State's Rights

That pesky 10th Amendment. The one the Right says the left ignores, and the Left says the right abuses.

I'm pretty fond of it. It says the Feds can't come in and poke their nose in local business, without showing a federal case for it.

What bothers me at the moment is the amazing attempts on the part of this adminstration to trample them. To consolidate power in the hands of the feds.

Calif. passed a law allowing for medicinal uses of marijuana. The feds have tried to strongarm the state into refusing to allow the law to work.

Ore. passed a law allowing for legally assisted suicide, with safefguards. The Feds have gone after it.

The new holder of the office of AG has filed a suit against a church in New Mexico, because he/the administration, doesn't like the psychedelic tea they use (it's not peyote, but some Brazilian plant). That one is the closest to a federal case, because at least the seeds had to be imported.

Marriage, ought to be local, but the Feds passed a law (under Clinton) to make it a Federal Case. That, it seems, wasn't good enough, so they want to pass an amendment.

This crap was big under Nixon, but better handled. To save gas they passed the 55 mph speed limit. A state could opt out, but it would lose higway funds. Ariz. got around it by making speeding, for the first 15 mph a "wasting of natural resources" violation. Which meant it wasn't points against your license. The fine was also fairly small. They could, if the cop wanted, make it speeding, which had higher fines. This usually was done to out of staters, and those who were doing something stupid, as well as speeding (and yes, that seems a 14th amendment violation to me, but if you didn't know about the law, how were you to know you'd just been unequally protected?).

In '82 they did the same thing to make the drinking age a federal standard. A state could leave it at 18, but the feds would hold back highway funds. And still insist on the state maintaining the Interstates they had.

Now we have them trying to make driver's licensing a federal issue.

This is more subtle, just. If a state allows a non-citizen of the US to have a license, there are federal requirements. If they allow illegal aliens to take the test, and legally drive, then no one from said state will be allowed to get on airplanes, enter federal buildings (which ought to be amusing) or, in general, do anything where the Feds demand an ID.

Which is nonsense. James Sensenbrenner (R-WIS), who represents a State which allows illegals to get licenses, says this is to prevent terrorists from attacking us. Nonesense. They all had legal ID, passports (which would work just fine to get on a plane) and visas; which would, under his plan allow one to get a driver's license, and thus onto a plane, into a federal building; and all other such places where the feds demand identification.

I'm still in the army because this sort of strongarm tactic isn't allowed. When I was younger, and more foolish I made a mistake. Came to work hungover. I wasn't fit for duty (and we were short staffed, so I thought I had to come in. These days I know better). My Bn Commander happened to show that day. He had a fit.

Told my Company Commander to give me an Article 15. This isn't a court martial, but it would have hurt my career. My CO told him she'd look into it. Now, the fact of the matter is that, for that chunk of time, I wasn't, tecnically, in his command; so it was all moot (that however is/was vague enough, and I inexperienced enough it wouldn't have mattered, and I'd have taken the 15). But, unless he was personally willing to do it (nominally in his purview) he couldn't make her do it. Bluster all he wanted, but in the end it was like trying to sheepherd the wind.

My Plt. Sgt. stepped in, told her no, this wasn't worth that and he'd counsel me. I got a good talking to (in that it I learned things, not just got chastised, which I did, but not much) and was told the lack of judgement (good intent, crappy execution) would put my chance of promotion on hold for a year or so.

A sad day when the Army has better protections for its members than the Constitution seems to have for the States.

But it's worse than that. Another provision of the law gives the Dept. of Homeland Security the right to waive all laws it finds to be an impediment to building a fence on the border.

Ponder that, a Dept. of the Gov't being giving carte blanche, "The bearer of this has done what he has done for the good of the state." All laws. Void, by administrative fiat.

Angels and ministers of grace defend us.

More lack of respect

The Bush Budget is more telling for what it doesn't include, than for what it does.

I am not talking about the cuts, rather I am discussing the unwillingness of the adminstration to show what they project for any year past this one.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has a breakdown on this. Some details.

One unusual aspect of this budget is the omission of information about how these cuts would affect particular programs. The budget fails to provide proposed funding levels for individual appropriated programs for years after 2006 — the first time since 1989 that an Administration’s budget has lacked this type of information. As a consequence, the published, widely available budget documents released by the Administration on February 7 provide programmatic details on how the Administration would achieve only the first $18 billion of these cuts, the reductions that would occur in 2006. Some $196 billion in domestic cuts — all of the reductions in years 2007 through 2010 — are left unidentified.

This is either a lack of faith in the American people (that they won't see how needful these, well thought out cuts are) or, misdirection and prevarication, hiding the real cuts and costs because they know they won't be well recieved.

As a group, veterans’ programs would be cut by 16 percent by 2010. These include programs that provide health care to veterans.

Natural resource and environmental programs would be cut by 23 percent, or nearly one-fourth. Falling within this group are programs that protect the environment, as well as the funding that supports the national parks.

Agriculture programs would be cut by 17 percent. This includes agricultural research programs and animal and plant health inspection.

Education and workforce development programs would be cut by 15 percent. These include employment and training programs, community college funding, and federal funding for K-12 education.
Health programs would be reduced by 14 percent. These include medical research, community health centers, and HIV/AIDS treatment funds.

Income security programs would be cut by 11 percent. A wide range of programs are contained within this overall category, such as housing assistance programs, some child care assistance, and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).

While the backup materials show that the cuts would be both large and widespread, these materials do not answer the basic question of which programs would be cut and by how much to achieve the overall level of savings in these program areas that the budget calls for. What makes this omission particularly troubling is that the Administration is also proposing to set statutory limits on overall discretionary spending — called “discretionary caps” — for each of the next five years. The annual caps would be set at levels equal to the total amount that the President’s budget requests for discretionary programs in each of these next five years. If these caps are established and Defense Department, homeland security and international affairs programs are funded at the levels the budget proposes, then domestic programs funded through the appropriations process will have to be cut by $214 billion over these years, and by $66 billion in 2010 alone.[1]

Worse is the permanence with which these, invisible, cuts are being structured. The way it's written the cuts are mandated. Without specific legislation it would be illegal for Congress to not make the cuts (which, as you will recall have not been disclosed).

Which also means this administration is hamstringing the one which follows. No way for that one (for the same reason Congress can't) to change the budget trajectory they are trying to establish.

The Executive branch is trying to take over the legislative, and (with things like excluding the courts from the review of legislation) parts of the judiciary.