Reconstructing the Republic:
A Constitutional Battle Plan
Reconstructing the Republic with a Constitutional Battle Plan to restore government accountability, with historical perspective, is the subject of two addresses made by Howard Phillips.
Who has responsibility to be the keepers of the gates?
“Until you are giving a preponderance of your time, a preponderance of your money, a preponderance of your reputation to rescuing this country, you can't say that you have the right to pull out and take up arms against the government, or possibly to withdraw and abstain from responsibility to the decisions made by your government. We have a responsibility to be the keepers of the gates.” -- Howard Phillips
Howard Phillips is the founder of the Conservative Caucus and of the US Taxpayers Alliance. In his astute analysis of the deteriorating situation and his carefully drafted plan for reconstructing the Republic, Howard Phillips outlines the way back to sanity, giving answers to questions people have been asking for decades. He describes the process by which a President can terminate all Federal activities which transgress the delegated enumerated functions prescribed in the Constitution.
Though he has worked for years in Washington and knows his way around the Beltway, Howard Phillips is not just another bureaucrat. To read this compilation of excerpts from two addresses is to recognize that there is someone eminently more qualified for the office of the presidency and infinitely better prepared to govern than anyone who has won this position in at least the last 90 years. Howard Phillips was doing his homework while most of us were still fast asleep. He has a plan for reconstructing the republic.
(These addresses were made in 1991 and 1993, so some of his comments are a bit dated, but truth is truth, and does not get outdated.)
I The Premises of Liberty
The Basis for Reconstructing the Republic
Laws and Rights
Forms of Government
General Welfare
Theft
Wilson's Reconstitution
Our Responsibility
II Crisis in Accountability
The Necessity for Reconstructing the Republic
Pension System
Source of Congressional Pay
Civil Service System
Non-Profit Corporations
Federal Reserve System
Runaway Judiciary
Government Land Ownership
Regulatory Agencies
Foreign Aid
New World Order
World Trade Organization
UN Convention
on the Rights of the Child
III The Debt Crisis
More Necessity for Reconstructing the Republic
Spending
Taxes
Interest
Why the Money Will Inflate
IV The Constitutional Battle Plan
for Reconstructing the Republic
How Money is Disbursed (and can be cut off)
More Gain than Loss
Legitimate Disbursement
Constitutional Tools
Publish Glad Tidings
How It Could Happen
Facing the Odds
One Third Plus One in One House
There really are only three views: law is either revealed from God, or the product of man's reason, or a gift from the state. The framers of American liberty had no doubt that our rights were a gift from God and they accepted the admonition of the New Testament that the purpose of civil government is to be a ministry of justice and a terror to evil doers. That is the purpose of civil government. -- Howard Phillips
I The Premises of Liberty
The Basis for Reconstructing the Republic
Laws and Rights
ONE REASON our country became great is that it was founded on the right principles. First of all, in the states which came together to form a more perfect union, the British common law was the basis of the law system. And the common law was rooted in God's Word -- rooted in the Bible. There was no doubt of the fact that this was a Christian country based on a Christian law system. The laws of every state, while they reflected different denominational preferences, nevertheless were rooted in the Word of God. One of the reasons we have so many debates today about abortion, pornography, homosexuality and other things, is that we are really debating about the religion of the nation.
That doesn't mean that everyone has to have the same religion, but it does mean that people have to be agreed on what the law system of the country is. It can't be two things. There has to be one law system. In a pluralistic law system, laws would be in conflict. Either theft is wrong, or it isn't wrong. Either sodomy is wrong, or it isn't. Either abortion is wrong, or it isn't. If you look in any good dictionary you will discover that another word for religion is law, and another word for law is religion. And the argument today is whether the Christian law system which undergirds our country will be maintained or will be cast aside. The debate can be described in other terms by those who want to disguise its real meaning; but that, in fact, is the nature of the debate. One side will win and one side will lose.
Those who reject these premises of American liberty are trying to overturn them, and many of those who believe in the premises don't even know that there is a war going on. Those people have to wake up, or they are going to lose it -- we are going to lose it.
The framers who wrote the Declaration of Independence said, "We are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights."
People of the socialist persuasion believe that our rights are whatever the state says they are. The state can give and the state can take away.
Libertarians say our rights are a product of man's reason rather than from God's revelation.
There really are only three views: law is either revealed from God, or the product of man's reason, or a gift from the state. The framers of American liberty had no doubt that our rights were a gift from God and they accepted the admonition of the New Testament that the purpose of civil government is to be a ministry of justice and a terror to evil doers. That is the purpose of civil government. It is not the purpose of civil government to redistribute the wealth. It is not the legitimate purpose of civil government to interfere in areas in which it has no proper function.
Forms of Government
Civil government is not the only form of government. The most important government we have is family government. Every family has a ministry of justice. Children, either by indifference or by action, learn what is right and what is wrong from their parents. There is a ministry of justice. In a good family if children do wrong they get spanked, they get told what is right. There is a ministry of education. Parents are indeed responsible for the way in which their children are raised up. There is a ministry or department of welfare, where family members in need are cared for. There is a ministry of health in a family. I'd much rather trust that ministry than any by Hillary Rodham Clinton or her husband. That ministry of health cares for members of the family.
We hear a lot about the separation of church and state. I'd be more interested in the separation of medicine from state, because healing does not come from bureaucrats and politicians. It comes from God. It is really important not to have bureaucrats in the middle of that function. It is most important that we defeat all forms of socialized medicine.
Of course there's another important ministry within a family. That's the ministry of transportation. Every mom is busy driving her kids around to this lesson, or that appointment, or that ball game. So you can see that the family is a unit of government.
A farm can be a unit of government. A church has governing responsibilities; a labor union ..., an academic institution ... There are many, many governments. Civil government is just one of them. Civil government has no right to trespass on the legitimate functions of the other governing institutions of our society, and we have to be very careful to limit what civil government can do.
General Welfare
The framers understood that, and in the preamble to the Constitution of the United States, they carefully indicated what the Federal government should do and what it should not do. They wrote,
"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and to our posterity [even to our unborn posterity] do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States."
