DCPolitics

Ken Buck: Reclaiming Congressional Authority

CONGRESSMAN: “THE PEOPLE’S REPRESENTATIVES MUST REASSERT THE PEOPLE’S POWER” || By KEN BUCK || This year we celebrated the 239th Anniversary of our American experiment — a form of government that’s helped forge the strongest, freest, most prosperous nation the world has ever known. Born in defiance of tyranny and…

CONGRESSMAN: “THE PEOPLE’S REPRESENTATIVES MUST REASSERT THE PEOPLE’S POWER”

buck|| By KEN BUCK || This year we celebrated the 239th Anniversary of our American experiment — a form of government that’s helped forge the strongest, freest, most prosperous nation the world has ever known. Born in defiance of tyranny and defense of liberty, our nation has survived — and thrived — amidst all manner of conflicts, depressions, scandals and schisms.

Through Civil War, Great Depression, World War and Cold War, America endured as the world’s indispensable nation — advancing individual freedom and free markets to the benefit of growing numbers of citizens at home while providing peace and stability throughout a turbulent world.

Our Constitution wasn’t perfect, obviously. Vital freedoms were added via the Bill of Rights, and subsequent amendments expanded and guaranteed these freedoms to all Americans. The framers knowingly crafted our governing document with the capacity to change — but they never intended for change to consume it.

Buttressing America’s progress through the years has been a simple Constitutional framework — three separate branches of government intended as checks and balances against the others. Erected to guard against the unwarranted, inherently dangerous concentration of power in too few hands, the law-making legislature, law-administering executive and law-interpreting judiciary were prescribed to protect our lives, liberties and the fruits of our labor.

“Ambition must be made to counteract ambition,” framer and fourth president James Madison wrote of this structure.

Conflict between — and within — these branches was anticipated and encouraged, although according to Madison “in republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates.”

What wasn’t encouraged? One branch usurping or undermining authority intended for another — or ignoring or abdicating its own authority in direct contravention of our founding framework.

Sadly, such is contemporary American governance. Decades of regulatory overreach and judicial activism have shattered the “three-legged stool” upon which our Republic rests – sapping our innovation, curtailing our productivity, eroding our freedoms and giving rise to an increasingly unwieldy, unsustainable government.

In the words of William R. Maurer of the Institute for Justice, this ongoing erosion of constitutionally prescribed authority has turned America into “a country in which all the branches of government work in tandem to achieve policy outcomes, instead of checking one another to protect individual rights.”

The beneficiaries? Government — and select special interests. The losers? American citizens, workers and consumers.

Take Obamacare, the passage, implementation and interpretation of which is an ongoing case study in constitutional perversion. Rammed through a Democratic-controlled Congress by the slimmest of margins, Obamacare never would have received a vote in the Senate had a pair of leery Democrats not been bought off with promises of nine-figure earmarks for their states.

Of course in the infamous words of then-U.S. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Congress had to pass the law in order “to find out what was in it.”

Obama promised his health care law would lower insurance costs while permitting every American who liked their coverage plans — or their doctors — to keep them. Both claims were false. We were also repeatedly told Obamacare’s insidious individual mandate was not a tax — only to see the Supreme Court rely on that very definition to uphold its Constitutionality.

Once passed, Obama’s administration amended the law at its convenience — arbitrarily redefining major provisions to fit its political calculus. The most egregious of these “redefinitions?” Imposing Obamacare’s newly-minted taxing authority on the thirty-six states that declined to create state-run exchanges — even though the law explicitly forbade them from doing so. Astoundingly, the Supreme Court ignored both the letter of the law and its clearly stated intent in upholding this provision — thus pulling Obamacare out of the fire a second time.

All these contortions have been undertaken on behalf of a law that — in six years of polling — has not once been supported by a majority of Americans. A law that has, in fact, been consistently opposed by a majority of Americans.

Sound like representative government to you? Of course not …

(To continue reading this piece, press the “Read More …” icon below).

Ken Buck is a former prosecutor who represents Colorado’s 4th Congressional District in the United States Congress.  His column – reprinted with permission – originally appeared on NetRightDaily.com.

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23 comments

Just Me August 2, 2015 at 3:18 pm

This must be the most concentrated, unadulterated truth I have seen in a long time anywhere. The gauntlet is thrown down.

Reply
Just You August 2, 2015 at 3:48 pm

Nothing but typical Right Wing pap that’s been done hundreds of times before.Glad you found it so inspiring.

Tune into Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity tomorrow and you can hear it again!

Reply
SCBlues August 2, 2015 at 5:30 pm

LOL

Just you, just me, let’s find a cozy spot to cuddle and coo . . . . .

Reply
SCBlues August 2, 2015 at 5:28 pm

“This must be the most concentrated, unadulterated truth I have seen in a long time anywhere”
This is actually the most concentrated, unadulterated pile of steaming BS that I have seen in a long time anywhere other than on Fox News!

Reply
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Reply
Ernesto August 2, 2015 at 10:05 pm

Regurgitated fox stew with pinches of half truths and half cooked conspiracy theories.
Go into your right wing radio tine warp – we will wake you up at the next inauguration.

Reply
euwe max August 2, 2015 at 4:15 pm

The Supreme Court is a broomstick up the Republican’s ass.

Reply
SCBlues August 2, 2015 at 5:26 pm

LOL
euwe max – what would this forum be without you?!?
I certainly hope that Fits is paying you big $$$ to post here – you deserve it!

Reply
10-20 August 2, 2015 at 7:02 pm

He is good. He fucked up in ‘Tucumcari’ but has recovered nicely. :)

Reply
euwe max August 3, 2015 at 12:02 am

5150 in progress.

