Pig(ford)s at the trough

(Important blogger's note: the title of this post is in no means to be interpreted as disparaging or demeaning to Mr. Timothy Pigford, the original named lead plaintiff in the class action suit that led to this travesty.)

"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."

"With respect to the two words 'general welfare', I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."

Those two quotes are by James Madison, and on those topics, he'd be an authority as one of the principle authors of both the Constitution of the United States and the Federalist Papers written in support of the Constitution's ratification.

Last week, The New York Times came across a story of incredible fraud, waste, and graft coming out of the United States Department of Agriculture, generically known as "Pigford". Naturally, the Times was somewhat late to the game as the late Andrew Breitbart was on the story over two years before, and it has also been reported on by Breitbart.com writer Lee Stranahan, as well as numerous other new media sources.

Today is "Blog about Pigford Day", and rather than rehash all the details of the scandal in total, I'm choosing instead to comment on the root cause of how we got there. Naturally, it all comes back to the Constitution, and willful departure from the limited enumerated powers of our government.

State of the Union's Laundry List

I didn't watch President Barack Obama's State of the Union address last night. Haven't read the transcript either, and don't plan to. Didn't take in either of the responses by Senators Marco Rubio and Rand Paul, either. For the record, and in interests of full disclosure, if Mitt Romney had won the presidency last November, I probably wouldn't have watched regardless. What's the point? Was the "state of the union" really given last night, or did we just get another litany of governmental expansion wishes and executive lecture to the Congress and assembled others?

As Ed Morrissey wrote this morning at Hot Air ("The laundry list event"):

No, the problem with this and nearly every SOTU is that it reads like Congress is Santa Claus, the President is the greedy kid, and all the rest of us are the elves in the workshop.  Almost without exception for every President in memory, the SOTU is a dressed-up version of a campaign platform filled with “I wants” and “you’d better bring mes,”  interrupted only by mindless applause and standing ovations for the most mundane of rhetoric.  That didn’t start with Obama (we should only have been so lucky!) and it won’t end with him either.  The result is a themeless, pointless, and unmemorable ramble through the arcane fighting points of the day, and no coherence whatsoever other than “gimme.”

Seriously, if I wanted to watch things running around in circles, being preened, and soaking up adoring applause as politicians are so apt to do - rather than actually accomplishing anything - there was a much better option for that last night! (Actually, I watched the Monday part of that off the DVR, last night will be watched tonight).

Back last September on the day President Obama addressed the United Nations, I wrote up the speech I'd give were I the President of the United States standing before that body. So, in that spirit, here's the address given by a hypothetical President Allan Bourdius, newly elected last November, on February 12, 2013 to a joint session of Congress.

Harvesting Apathy

Governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA) gave one heck of a speech to the winter meeting of the Republican National Committee a week ago tonight. In fact, it was perhaps the best anti-statist speech given by an elected official in my recent memory. I encourage you to watch it if you haven't, or at least read Governor Jindal's remarks as prepared.

Just one of the great points he made spoke to building an electoral majority.

We must compete for every single vote. The 47 percent and the 53 percent. And any other combination of numbers that adds up to 100 percent. President Barack Obama and the Democrats can continue trying to divide America into groups of warring communities with competing interests, but we will have none of it. We are going after every vote as we work to unite all Americans.

He's absolutely right. Back in my electoral post-mortem (subheading "On Widening the Map") I noted the necessity of reaching voters, communities, and regions who are considered lost or not worth challenging for in the current political calculus. Libertarians and conservatives are doomed to defeat and extinction unless the map is widened.

There's another crop of citizens to harvest as well: the forty to sixty percent of Americans who don't politically engage or vote in biennial national elections. We've got to get past people's apathy and get them involved. And on that, I've got a wild premise. Could it be that American apathy is actually an asset in disguise?

Your Government at Work

Were you aware that there is an entire web site dedicated to documenting the daily encroachment of our Federal government on our daily lives? It's even done by the USG itself: Regulations.gov!

Here's a great one that really shows our government focusing in like a laser beam on what is important to our daily lives and livelihoods: "Energy Conservation Program: Test Procedures for Residential Clothes Washers".

The available SNOPR document (that's a "Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking" for the uninitiated) shows how busy and productive the bureaucrats at the Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy have been in consuming your tax dollars. This supplemental notice is 36 pages long and contains things like the approved procedure of the United States Government for setting a washing machine dial (page 12):

The current test procedure specifies the wash time setting to be used in the energy test cycle....[F]or certain clothes washers equipped with an electromechanical dial to control wash time, the dial may yield different results for the same setting depending on the direction in which the dial is turned to reach the desired setting. DOE believes that consistency in setting the wash time in such cases may be achieved by resetting the dial to the minimum wash time and then turning it in the direction of increasing wash time to reach the desired setting. If the desired setting is passed, the dial should not be turned in the direction of decreasing wash time to reach the setting. Instead, the dial should be returned to the minimum wash time and then turned in the direction of increasing wash time until the desired setting is reached. DOE, therefore, proposes to add these clarifications to the wash time setting provisions in both appendix J1 and appendix J2.

Thirty-six pages detailing proposed changes to rules and regulations that cite other rules and regulations issued by a laundry list (pun intended) of other agencies and offices throughout the USG - not to mention the pages that list how this SNOPR complies with laws, rules, and regulations itself.. DOE helpfully estimates on page 17 that the current energy consumption testing costs for a washing machine manufacturer is only $2,300 per particular model and that the new rules will only increase that by $75. I seriously doubt the costs of actually complying with all the regulations is factored in.

We can, however, be assured and thankful that this particular DOE SNOPR does not endanger the family (page 18):

Section 654 of the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act, 1999 (Pub. L. 105-277) requires Federal agencies to issue a Family Policymaking Assessment for any rule that may affect family well-being. This rule would not have any impact on the autonomy or integrity of the family as an institution. Accordingly, DOE has concluded that it is not necessary to prepare a Family Policymaking Assessment.

Yeah, we can all breathe easier now...