Those were the explicit functions. By "promoting the general welfare" they didn’t mean redistributing the wealth. They meant that the general welfare would be promoted rather than the welfare of special interests. They were guarding against the possibility that one state would be preferred to another. The purpose of the Federal government was to apply justice equally to all the states and to promote the general welfare of them all and not to give preference to any one state.
Theft
The story is told of the tourist visiting our nation's capital, who is strolling down Pennsylvania Avenue, admiring the view in front of the White House, when suddenly he is accosted by a well-dressed man in a three-piece suit who pokes a pistol in his ribs and urges poignantly, "Sir, I'm sorry to trouble you. I don't like this any more than you do, but I'm collecting funds for a very worthy homeless project here in Washington, D.C. We're short of funds, so I'm taking up a collection. That'11 be $100 please, or I'll blow your brains out."
Despite his declaration of charitable intent that person who thinks he is working for a good cause is a thief. He is also a fool, because if he moved a few blocks uptown to Capitol Hill, he could do the same thing by majority vote -- with a larger return -- and be called a Congressman.
The Bible commands: "Thou Shalt Not Steal." Theft is wrong -- even when it is achieved in elegant surroundings, during broad daylight, and by majority vote. Whenever government takes your money for a purpose beyond its legitimate functions it is guilty of theft just as you would be guilty of theft if you robbed a bank.
It is also important to remember that if it isn't in the Constitution the Federal Government does not have the authority to do it. Lest there be any doubt about that, when the Bill of Rights was attached to the Constitution of the United States, it was punctuated by the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, which made very clear that all powers not explicitly granted to the Federal government were reserved to the states or to the people of the United States. That was a very important principle, but unfortunately it is a principle which has been forgotten by many of our politicians, if not all of them.
Wilson's Reconstitution
Step by step, the framers' original constitutional design has been altered. In this century alone, radical transformations have been made.
Woodrow Wilson came to the presidency in 1912, not so much to preside as to reconstitute.
Although he was not alone responsible, during Wilson's tenure, the income tax was introduced, paving the way for wholesale expropriations of our resources, invasions of our privacy, and restrictions on our liberty.
Similarly, the Federal Reserve system was established, giving powerful private individuals, beyond public scrutiny or electoral accountability, the authority to manipulate the value of our money without reference either to its intrinsic value, to the increase or decrease of residual assets, or even to productivity.
Under Wilson, we got for the first time an unconstitutional military conscription, which indentured our youth to fight and die in World War I -- not to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrection, or repel invasion, as Article I, Section 8 stipulates. It was patently unconstitutional. The case was brought before the Supreme Court and the court refused to hear it -- because they did not want to interfere with the political and economic powers that be. But it was unconstitutional.
In the aftermath, we almost got a League of Nations, which, had it succeeded, would have sped up the timetable for an evil "New World Order" by several decades.
We also got, under Mr. Wilson, a 17th Amendment which, by providing for the direct election of U.S. Senators, increased the power of Big Media and Big Money in our political campaigns, even as it undercut the intended role of the states in our federal system.
Every liberal President in this century has come to town with an agenda which has undercut the Constitution, altered our political arrangements, and diminished our liberty.
Unfortunately, even those Republican Presidents, who campaigned for office as conservatives, did little or nothing, once inaugurated, to reverse course or change direction. It's easy to conclude that every recent President -- in terms of departure from constitutional principles and expansion of federal power -- has been worse than his predecessor.
At the same time, too many of us have failed to hold our public officials and political leaders accountable.
Our Responsibility
Many people despair of rescuing this country from the political abyss into which it has fallen. But we have no right to despair until we have used all the opportunities which God has given us to try to set things right by the peaceful means provided for by the Constitution of the United States. Until you are giving a preponderance of your time, a preponderance of your money, a preponderance of your reputation to rescuing this country, you can't say that you have the right to pull out and take up arms against the government, or possibly to withdraw and abstain from responsibility to the decisions made by your government. We have a responsibility to be the keepers of the gates.
We have the responsibility to supervise our employees in the government of the United States and to hold them accountable to right principles. If we fail to exercise our supervisory responsibilities, the blame for the problems in the government belongs to us as much as it does to the perpetrators of wrongdoing. Now that isn't to say that it is easy or even likely in human terms that we will prevail, but we do have an obligation to exhaust every possible way by peacefully using this political system to make it once again accountable to the Biblical premises and the constitutional boundaries which were bequeathed to us by the founders of our nation.
Reconstructing our republic is the only way to restore the constitutional protections of our liberty.
We must go back to the system of constitutional money. We will not be able to hold our politicians accountable until we get rid of the Fed. -- Howard Phillips
II Crisis in Accountability
The Necessity for Reconstructing the Republic
In order for civil government to be legitimate, it must be accountable. Our civil government today, especially the federal government, has become a law unto itself, rather than an instrument for the people who gave it the authority which it seeks to exercise. Most decisions should be made in the private sector. Most decisions should be subject to either family accountability, or business accountability, or the market place, or whatever. Whenever decision-making authority is taken over by civil government, civil government must permit the people to restrain its activities, to overview and hold it accountable for its activities through the electoral process.
In our lifetime we have seen the transfer of power, not simply from the private sector to the public sector, but from the state and local level to the federal level, from elected officials to appointed officials, from appointed officials to career bureaucrats, and from career bureaucrats to the personnel of private organizations which are given money not only to implement policies determined upon by electorally accountable public officials, but to influence policies and in some cases to make policy.
There are several significant threats to the principle of accountability -- to the idea that the government works for you, that the politicians are public servants accountable to you.
Pension System
There are many things we could talk about. One thing we can talk about is the pension system. It is an outrage that any elected official should receive a pension for public service in an elected office. The service of an elected office is a temporary opportunity to give back to our society some of the benefits received from it. It is not supposed to be a career. One of the reasons we have unaccountable career politicians is that we pay them to be career politicians. We need to eliminate congressional pensions.