Reply
euwe max August 2, 2015 at 7:32 pm

I just checked my paypal account…

I must be on a profit sharing plan.

Reply
Sic Semper Tyrannis August 2, 2015 at 5:42 pm

I want to smoke pot, why can’t I

Reply
erneba August 2, 2015 at 6:33 pm

Remember, Obama has a “pen and a phone,” and he has freely wielded both.

And we do realize that the President is a political position and will have a viewpoint and a propensity to do things that are controversial in nature. Using that power to implement your agenda without consulting or working with Congress sets a dangerous precedent.

The most disturbing factor, to me, is the politicization of the Cabinet level branches of the Federal Government, the IRS, Justice Department, HUD, etc, should be administered by the President, but no politicized. There should be people in jail at the present time for what happened in the IRS under the Obama Administration.

Reply
Tazmaniac August 3, 2015 at 10:32 am

Don’t forget the JustUs Department!

Reply
tomstickler August 2, 2015 at 6:40 pm

Buck must have had his anti-ACA talking points close at hand.

“Rammed through Congress” — check
Fake Pelosi quote — check
Zombie King v. Burwell argument — check
“Earmarks Payoff” — check

He seems to worship the “three-legged stool” of the government created by the US Constitution, but wants to hacksaw two of the legs — subsidies and the mandate — that are essential for any universal health program, not just Obamacare, to survive.

Reply
flip August 2, 2015 at 6:58 pm

I read your post about the work you did for Planned Parenthood and destroying children.

You are a disgrace as a human being, in my opinion.

Reply
Elfego August 2, 2015 at 8:21 pm

America has the most corrupt government of any. We have more of a Dictatorship than most realize. I predict for the White Man to survive in America we will have a Bloody Civil War. Both Political Party’s use this country by dividing us and they just use it to gain power for a few individuals.

Reply
Ben August 2, 2015 at 10:02 pm

For the ‘white man to survive’ keep circling your wagons and sing the old south African buren songs! What load of crap – and welcome to a multicultural US of A! Now crawl back unde that rock!

Reply
euwe max August 3, 2015 at 2:52 am

America has the most corrupt government of any.

——–
And Republicans claim to be “the good guy!” Ha.. what scum!

Reply
euwe max August 3, 2015 at 2:53 am

Our Constitution wasn’t perfect, obviously.

——–
Talk about dim witted navel staring.

Reply
euwe max August 3, 2015 at 3:11 am

Our Constitution wasn’t perfect, obviously.
——–
Talk about dim witted navel staring.

The framers knowingly crafted our governing document with the capacity to change — but they never intended for change to consume it.
——–

Rewrite history much?

“The potential for amending the Constitution is humongous,” says Richard Hamm, chair of the history department at University at Albany State University of New York. Indeed, he says, the Constitution is so adaptable it could effectively cancel parts of itself out. “You could pass another amendment that could erase the First Amendment or erase the Second Amendment.”

Sadly, such is contemporary American governance. Decades of regulatory overreach and judicial activism have shattered the “three-legged stool” upon which our Republic rests – sapping our innovation, curtailing our productivity, eroding our freedoms and giving rise to an increasingly unwieldy, unsustainable government.
———

That charge rests right in the hands of the Republicans – “money is no object” fighting wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq (the war based on lies)… eroding our freedoms with the patriot act… and now, in the name of the never-ending “war on Terra,” as soon as they can get that black liberal out of their way, Iran!… of course, the legislative branch kept it off the books! “Emergency funding!”.. and very nearly stopped the heart of America, bailing out the bankers without bringing even one to justice. Lots of money to nuke Iran, and lose more freedoms out of fear of retaliation.

Now, sitting on the curb, broke and miserable, America has to listen to this whiny bullshit about having a crushing debt, and seeing our freedoms being eroded, from the very assholes that brought it to us?

And you have the NERVE to talk down to *us* for needing HEALTH CARE? The commercials for “the Wounded Warrior Project” running on television for years… you don’t even want to heal the dupes you sent to war with Rush Limbaugh on AFRN… so that 70% of them actually thought Saddam had something to do with 9/11… losing billions of dollars and arms in the desert while rebuilding Iraq, funding THEIR healthcare, in the middle of a war… what chutzpah!… 700 billion for bankers, but NOTHING for the American people whose children came back in handfuls, or horribly mutilated… gave our health care to the Iraqis… and our grandchildren’s inheritance to gambling bankers.

Sound like representative government to you? Of course not …
———

HEY ULL NO! It sounds like oligarchs fucking us in the ass, and then calling us fags!

Reply
nitrat August 3, 2015 at 12:07 pm

” The commercials for “the Wounded Warrior Project” running on television
for years… you don’t even want to heal the dupes you sent to war with
Rush Limbaugh on AFRN…”

We, the VA, will be paying for 60+ years for the disabled and survivors of Iraq – the elective war – and Afghanistan and the GOP in Congress can’t raise fucking revenue to pay for it because Grover said they couldn’t.

How crazy is that?

Reply
Tom August 3, 2015 at 9:59 am

If you want to see the real threat to our Constitution and the principals upon which our nation was founded look to the aristocracy meeting in the California desert this week. There they will decide which politicians they will try to buy in their bid to reestablish the power of the aristocracy. To rid America of what they perceive as an excess of democracy and a population that no longer knows its proper place in society and who no longer properly respect their betters. And guess what, the invited Republican hopefuls all dutifully flew out to meet them at their designated spot to kiss their feet.

While I am certainly no Trump fan, I could not help but notice they did not invite the one Republican candidate they could not buy. What does that tell you?

I mean really. Could there be anything more sinister, than the Republican leadership meeting secretly with a bunch of Billionaires and Mega Wealthy people to tell them what they will do for them in exchange for money$$$$$.

Reply

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