The U.S. in the World Today

Leonard Liggio
Atlas Economic Research Foundation

The
U.S. in the World Today

The Philadelphia
Society
National Meeting
Sheraton Society Hill Hotel
April 2, 2006

I
was thinking recently of the Founding Fathers. It struck me that there would
be a vast difference in quality if a Constitutional Convention were held
today. Thinking back more than fifty years, say before the death of Senator
Robert A. Taft in 1953, the quality of delegates today would be abysmal.
One would fear putting any decisions in their hands.

In
1929 Harvard professor Charles Warren published his book, Congress
as Santa Claus. Little could he imagine what was in the future.
Could he imagine that with almost six years of Republican Party
control of the government, there would be the most profligate spending
spree in history? Since the burden of paying for that spending will fall on the
upcoming generation, one hopes that there is improvement in
schooling so that they have the skills to be sufficiently productive to pay
for these escalating financial burdens placed on them by the Congress.

These
are the same congresspersons who have run around recently like chickens
with their heads cut off, interfering in President Bush’s normal operations of
the executive branch. The congresspersons have behaved like
clowns or imbeciles.

Meanwhile,
they have remained comatose in the face of dangerous exercise
of powers not granted to the executive by the U. S. Constitution. The congresspersons
are so enthused with their clownish behavior that they eschew
undertaking their serious constitutional responsibilities.

One begins to feel that we are entering a stage similar to the late Roman Republic with the beginning of Imperial rule. The legislators act
like fools. Efficient Augustus gave way to maniacs. Can it be that The
American Republic will share the fate of
Rome with the election of
Poppaea, Nero’s wife?