Source of Congressional Pay
Another thing we need to do is to return control over congressional pay from the members of Congress themselves to the legislatures of the states which send them to Washington. Now I think the 17th Amendment was a pretty bad amendment. Until the 17th Amendment the state legislatures chose their U.S. Senators. This had a couple of dvantages. One, it meant that you didn't have to be a millionaire to be elected to the U.S. Senate. You didn't have to accommodate big media to be elected to the Senate. Someone with no resources, by virtue of being well-respected by his colleagues in the legislature could win election to the Senate.
But more important than that, it meant that the states were represented in the United States Senate and that the states were able to exercise a restraining influence on the Federal government.
One of the oldest rules of life is that he who pays the piper calls the tune. The members of Congress set their own salaries and they call their own tune. But if the voters back home, through their state legislatures decide whether they will be paid and how much they will be paid, it will shift the balance of power back to the states and people and make it less likely that members of Congress will be a law unto themselves exempting themselves from many of the laws they pass.
Civil Service System
We need to change the Civil Service System. I was in a major federal agency which had a multi-million-dollar budget directly and indirectly. I had 2000 civil servants who reported to me. Another 500,000 people worked for private organizations which the agency I headed funded, who worked for themselves. People of the agency only theoretically worked for me, because they worked to thwart everything that I did. They disagreed with everything I was doing. I was trying to close the agency down.
But the problem of the Civil Service System is the executive department heads in the government have no ability to hire or fire at will. The President of the United States has the ability to name only one or two thousand people, whereas there are millions of people in the Federal government, most of whom stay there no matter who the President is; and if they disagree with his policy, they can thwart it with impunity. Almost no one ever gets fired by the Federal government. Its very difficult to fire. They have all kinds of protections that prevent their getting fired. We do not have an accountable political system. They have the ability to spend money in whatever way they want, virtually without review or without accountability. That’s the reality of the Civil Service System.
If you want evidence of the kinds of abuses to which it can lead, study the case of Aldrich Ames. Aldrich Ames is the person who, as head of Soviet Counter Intelligence Agency at the United Stated Central Intelligence Agency, betrayed you and me -- betrayed our country and turned over information to Moscow which led to the murder of 12 people and more who were intelligence assets of the United States. In any ordinary organization Aldrich Ames would have been fired years ago. He was known to be a drunkard, incompetent, and was known to publicly oppose the policies of the government of the United States. Indeed, in open conversations with his friends he called himself a Stalinist. Not just a liberal, he was a Stalinist. Instead of being fired he was promoted. This kind of thing happens every day in the government of the United States and is one reason the civil service system has to be eliminated or radically reformed.
Non-Profit Corporations
Another threat to accountability is what I call government by non profit corporations. Most people do not even know that this exists. It was started during the days of the Great Society. Under the Great Society people in the federal executive branch bureaucracy were given the authority to create new organizations which were called non-profit corporations which had self-designated and self-perpetuated boards of governors, and they were able to give your tax dollars to these organizations.
These organizations were given the authority to do many things. They were given the authority to lobby, they were given the authority to organize, to bring law suits, to organize coalitions, to organize demonstrations, they were given the authority to promote their agenda -- one of them is National Gay Men's Health Crisis, which uses your tax dollars to run pro-homosexual advertisements in newspapers, television, and subways in New York City. Most people don't realize that is a tax-funded organization -- millions of dollars. There's an organization in California called Coyote, which is a union of prostitutes which received a grant of about $200,000 during the Bush administration. The reason it received the money is that prostitutes had experience in dealing with people who had problems with AIDS, so they were given money to teach people about making their sexual practices less hazardous. On their agenda, however, abstinence was nowhere mentioned. Monogamy was nowhere mentioned. This was funded by Ronald Reagan and George Bush. There are hundreds of similar organizations.
These kinds of organizations have received scores and scores of millions of dollars. In the early 1980s the Urban Institute, which is itself a government-subsidized non-profit corporation, reported that then -- this was in '82 or '83 -- $40 billion dollars a year out of the federal treasury was being shared by more than than 100,000 non-profit groups. These groups, in turn, used their large staff to lobby for more federal grants. And these entities are in every federal department and agency, some in the State Department, the Transportation Department, the Department of Urban Development, Small Business Administration, National Endowment for the Arts, Legal Services, Department of Health and Human Services, Center for Disease Control ... .
And these organizations are a law unto themselves. They have more influence on public policy in many cases than our elected Senators and Congressmen. And they are able to use the courts to advance their agenda. They are able to use the media to advance their agenda. We need to cut off their money -- lock, stock, and barrel. It is a very simple thing to do. We need only to get Presidents who will veto the appropriations. But do you know something? All the Presidents we have had, have not only not cut off their money, they have proposed it. The money for them has been in the budgets of Richard Nixon, Jerry Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Bill Clinton. We haven't had a President who has even tried to cut off their money. So that's another threat to accountability which undergirds our political system.
Federal Reserve System
Federal Reserve is a threat to accountability. The framers of the Constitution had no provision for a private organization to kill trees and put green ink on paper and call it money. Under the Constitution of the United States, Congress was granted the power to coin money and regulate the value thereof; and the reason they talked about coining money, rather than creating Federal Reserve Notes and other forms of paper, was that money was intended to be apolitical. It was intended to have a value by weight. The Federal Reserve must be eliminated. We must go back to the system of constitutional money. We will not be able to hold our politicians accountable until we get rid of the Fed.
The Fed is an instrument through which greedy people, with no respect for your rights, manipulate the political process and make it harder for this to be a country of independent families and free individuals. The Federal Reserve is one of the biggest dangers ever created, and it has a practical impact. This, my friends, is a fact.
Runaway Judiciary
Another threat is the run-away judiciary. The judiciary has no right to make laws. The judiciary has no right to disregard the oath which judges take under the Constitution and substitute its opinions for the opinions of the people as well as legislators.
But the good news is that you have as much right to interpret the Constitution of the United States as does the Chief Justice. Every state legislator has this right, every governor, every member of Congress. The Supreme Court and the lower courts have no monopoly in terms of determining what the meaning of the Constitution of the United States is.
The decisions of our Federal courts are binding only on the parties to the case. Rowe v. Wade was binding on Rowe and was binding on Wade but on none other. That's an important principle to remember. It's a principle which is true. The Supreme Court does not have the power to overrule the Constitution. It does not have the power to overrule you. It only has jurisdiction over the parties to the case.
