Balanced Spending Spree . . .

"It is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power.  Our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no further, our confidence may go."

--Thomas Jefferson: Draft, Kentucky Resolutions, 1798.

A Balanced Budget Amendment institutionalizes legislative plunder by providing the electorate a "False Confidence" in the fiscal enactments moved by the elected officer sitting under OUR State and Federal Capitol Domes.

 

Article V § 18 incorporated in the Michigan Constitution of 1963 enables the Legislature to RAISE not only taxes, but the Debt of the State inclusive of the local municipal authorities to “balance budgetary expenditures”.

A Balanced Budget Amendment is a tool of false “confidence” that empowers the Progressive Ideology of taxation in order to “fund balanced spending”.   The political fraud of the Balanced Budget Amendment is plain for those who comprehend the nature of the Convention of the States that sat in Philadelphia in 1787.

The Definition of the “Balanced Budget Amended” is a Progressive feint that authenticates “Balanced Spending”.  The Article V § 18 of the Michigan Constitution DOES NOT LIMIT the Size of government. In fact quite the opposite, as evidenced by the size of the Taxpayer funded State Government labor pool which has grown exponentially since 1964.

We Michiganders pay out of our pocket 100 percent of the support for a governmental bureaucracy that engages over 823 thousand public sector unionized employees from Lansing to the local municipal authorities within our County, Cities, Villages, and Townships.

 

We here in Michigan support nearly 2,000,000 who line up as clients for the Family Independence Agency.  If that is not enough, the 97^th Legislature enacted Obamacare, known as Medicaid Expansion that will put another 500,000 and growing Michiganders upon the Taxpayer funded Government Dole if we do not stand up to stop this Progressive Madness labeled about as the “Balanced Budget”.

So we the Michigan Working Taxpayers support nearly three millions who live off OUR private wealth. The Progressives in the Federal and State Legislative bodies intend to pursue their objective with the Affordable Care Act, euphemistically known as “Obamacare”, which will dramatically increase the numbers of taxpayer subsidized clients of the State Government here in Michigan by a million or more over the next four years.

How do the Progressive tax and spenders fund the ever growing presence of our State Government here in Michigan?

Simple, Progressives sitting under OUR State Capitol Dome in Lansing increase taxation alongside increasing debt obligations issued by the State, and it’s locally authorized municipal authorities, in the form of Bonds which are underwritten upon OUR private property rights here in the lands of the Wolverine. 

This Progressive political sleight of hand, increased taxation, and debt, is authenticated under the false premise of Article V § 18.

The Perfect example of the Balanced Budget economics of the Progressive is found in Motown, which now sits in a Chapter 9 Municipal Bankruptcy courtesy of the "Balanced Budget" oversight from Lansing, inclusive of the political deceit sitting as the Detroit City Council.

Under the Balanced Budget Amendment which took force during the 1964 fiscal year, Taxes increased, as did the spending of OUR Private Wealth from 3.59 billion spendable tax dollars, to the current State level of 50 billion and growing.  Add another 40 billion for the county, City, Villages, and Townships; one discovers that Michigan Taxpayers are funding a 92 billion dollar annual balanced spending spree here in 2013 Fiscal Budget enacted by the 97th Legislature.

Michigan’s Balanced Budget amendment allows the Progressive political class to clamor for more taxation to balance their governmental "spending spree”.

The Fiscal Funding “crisis” of the 94^th and 95^th Legislature should have warned all of the political chicanery of the “Balanced Budget Amendment” here Michigan.  During those two legislative sessions, the Michigan Political class DID NOT ROLL BACK the size of government.  Quite the opposite by riding under Article V § 18 the Progressives successfully increased their annual Spending Spree with tears of joy flowing within their eyes, and OUR private wealth sliding off their deceitful political hands.

State spending now exceeds 92.1 billion dollars of OUR private wealth confiscated in compliance to Article V § 18 to “balance  the budget”.  Outstanding Government Debt in Michigan has grown EVERY YEAR for the past 50 years.

Senator Mike Green's Testimony in the Government Operations Committee on October 15th, 2013 championing the Federal Balanced Budget Amendment substantiates his Progressive ideology of refusing to make the hard decision to roll back State Government Largess.  It is far easier to wave the fictitious hands of the Balanced Budget Amendment when Mike Green fails to comprehend the fiscal reality of the false promise enacted as Article V § 18 here in Michigan.

The  exponential growth in Taxation and Spending has been politically justified by the Michigan State Legislature by waiving the legal fiction incorporated as Article V § 18 in the Michigan State Constitution in 1963.

This has enabled the Legislature to increase the Debt of Michigan all under the premise of enabling the Balanced Budget, which in reality is the Progressive goal better defined as the "Balanced Spending Spree".

Those proposing the “Balanced Budget Amendment” for the Federal Constitution under an Article V call to a Convention of the States should reconsider their stance by learning the history of the American Republic and Michigan.