending the Constitution.  Only one method has been used.  We might call that the Washington Method, since it relies upon the Federal Government to propose amendments and send them to the States.  The other, unused method I would call the State Method, as it relies upon the State legislatures to initiate the amendment process.

Article V is short.  Here is the text in full:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate. (Emphasis added)

Constitutions are foundational documents and so should not be changed any more often than you would consider changing the foundation of your house.  Change the foundation and a lot of other things change, too, and if you are not careful you can weaken the whole structure.  But the Founders of the nation knew that they were not omniscient and that the need for adjustments or even corrections to the basic plan of the government would surely become obvious over time. 

For example, the original process for counting electoral votes for President and Vice President almost put Aaron Burr in the White House instead of Thomas Jefferson in 1800.  Jefferson was the candidate for President, Burr the running mate, and both received the same number of electoral votes, but the electoral college ballot under the Constitution did not distinguish between President and Vice President.  The two were tied, and Aaron Burr got the notion that maybe he should be President instead of Jefferson.  The House of Representatives had to sort it out.  Afterwards, this flaw in the Constitution was corrected by the Twelfth Amendment.

The first ten amendments, the Bill of Rights, were made almost immediately and were demanded by several states as essential conditions for their ratification of the Constitution itself.  We could very appropriately consider those ten amendments as part of the original Constitution since it would not likely have been ratified without their promised addition.  In that view, the Constitution has subsequently been amended little more than a dozen times in over two centuries.

It is also worth noting that Congress has proposed amendments that the States have subsequently and appropriately turned down.  One such proposed amendment that never got past the States was approved by Congress in 1861, denying Congress the power to interfere with slavery.  The Constitution does not, however, limit the power of the States to only considering amendments that come out of Washington.  It provides to the States the power to initiate amendments of their own.

Mark Levin, in his recent book, The Liberty Amendments, argues that it is important for the States to exercise that authority.  He offers some suggestions for amendments that the States might consider, designed to restore the balance between Washington and the States that the Founders envisioned when creating our federal system.

It is a sign of how distorted things have become that using the word “federal” today almost always leads one to think of the government inWashington.  Yet our federal system was designed specifically to preserve State authority and limit the power of the national government.  Levin argues that those limits have been dangerously eroded, especially over the last century. 

Consider the many aspects of our daily lives that are determined one way or another by Washington laws and regulations rather than by the States whose representatives are closer to the people whom they govern.  The list would include the fixtures in our bathrooms, the design of our cars, the food offered to children in school lunch rooms, the subjects that they are taught, the products and services offered by banks, and now the healthcare that we can receive.

A major consequence of the problem is that the power appetite of Washington has taken on more than it can handle and is seriously threatening the health of the nation.  Regardless of which parties are in power or whether power is divided, Washington is becoming increasingly dysfunctional.  But the professional politicians in Washington will not let go of the power that they have taken from the States, even as they sink under the weight. 

 

What has tied Washington up in knots this fall?  It is conflict over Obamacare.  Would that even be a problem if healthcare were left to the States to regulate?  Congress is having trouble passing a farm bill because of apparently unbridgeable differences over food stamps.  Would Washington be stuck in the mud—and at the same time affecting all the rest of the nation—if farm and nutrition policies remained in State hands?  At the same time, many States are facing major budget problems coming to grips with paying for programs forced on them by the national government.

The State Method for amending the Constitution was put into the Constitution specifically for the time when the national government was the problem and would be incapable of solving its own problems.  Surely that time has come.  Washington has gotten tied up in a Gordian knot of its own devising.  The wise Founders of the nation apparently knew that things could come to this.  It is time for the States to exercise their constitutional power to cut the knot.

Of Liberty and Breaking the Rules

Sometime in the 1990s, before the days of YouTube, I received a homemade video from a man who owned and operated a small business near Dallas, Texas.  He ran a landscaping company, had a handful of employees, and, according to the video, was in violation of some rule or regulation of the federal government every day.  He did not intend to be in violation.  He did not want to be in violation.  As he explained, it was just impossible to comply with all of the requirements. 

The video began with the owner sitting behind his desk, explaining the problem.  He stood up and took the camera with him as he walked through different parts of his operations, pointing out what was required of him, his business, and his colleagues. 

In the main office he described the employment rules, the tax laws, the related mandates and regulations that applied because he had hired other people.  He walked over to the equipment and described the numberless “safety hazard” regulations, from warning notices that had to be glued beneath the seats of garden tractors, to how he and his workers used, carried, and stored their tools, gear, and machines, and what they were supposed to wear while using them.  He discussed the multitude of formal requirements for managing and applying the fertilizers, pesticides, and other chemicals that are commonly used in his business, including their handling, storage, clean up, and their transportation.  Speaking of transportation, because his company used trucks and other vehicles, there was another long list of rules and regulations that applied to that part of the firm.

Added to all of this, there were numerous reports, applications, notices, and other papers to be filed with a variety of agencies on a regular basis.  When he was through, he sat down again behind his desk and said, “I break the law every day.  I don’t intend to, but I cannot avoid it.  I can’t keep up with it all as long as I stay in business.”

How did we get here?  Is this America?  Is this the land of the free and the home of the brave?  Is this a land of freedom sustained by law?  It is an unknown America, too unknown to most but too familiar to people who run a business, especially the people who own a small company.  The rest of us see little of it, though perhaps we suspect it is there.  Some of us catch glimpses. 

In a large business it takes longer for the regulatory burden to become overwhelming.  For a while the boss can hire more people to help carry the load.  In the large firms of America there is a host of employees who produce no goods or offer any services to any customers.  They spend their careers complying with their slices of these federal rules, laws, and mandates so that some of the other employees can be involved in what the business is all about, providing something to a customer for which the customer is willing to pay. 

The customer may not realize that a large share of what he pays for he never receives; it goes to pay those people who work to keep the business in compliance with the government rules.  More than businessmen would be wealthier without this heavy, dead hand clamped on firms, factories, and farms.  The necessities and luxuries of life would all be a lot cheaper.  Or, another way to say it, we would get more of the goods and services we pay for, less of our money sunk into these hidden costs for unproductive activity. 

America’s Founders sought to create a land of freedom, not dominated by government and the officiousness of government functionaries.  To them “unregulated” was a goal, not a criticism.  They also knew the danger of what could happen, even in America.  James Madison wrote, “It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood. . .”  (James Madison, Federalist no. 62)

And yet here we are.  What the Texas businessman faced in the 1990s has not become any lighter since.  When was the last time that you read the full text of a law?  Who has read the Obamacare statute, the Dodd-Frank Act, or any of the other voluminous, incoherent laws recently enacted, each written on more than a thousand pages?  For each page of law enacted by Congress today government bureaucrats write ten pages of rules and regulations, all of which are enforced as law though never voted on by anyone who himself has been voted into office by the people.

In the land of the free, whose founding document begins with “We the People”, why do we tolerate it?  One of the complaints against the king of England in the Declaration of Independence reads, “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.”  And yet we have done the same to ourselves.  The Dodd-Frank Act alone created several New Offices and has already stimulated the hiring of more than a thousand new officers.

“I wear the chain I forged in life,” replied the Ghost.  “I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.  Is its pattern strange to you?”

Scrooge trembled more and more.

“Or would you know,” pursued the Ghost, “the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself?  It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago.  You have laboured on it, since.  It is a ponderous chain!”

(Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol)

There was a time when the chains had to be broken to restore the rule of law.