Another interesting fact: under the Constitution of the United States the only court which has organic or permanent standing is the Supreme Court of the United States. All the inferior courts, every federal court of appeals, every federal district court -- every one of them is a creature of statute. That which is created by statute can be abolished by statute. They can also be abolished by having their money cut off. We do not have to live with unconstitutional judges. We can cut off their money, we can throw them out on their ear.
There is an illusion that federal judges have life tenure. That certainly isn't true. Nothing in the Constitution grants life tenure to federal judges. It says they shall serve during good behavior. "Good behavior" is very different from "life tenure." "Good behavior" was not intended by the framers to be "life tenure." Read the debates at the convention and you'll see that is the case.
Government Land Ownership
The Constitution gives the federal government the power to own land for two purposes only. One, to maintain a federal district -- the District of Columbia, and two, to maintain necessary military facilities.
But do you know that in some states the federal government owns 80 to 90% of the land? States like Nevada, like Utah. Even in California they just declared another umpteen millions of acres off limits to the public.
What the federal government is doing is emulating the royal family's role. There are certain lands that belong to the king and no one can hunt there without the king's permission. No one can travel there without the king's permission. The government of the United States is assuming an illicit monarchical position which is totally beyond the Constitution. The explicit language in the Constitution prohibits the government of the United States from controlling any land except for those two purposes. That land has to be returned to the states and to the people.
Regulatory Agencies
Regulatory agencies: Every regulatory agency from the Internal Revenue Service to the Federal Communication Commission is unconstitutional. Under the Constitution of the United States, Article I, reads, "All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States." All legislative powers. Judges may not have legislative powers. Regulatory agencies may not have legislative powers. If there is a regulatory function formed at the federal level it's got to be performed by people whom you can hold accountable at the ballot box. That is why that language is so clear in the Constitution.
A case in point is the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. I don't favor racial discrimination. There's not a bigoted bone in my body. But I do oppose Federal Government telling private individuals, families, and businesses who they can hire, who they can fire, what they can do in the work place. The very existence of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is an affront to the Constitution. It should be abolished. It has no right to exist. It is a disgrace. Again, funding for it was increased by Republican Presidents who were afraid of being criticized as being against quotas and equal employment opportunity.
The threat to ghetto-ize American religion -- the threat to deny freedom of religious speech in the work place -- is one of the most outrageous and offensive plans ever considered by any government agency. Even though Congress has expressed opposition to these outrageous policies the bureaucrats are very persistent. It's like cancer. Unless you eliminate the cancer you die. It isn’t enough to say "You can’t pass this regulation." It isn't enough to cut back their money. You must eliminate the agency, otherwise they will haunt your house.
Foreign Aid
In May [1991], I led a 40-person Baltic Liberation Tour to Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, where all those anti-Communists whom we met pleaded with us not to delay their day of self-determination by assigning funds to the central government of the Soviet Union.
The Baltic leaders viewed Gorbachev not as a great reformer but as an instrument of tyranny, whose sweet smiles masked the brutal, murderous activities of the Red Army, the KGB, the Black Berets and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
They pointed out that with an official ruble to dollar exchange rate of at least 32 to one, every dollar of aid to Moscow in fact provided the Soviet Nomenklatura more than $32 of leverage over the lives of occupied peoples, who each seldom earned more than 300 rubles per month.
[And nowhere does the Constitution authorize any expenditure for foreign aid.]
New World Order
In recent years there has been another growing threat to the accountability of our institutions. This is one of the most serious threats we have ever faced. This is the threat of the New World Order. The New World Order began to take form during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson who was instrumental in creating the League of Nations. Even though the United States did not join it, we supported it in many ways, and it had an effect on our institutions.
After World War II the initial New World Order institutions were created, the World Bank, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the International Monetary Fund which came out of something called Bretton Woods, and the United Nations.
Of course, while the Declaration of Independence was written by Thomas Jefferson and his colleagues, and the Constitution of the United States was written by the great patriots assembled in Philadelphia, the charter of the United Nations was written by a Soviet spy named Alger Hiss and was given force and effect with the signature not just of Franklin Roosevelt but of Joseph Stalin. I don't think any of us should have to pledge allegiance to the flag of the United Nations. I don't think any of our young people should fight for any flag but the stars and stripes. I don't believe that we should ever send our military forces beyond our borders for any purpose except those purposes spelled out in the Constitution.
Under the Constitution the President can licitly call out the militia for only three purposes. One: to uphold the Constitution. Two: to suppress insurrection. Three: to repel foreign invasion.
It is unconstitutional for our troops to serve under UN direction, in Macedonia, in Bosnia, Rwanda or any of the other places around the world to which they have been sent and to which they are about to be assigned. It is completely and totally unconstitutional. Bill Clinton is acting unconstitutionally when he assigns U.S. troops in the manner in which he has been assigning them. Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution says "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the army and the navy of the United States and of the militia of the several states when called into the actual service of the United States." So Bill Clinton does not act as Commander in Chief, and he loses his authority as Commander in Chief, when he purports to assign the defense forces of the United States to the service of the United Nations. That is unconstitutional, and there is no legitimate basis for sending our troops to Macedonia, to Rwanda, or to any such place.
The New World Order, through NAFTA, the dangerous new world trade organization, usurps our liberties, by taking control over money from your taxes for federal trade, and by taking control over decisions which should be made by members of Congress and state legislatures of the United States.
World Trade Organization
Under the World Trade Organization Rwanda and Haiti would have twice as many votes as the United States of America. They would be able to join with other countries in overturning the laws of the United States of America nd in proposing sanctions on our country. Yet the World Trade Organization agreement has been endorsed by every one of the 50 governors and by the leaders of both major political parties in Washington, D.C.
When the framers declared our independence they were declaring our nation because they understood that nationhood was a prerequisite to liberty. Your government cannot protect your liberties if your government surrenders its decision making powers to foreign entities which are beyond accountability to you.
