Excessive Government is the Problem
Draining the swamp, disenfranchising voters, ignoring the will of the people, and special interest groups influence have all combined to cause people to lose faith in their government. The media is downplaying this movement but the election in 2016 proved them wrong.
Donald Trump was elected president according to the constitutional framework of how our government operates with power to the states and the electoral college. This tremendous disdain for his victory or the victory of the people is disconcerting to the government infrastructure threatened by his very existence.
Is it time for a Government Antitrust Act to protect us from the very government that was designed to protect us- the people
Many laws protect us against abusive businesses.
Some laws protect us against abusive unions.
But what laws effectively protect us against abusive government?
The Sherman Antitrust Act, the Clayton Antitrust Act, and the RICO statutes have been enacted due to real or perceived market abuses or attempts to control a market by big business, big labor or organized crime.
Antitrust laws are intended to protect us against business and unions. But the protections against intrusive government are fragmented at best.
This government abuse starts with the way our government is empowered and its monopoly protected.
The health care bill, the financial services industry restructuring, the Patriot Act and a host of other bills, rules, regulations, and controls are all serving to quickly erode the very liberties upon which our Nation was founded.
Our Nation was founded upon the principles that we were endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights to include the rights of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
The current climate in Washington is trampling on those rights as our individual freedoms are quickly and systematically eroded and the swamp is fighting for its life so that it will not be drained. This fight is actually about our freedoms. It is about who controls the government or who controls the people.
A government that feels you are not capable of making sound, rational choices and decisions is supplanting your wisdom and self-determination with those of the collective good in their minds. The concept of taking personal responsibility has been lost. Being a “career politician†has overridden the need to serve the very people who elected them.
The only common denominator that I found in all of this common dissatisfaction is the word big or monopolistic power.
Perhaps big business, big government, big unions are the culprits.
As our founding fathers wrote, it is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people! Those words were true in 1776 and those words are true today.
The time to enact a Government Antitrust Act is now. The law must protect us from the very government that is supposed to protect us. Unfortunately, the bill must be passed and signed by the very people we are seeking protection from.
Because of the government’s failure to regulate itself, a law is needed to protect the American people from improper actions by elected leaders. Such a law would establish the same type of trust and accountability upon elected officials as we have come to expect of business leaders.
The Government Antitrust Act would require elected officials in the Executive Branch, the House of Representatives, and the Senate, as well as political appointees, to be held to same standard of financial and ethical responsibility that they demand of leaders in business.
The Act would require:
1. Eliminating campaign finance laws restricting contributions by individuals in the political process
2. Requiring that candidates for public office meet the same standards as required of candidates of the “major†political parties to enforce open and fair ballot access and
3. Elimination of all pensions for elected officials of Congress, the Senate and the President and Vice President of the United States.
4. Impose sanctions for improper actions by elected officials to include, failing to account for public funds and passing unfunded mandates, using public funds for any financial supporter to a candidate’s campaign without a full ethics disclosure and review, failing to implement a system of internal controls over financial reporting of government entities (the Federal Government cannot produce a balance sheet!!) waste, fraud and abuse to include pork type projects without a cost-benefit analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.
The Government Antitrust Act ideally would require restitution by the government for overreach of their powers. This restitution is critical to enable a level playing field with an out of control government.
Let the lawmakers be warned, the people are speaking and we will be heard. The swamp will be drained.
Our Freedoms of speech, religion, assembly and seeking redress from government are meaningless if career politicians control the political process which protects those rights.
Col. Frank Ryan, CPA, USMCR (Ret) represents the 101st District in the PA House of Representatives. He is a retired Marine Reserve Colonel and served in Iraq and briefly in Afghanistan and specializes in corporate restructuring. He has served on numerous boards of publicly traded and non-profit organizations. He can be reached at [email protected].