UN Convention on Rights of Child
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is horrendous. Almost all the treaties which are being considered are horrendous. Just as the World Trade Organization permits international entities to interfere with decisions that are to be made by Congress or the private sector, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child would establish a new form of law governing parent/child relationships. And it would seek to superimpose the authority not just for the nation state, but for international bureaucracies that would come against the powers of the fathers and mothers.
My son, who works for Home School Legal Defense Association, has written a paper critiquing the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child; and if you would like a copy of it leave me your name and address.
There are a lot of terrible treaties that have been ratified, or may soon be ratified. The Genocide Convention was ratified during the Reagan administration; it had been in the bowels of Congress since the Truman years. Reagan raised it up and got it ratified.
Reagan correctly fought something called the UN Law of the Sea Treaty which would give international bodies control over access to the bottom of the sea. Clinton has revived that treaty and it is going to be debated in Congress this fall.
I believe that the President of the United States has the right to disregard treaties which transgress against the Constitution.
Look at Article VI. It says this ...
The Constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof, and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land.
Any treaty which transgresses the Constitution of the United States takes authority away from the government of the United States which the government has no right to give. This is unconstitutional. The government of the United States has no right to surrender anything which it has not been given. You cannot give the federal government the right of control over your family. If the government purports to surrender that control to the UN, even if that covenant is ratified by the US Senate and is supported by every other country in the world, all we need is a President who will say that their writ does not run in the United States of America. That's what we need.
All these threats to accountability exist, and they constitute in the aggregate a crisis in accountability. Unless we deal with this crisis in accountability properly, what was once a free and independent nation will no longer be so in our lifetime -- perhaps by the end of the century.
Reconstructing our republic is the only way to restore accountability.
... what happens if the dollar is no longer desired overseas. At that point all the dollars come home, and then we'll see real inflation. And, friends, that is going to happen before the the year 2000. And the reason that is going to happen is that the "dollar" is sinking steadily in the international credit market. Howard Phillips
III The Debt Crisis
More Necessity for Reconstructing the Republic
Now, a more obvious crisis coming to the fore is the debt crisis which faces our country. The debt crisis is the crisis which is going to precipitate a political crisis in the United States of America. Most people are very selfish. Maybe 30 million unborn children murdered in their mothers' wombs doesn't get their attention. Maybe government support for homosexual degenerancy has corrupted our blood supply and placed at risk the lives of thousands of innocent people. That doesn't get their attention. Pornography doesn't get their attention. Other things don't get their attention.
But what gets their attention is having less money to spend and their taxes raised when things get tough economically. My friends, America is going to face its most serious economic crisis ever. We're going to face hyper-inflationary depression far more intense than anything that was seen during the great depression of the 30's. The reason is because 2 and 2 still make 4. I can't tell you when it's going to happen, because the government has the ability to delay the inevitable. It can't prevent the inevitable, but it can delay it.
Here are the facts. Let me share a few statistics with you.
Spending
In 1961, when John F. Kennedy became President, the federal government was spending $97 billion a year. 20 years later in 1981 it was spending $678 billion. In 1991 it was spending $1.3 trillion a year. So it basically doubled its spending during those first two years of the Reagan and Bush administration. It was not for defense. The Reagan spending increases were twice as great for non-defense spending as they were for defense spending.
Taxes
In 1961 the government collected $94 billion in taxes. In 1987, $599 billion. In 1991, $1.1 trillion. So again it doubled from '81 to '91 during the Reagan/Bush administrations. Taxes doubled during those years.
Interest
In 1961 the government spent $9 billion a year in interest on the national debt. $9 billion to service the debt. In 1981 it spent ten times that much, $95 billion to service the debt. By 1991 it spent $285 billion in interest a year -- to service the national debt. Last year it was around $300 billion. When Reagan became President the national debt was $914 billion. At the end of his second term it was $2.8 trillion. It had tripled during his presidency. When George Bush left it was $4.2 trillion. Today [1993] it's about $4.7 trillion. By the end of this decade it's going to bump up against $10 trillion.
That's not a prediction. That's looking at the numbers and projecting by the congressional guidelines. If the numbers are not changed and the government continues along the path which leaders of both parties of Congress and the White House have designated for the end of this decade, you're going to have an 8 or 9 or 10 trillion dollar debt, depending on factors which are beyond our prediction and control. It's going to double; and if it doubles and interest rates stay the same, instead of paying $300 billion a year to service the debt, we will be paying $600 billion a year to service the debt.
You know what? The interest rates aren't going to stay the same. You know why? Because the government raises interest rates for the benefit of the people who buy government bonds -- especially people overseas. And, as the dollar grows weaker, and as the return on the investment seems less attractive, the only way to keep that balloon in the air is to increase interest rates. During the Carter years interest rates went up to about 21% . My guess is that they are going to be at least that by the end of this decade. So let's say that the government is now paying at the rate of about 7% a year. If it goes up to 21%, and if the debt doubles, we are going to be paying $1.8 trillion a year in interest on the debt.
What makes that interesting is that the government only collects $1.2 trillion a year in taxes. In order to come up with that extra money the Fed is going to have to kill more trees. They're going to have to print more Federal Reserve Notes. So far we've been somewhat protected from the Fed's printing extra Federal Reserve Notes, because no matter how many they print the Federal Reserve Notes go overseas. They go overseas because people like "dollars." People prefer "dollars" to any other currency. If you are a drug dealer, you'd rather have $100 bills than Japanese yen. If you're running a black market operation in Moscow, the dollars are what get people’s attention. So far we have been insulated from inflationary practices by the Federal Reserve system.
Why the Money Will Inflate
But what happens if the dollar is no longer desired overseas. At that point all the dollars come home, and then we'll see real inflation. And, friends, that is going to happen. And the reason that is going to happen is that the "dollar" is sinking steadily in the international credit market. Recently it fell below 100 yen to the "dollar," the lowest it had been since Pearl Harbor. If you look in the Wall Street Journal's graphs, the "dollar" has been steadily sinking, and the reason it has been sinking is because of our debt. Because we have had no President since the mid 1960s who has even proposed a balanced budget, let alone insisted on it. The debt has gotten bigger and bigger and foreign governments have lost confidence in the dollar.
There’s another factor which will lead to a hyper-inflationary depression in this country. And that is that there is a new currency coming on line. It is going to be called the European Currency Unit.
Last October, 80 [1993] others and I went to Europe and met with the leaders in eight countries to study the Maastricht Treaty and European Currency Unit. We came away with the conclusion that this new market of 380 million people was going to have a unified currency system -- a unified monetary system -- by the year 2000. They will have it. And that unified monetary system is called the European Currency Unit. And the central banks of Germany, France, Switzerland -- all over Europe -- are going to stop using the dollar as the currency of international trade, as the standard of the world, and are going to start using the ECU.
When that happens we'll have the confederate dollar, and that's when the attention of the people will turn. We will have major political problems. We will lose our country unless we are able to offer hope -- unless we are able to show the American people that there is a way of making this country solvent, of making this country great again under the Constitution, under the Biblical premises that constitutional boundaries provide.
Reconstructing our republic is the only way to resolve the debt crisis.
... if you have a President who has the support of one-third plus one of the members of one house of Congress, that one President can prevent the money from being spent. If the President says "I will sign no bill that has in it one penny that I disagree with, one penny for foreign aid, one penny for the Federal Reserve or the Internal Revenue Service, one penny for the National Endowment for the Arts," and if he backs up his threat with a real veto, and if he has enough support from the American people to have that veto sustained, the money is cut off; and those agencies go out of business. -- Howard Phillips
IV The Constitutional Battle Plan>
for Reconstructing the Republic
There is such a way. It is not going to be advanced by the Democrat party, nor is it going to be advanced by the Republican party. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans see the Constitution as a standard by which to measure their performance. The Republicans have supported NAFTA, the World Trade Organization, gun control, The National Endowment for the Arts, expansion of the Federal Department of Education, sending US troops to serve under UN command, higher taxes, unbalanced budget .... The Republicans and the Democrats generally agree on policies and direction. Under the Democrats you can go over the cliff at 100 mph, under the Republicans you can go over the cliff at 70 mph.
It isn't enough for us to continue losing as slowly as possible. In fact, we are losing faster. We need to do more than change drivers. We need to change direction. And the direction in which we need to lead people is the direction George Washington prescribed for us. One of the great things about the Constitution is that it provides various ways in which government power can be restrained.
How Money is Disbursed (and can be cut off)
Under the Constitution there are only two ways in which money can be disbursed from the federal treasury. Only two.
In one case Congress will pass a money appropriation bill and authorization. The President will sign it into law, and the money can be disbursed.>
In the other case Congress can pass the money bill, the President can veto it, and by votes of two-thirds of the houses of Congress the President's veto can be overridden. But if you have a President who has the support of one-third plus one of the members of one house of Congress, that one President can prevent the money from being spent. If the President says "I will sign no bill that has in it one penny that I disagree with, one penny for foreign aid, one penny for the Federal Reserve or the Internal Revenue Service, one penny for the National Endowment for the Arts," and if he backs up his threat with a real veto, and if he has enough support from the American people to have that veto sustained, the money is cut off; and those agencies go out of business.
That's not my opinion. That is fact.
More Gain than Loss
But how do we get the support of the American people? One thing we have to do is convince the American people that they have more to gain with money saved for them than they have to lose in benefits lost.
The government is spending $1.5 trillion a year. In 1987 the government was spending 1 trillion a year. If we simply roll back federal spending to what it was in 1987 we could completely eliminate the federal income tax, without increasing the federal deficit. Because the income tax only produces about $500 billion. What we need to do is promise the American people that if they will support our dramatic cut-backs of unconstitutional federal expenditures, not only will they suffer the pain of losing their government grants and their government loans and government subsidies; but, if they are working Americans, they will enjoy the benefit of never again having to pay one cent to the federal government in income taxes, or inheritance taxes.
We need to rally the tax payers -- and make them former tax payers -- against the tax users. That kind of political agenda can rally a solid base of 40 % of the American people, because they recognize either the moral corruptness or that they have a lot to gain from never having to pay income taxes again.
Legitimate Disbursement
People ask "How can you finance legitimate expenses?" What we need to do is cut federal spending, not to one trillion, but to a half trillion dollars which is approximately what it was in 1961.
Most of what the federal government does today it was not doing in 1961. There was no Environmental Protection Agency, there was no Department of Housing and Urban Development, there was no National Endowment for the Arts, no quotas. There was no subsidy to Planned Parenthood, there was no safe sodomy subsidy, no Federal Department of Transportation, of Energy or Education -- Those are the things the federal government does today that it was not doing in 1961. You can cover what the federal government was doing in 1961 with less than 1/2 trillion dollars a year.
If you did that, the legitimate functions of the federal government could be supported by tariffs, excises, imposts, and duties; and if there happened to be a short fall, you wouldn't need inheritance taxes, or corporate taxes, or estate taxes, or income taxes, or sales taxes. All you would do is what the founders intended. You would tell the states if you had a short fall. And if you have 10% of the representatives in Congress, you've got to come up with 10% of the short fall. Each state decides how to do it.
The effect of that is: the politicians, instead of arguing for more federal spending will argue for less. Because the voters of New York State, who have to come up with 10% of revenues, would understand that more federal spending would directly mean more federal taxes. So there would be more lobbying for less federal spending.
Constitutional Tools
We need to break the power in government by being prepared to use provisions of the Constitution of the United States to pull our country back to where it was. It can't be done by consensus. The liberals will not surrender power voluntarily. We've got to beat them. Beating them won't be easy. It will be bloody, figuratively and literally. People may be assassinated. They will assassinate them literally, they will assasinate them figuratively. But if enough of us are willing to push this agenda, and if there is enough support -- and I think we can develop support with the crisis that is coming -- then we can achieve victory.
No nation in recorded history, which has fallen as far as the United States has fallen, has ever recovered from that fall. If America is restored it will be only by God's grace.
Our prayer must be that God will permit that restoration. Our goal must be to make ourselves ready to be used for whatever purpose God intends for this country. He has certainly withheld his judgment longer than you or I would have done, given the grievous sins of which you and I in this country have been so guilty.
The hour of decision is coming. Unless people have a good choice, they will choose among bad choices. I'm not under any illusions. I don't think we have the money, I don't think we have media access, I don't think we have the organization, to bring a government to power this year or next year, or in 1996. But I do believe with every fiber of my being that we have the opportunity in 1996 to use the presidential campaign to find a candidate that will be seen all over the nation, of whom people will be mindful, and who will spark a reaction on their part as the crisis intensifies.
There are so many examples in history. Churchill was in a political wilderness for most of his adult life. He rose to positions of responsibility in the early part of his life, early 1900's to WWI. Then he was kicked out of government in disgrace because of some things that happened when he was first in office. He was in the wilderness in the 20s and the 30s. He warned of the crisis to come. But in Britain's hour of greatest need, even though he was totally low and despised by people running Great Britain, they nevertheless turned to him because they had no other choice.
When the war was over they threw him out on his ear, but his whole life had been a preparation for what he did from 1939 through the 40s. Now he could do that because people knew he was there.
Publish Glad Tidings
Right now, people have no idea of the things I have discussed with you. They don't know anything about our analysis, our strategy, our prescription, or who we are. We have to fashion ourselves as political doctors. Doctors diagnose a disease and prescribe a remedy. We must hope the body politic will become aware of the diagnosis and prescription while there is still time to remedy it.
That's why 1996 is so important. I implore those of you who are here this evening to give the most serious consideration to investing your resources, and time, and talents, and energy, in an effort to secure valid positions in the United States Taxpayers Party in the state of Oklahoma. In 1996 we need to get on the ballot in all 50 states.
Oklahoma is one of the most difficult states in the nation in which ballot access is secured. We have to secure upwards of 100,000 signatures. We don't have to wait 'til 1996. I hope many of you tonight will make a serious commitment of so many hours every week beginning now to help us qualify for the ballot in 1996. I believe that in 1996, if we are faithful to our mission, we may have the opportunity to have our message seen. If we are unsuccessful in achieving visibility for our message in 1996 we lose the next four years -- which may be the most decisive four years in the history of our country. I'm not easily discouraged. I am an optimist. I am not saying I will be discouraged if we fail in 1996, but I certainly will be disappointed. I certainly believe that it is worth every bit of resource, time, and energy, that we can muster to make sure that we don't.
America's founders established what became the greatest nation in history. That nation and its government are now headed toward moral suicide and economic catastrophe.
Our job as inheritors of the framers' system and as adherents of the founders' principles is to discern the truth, tell it, and act in terms of it.
Let it be our vision to overcome America's mounting debt crisis and restore limited government by cutting federal spending down to constitutional limits and abolishing the individual income tax.
Let it be our objective to make the vision a reality through a president who will use his existing veto authority, with the support of one third plus one of the members in either the House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate, to eliminate unconstitutional regulations, programs, agencies, and expenditures.
Let it be our strategy to offer the American people a "Grand Bargain" wherein, as special interest spending is eliminated, the general interest will be advanced by defunding the Internal Revenue Service and ending all individual income tax collections. Let it be our plan to secure the objective by recruiting and training volunteer activists in each of the 50 states who will create or cooperate with parties which share the vision, thus paving the way for an electoral college victory achieved with a plurality of popular votes in a multi-party scenario.
When the good doctor correctly diagnoses a potentially fatal disease and prescribes a painful remedy, the patient may be reluctant to act. But at some point, hopefully before it is too late, the patient may decide to accept the prescription, and by acting on it, have some hope of recovery. If the doctor fails to warn the patient and offer a cure, premature death is likely.
America is in grave condition. Let us not hesitate to warn of the cancer and offer a plan for its surgical removal. In doing so, let us accept the advice of George Washington, our first president, who, at a critical moment during the Constitutional Convention in 1787 warned his fellow delegates:
"If, to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterward defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair. The event is in the hand of God."
How It Could Happen
Let's say that Mark Clark is elected President in November of 1996, and takes office in January 1997. He proposes a constitutional budget. Congress laughs at him, totally ignores his budget, and gives him the same one they passed the previous year, plus 10%. The fiscal year ends at midnight September 30, 1997, and Mark Clark vetoes Congress' budget. His veto is overwhelmingly overridden. There wasn't enough support to sustain his veto.
In October l, 1997, Mark Clark goes on national television and says "My fellow Americans, I've got good news and bad news. The bad news is that, even though you elected me knowing my response to the economic crisis which confronts our country, Congress is still in hock to special interest groups, and they totally ignored what I wanted. They overrode my veto. That's the bad news.
The good news is that there is an election next year in November, 1998. In each of the 435 congressional districts of the United States we will endorse a candidate who will publicly pledge to sustain the president's vetoes of unconstitutional budgets."
That is how we can create the new party. YouÕll have one candidate who says, "I will override his veto," another who will hedge, and another candidate saying, "I will sustain the vetoes."
The elections are held in November. The bad news is the liberals win 55% of the seats. The good news is that it doesn't matter, because we won 45%. We need only 34% to sustain vetoes.
The new Congress takes office in January of 1999. Once again the President proposes his constitutional budget. Once again, because we're outnumbered 55 to 45, Congress passes its liberal budget. Comes September 1999. This time President Clark's veto is sustained, and there is no budget.
Media starts screaming. Congress starts screaming. There's no money. Nobody's getting the money government is supposed to pay out. President Clark says, "That may be a problem for you, because you are the ones who are osing all those subsidies and benefits and money for other causes. We are taking measures to deal with the real human needs. We are working to privatize the Social Security System. We are working on transitioning people so that there is not any undue suffering. I am perfectly happy to sign any piece of legislation," says President Clark, "to avoid doing harm to people as we go through this transition. In light of the fundamental changes we need, I am not going to sign the same budgets you are used to. Let's sit down and talk."
At that point the President of the United States holds the high cards, and he is able to negotiate -- from a position of strength -- which agencies will be continued, which programs will go forward, which expenditures will be maintained É and at that point you put the left out of business and close down the scores of billions of dollars that subsidize the left in the U.S. By the year 2000 they will have determined that they have to scurry around.
In the election of the year 2000 the people will have the choice of ratifying what the President has done, or rejecting it. If they reject it, well, the people have spoken, but something good will have come of it, because it will take at least ten years to put back what we've undone. And if the people re-elect President Clark in the year 2000, and he gets four years to really do his thing, it will take several decades to put back what we've undone.
Facing the Odds
The odds that we face are not nearly so overwhelming as the odds faced by others. During the war for American independence George Washington faced the most powerful nation on earth. He had virtually nothing in the way of esources. There were people constantly trying to deprive him of his command.
At Valley Forge Washington had 2000 men under his command, without clothing, food or shelter. Just a few miles from where they were camped, the moneyed people -- the society people of Philadelphia -- were entertaining the British enemy. British soldiers were dancing with Pennsylvania women while Washington and his men suffered the cold. But Washington did not give up.
In his biography of Washington, Holmes Alexander said that Washington was not a particularly good general, but he was a man who refused to lose. He was a man who was repeatedly defeated, but every time he was struck down he would rise up. His first words would be "Strike the enemy. Attack, Attack, Attack." No matter how many times he was defeated he would rise again saying "Attack, Attack."
Eventually God's providence placed him at Yorktown, Virginia. God placed the British Redcoats in Yorktown with their backs to the sea, led by Gen. Cornwallis. Favorable winds brought Admiral deGrasse and the French fleet into the Chesapeake Bay to block the departure of Cornwallis. There was a decisive battle at Yorktown which easily could have been lost even under favorable circumstances, but was won by these brave people who were willing to risk their lives.
The ultimate moment was in Redoubt #10. I don't know if you've ever been to Yorktown, but the redoubt was a fortified mound with spikes that stick out. The Redcoats were secured in the mound, defended by the spikes, looking through holes at the Americans led by LaFayette of France, and Alexander Hamilton. The Americans stormed Redoubt #10, tossing caution to the winds and putting their lives on the line. This forced Cornwallis to surrender. Cornwallis was so humiliated, that instead of following the customary practice of going out to transfer the instruments of surrender to the leading general, Cornwallis stayed in his quarters and dispatched his second in command to do the honors with General Washington.
The British Regulars played a popular British barracks tune as the surrender ceremonies were proceeding. The name of the tune was "The World Turned Upside Down." Truly on that day, October 17, l781, the world was turned upside down. Washington and his ragged band of irregulars, with God's divine intervention, defeated the militarily and economically most powerful nation on the face of the earth. Because of that victory it was possible to have the Constitution.
The sacrifices endured by a few 200 years ago led to benefits of hundreds of millions of people. But now the legacy of that sacrifice is virtually gone, and itÕs time for us to make some new sacrifices so the legacy can be renewed. I invite you to join me in that all-important mission.
God is in charge. God can raise up a David to strike down a Goliath, a Gideon with 300 people in his army to rout a seemingly superior force.
One Third Plus One in One House
There are some horrendous things going on. There are a lot of battles to fight. There are a lot of ways that you can prevent things from getting worse. But there is only one way to win. That is to elect a President who will veto every bill which gives money to the enemy. Cut off their money: you win. Anything else is a holding action. The only way you can win is to cut off their money. And the only practical way to do that is to elect a President that has the support of one third plus one in one house of Congress.
Reconstructing our republic is difficult to achieve politically, but it is not in fact difficult. Most of the laws are already in place.
Note:
In answer to a question, Mr. Phillips added to his discussion about rights...
Libertarians say our rights are a product of man's reason rather than from God's revelation. They argue that promiscuity is a victimless crime, but it isn't a victimless crime. Families are destroyed by it. God is offended by it. There is no such thing as a victimless crime. If it's a crime it has victims.
And, while I agree with Libertarians that the role of government should be limited; I don't believe that there is any such thing as a neutral law system. The law says that a thing is either legal or illegal. Abortion is legal or it is not. The law either says that sodomy is to be proscribed or it doesn't. Now there are reasons why sodomy is an abomination in the sight of God. We don't know all those reasons, because God knows things we don't know; but clearly, on the evidence, behavior of that kind is a threat to public health and safety and the failure of the governing authorities in our country to restrict degenerate conduct has led to the spread of disease and to the death of a great many innocent people.
I do not believe that the government should aggress against the rights of individuals. I do not believe that the government should be taking its flashlight and go looking for trouble. But I do believe that on the testimony of two witnesses, if someone has offended against the laws of God as incorporated in the laws of common law and statute law, it is the duty of civil government to take action against that offense.
But I don't think what we are doing will upset the Libertarians. Essentially most of these issues are not federal issues. They are state and local issues. What we are talking about is cutting off the opportunity of the federal government to intervene in state and local government.
My friends, it is time to leave the "political Titanic" on which the conservative movement has for too long booked passage. Instead, it is our task to build an ark so that we can and will be ready to renew and restore our nation and our culture when God brings the tide to flood.
-- by Howard Phillips, in an address to the Council for National Policy, in May of 1998
Is there anyone on the political scene today
who understands, and who has the wisdom and knowledge for reconstructing the republic?
Glad you asked! As a matter of fact, there is a such a party. And it has a plan to accomplish this objective.
The Constitution Party is the largest and fastest growing minor party and has been gathering momentum since its founding in 1992. That year its standard bearer, Howard Phillips, was on the ballot in more than 20 states. In 1996 he was on the ballot in more than 30 states. In 2000 he was on the ballot in more than 40 states, and with write-ins was an option in 48 states. The 2004 standard bearer is Michael Peroutka. The goal of the Party is to limit the federal government to the functions delegated to it by the Constitution and to restore American jurisprudence to its original common-law foundations, in short, to do what is necessary for
reconstructing the republic.
The Good News
From thorough research that has been done and documented we now know that the three events over which President Wilson presided, that shifted power and destroyed government accountability, were perpetrated by fraud upon the American people. For fraud there is no statute of limitations. They need only be declared void.
But people need to know about it.
Over the years, especially in the 20th Century, and now even more in the 21st, our Constitution has been rendered almost meaningless while our government has become unaccountable.
See how that has been playing out in ways that affect you, and how we can restore accountability.
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