Congressional Record, Volume 145 Issue 18 (Tuesday, February 2, 1999)

[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 18 (Tuesday, February 2, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H314-H319]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

CONGRESS RELINQUISHING THE POWER TO WAGE WAR

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Biggert). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I have great concern for the future of the
American Republic. Many Americans argue that we are now enjoying the
best of times. Others concern themselves with problems less visible but
smouldering beneath the surface. Those who are content point out that
the economy is booming, we are not at war, crime rates are down, and
the majority of Americans feel safe and secure in their homes and
community. Others point out that economic booms, when brought about
artificially with credit creation, are destined to end with a bang. The
absence of overt war does not negate the fact that tens of thousands of
American troops are scattered around the world in the middle of ancient
fights not likely to be settled by our meddling and may escalate at any
time.
Madam Speaker, the relinquishing of the power to wage war by Congress
to the President, although ignored or endorsed by many, raises serious
questions regarding the status of our Republic, and although many
Americans are content with their routine activities, much evidence
demonstrating that our personal privacy is routinely being threatened.
Crime still remains a concern for many with questions raised as to
whether or not violent crimes are accurately reported, and ironically
there are many Americans who now fear that dreaded Federal bureaucrat
and possible illegal seizure of their property by the government more
than they do the thugs in the street. I remain concerned about the
economy, our militarism and internationalism, and the systemic invasion
of our privacy in every aspect of our lives by nameless bureaucrats. I
am convinced that if these problems are not dealt with. The republic
for for which we have all sworn an oath to protect will not survive.
Madam Speaker, all Members should be concerned about the war powers
now illegitimately assumed by the President, the financial bubble that
will play havoc with the standard of living of most Americans when it
bursts and the systemic undermining of our privacy even in this age of
relative contentment.
The Founders of this great Nation abhorred tyranny and loved liberty.
The power of the king to wage war, tax and abuse the personal rights of
the American colonists drove them to rebel, win a revolution and codify
their convictions in a new Constitution. It was serious business, and
every issue was thoroughly debated and explained most prominently in
the Federalist Papers. Debate about trade among the States and with
other countries, sound money and the constraints on presidential power
occupied a major portion of their time.
Initially the Articles of Confederation spoke clearly of just who
would be responsible for waging war. It gave the constitutional
Congress, quote, sole and exclusive right and power of determining on
peace and war. In the debate at the Constitutional Convention it was
clear that this position was maintained as the power of the British
king was not to be, quote, a proper guide in defining executive war
powers, close quote, for the newly formed republic. The result was a
Constitution that gave Congress the power to declare war, issue letters
of mark and reprisal, call up the militia, raise and

[[Page H315]]

train an Army and Navy and regulate foreign commerce, a tool often used
in international conflict. The President was also required to share
power with the Senate in ratifying treaties and appointing ambassadors.
Let there be no doubt. The President, according to the Constitution,
has no power to wage war. However it has been recognized throughout our
history that certain circumstances might require the President to act
in self-defense if Congress is not readily available to act if the
United States is attacked.
Recent flagrant abuse of the power to wage war by modern-day
Presidents, including the most recent episodes in Iraq, Afghanistan and
Sudan, should prompt this Congress to revisit this entire issue of war
powers. Certain abuses of power are obviously more injurious than
others. The use of the FBI and the IRS to illegally monitor and
intimidate citizens is a power that should be easy to condemn, and yet
it continues to thrive. The illegal and immoral power to create money
out of thin air for the purpose of financing a welfare-warfare state
serving certain financial interests while causing the harmful business
cycle is a process that most in Washington do not understand nor care
about. These are ominous powers of great magnitude that were never
meant to be permitted under the Constitution.
But as bad as these abuses are, the power of a single person, the
President, to wage war is the most egregious of all presidential
powers, and Congress deserves the blame for allowing such power to
gravitate into the hands of the President. The fact that nary a
complaint was made in Congress for the recent aggressive military
behavior of our President in Iraq for reasons that had nothing to do
with national security should not be ignored. Instead, Congress
unwisely and quickly rubber stamped this military operation. We should
analyze this closely and decide whether or not we in the Congress
should promote a war powers policy that conforms to the Constitution or
continue to allow our Presidents ever greater leverage to wage war any
time, any place and for any reason.
This policy of allowing our Presidents unlimited authority to wage
war has been in place since the end of World War II, although abuse to
a lesser degree has occurred since the beginning of the 20th century.
Specifically, since joining the United Nations congressional authority
to determine when and if our troops will fight abroad has been
seriously undermined. From Truman's sending of troops to Korea to
Bush's Persian Gulf War, we have seen big wars fought, tens of
thousands killed, hundreds of thousands wounded and hundreds of
billions of dollars wasted. U.S. security, never at risk, has been
needlessly jeopardized by the so-called peacekeeping missions and
police exercises while constitutional law has been seriously and
dangerously undermined.
Madam Speaker, something must be done. The cost of this policy has
been great in terms of life and dollars and our constitutional system
of law. Nearly 100,000 deaths occurred in the Vietnam and Korean wars,
and if we continue to allow our Presidents to casually pursue war for
the flimsiest of reasons, we may well be looking at another major
conflict somewhere in the world in which we have no business or need to
be involved.
The correction of this problem requires a concerted effort on the
part of Congress to reclaim and reassert its responsibility under the
Constitution with respect to war powers, and efforts were made to do
exactly that after Vietnam in 1973 and more recently in 1995. Neither
efforts were successful, and ironically the President emerged with more
power, with each effort being undermined by supporters in the Congress
of presidential authoritarianism and internationalism. Few objected to
the Truman-ordered U.N. police actions in Korea in the 1950s, but they
should have. This illegal and major war encouraged all subsequent
Presidents to assume greater authority to wage war than was ever
intended by the Constitution or assumed by all the Presidents prior to
World War II. It is precisely because of the way we have entered in
each military action since the 1940s without declaring war that their
purposes have been vague and victory elusive, yet pain, suffering and
long term negative consequences have resulted. The road on which this
country embarked 50 years ago has led to the sacrifice of a lot of
congressional prerogatives and citizen control over the excessive power
that have fallen into the hands of Presidents quite willing to abuse
this authority. No one person, if our society is to remain free, should
be allowed to provoke war with aggressive military acts. Congress and
the people are obligated to rein in this flagrant abuse of presidential
power.
Not only did we suffer greatly from the unwise and illegal Korean and
Vietnam wars, Congress has allowed a continuous abuse of military power
by our Presidents in an ever increasing frequency. We have seen troops
needlessly die in Lebanon, Grenada, invaded for questionable reasons,
Libya bombed with innocent civilians killed, persistent naval
operations in the Persian Gulf, Panama invaded, Iraq bombed on numerous
occasions, Somalia invaded, a secret and illegal war fought in
Nicaragua, Haiti occupied, and troops stationed in Bosnia and now
possibly soon in Kosovo.

{time} 1800

Even the Congressional permission to pursue the Persian Gulf War was
an afterthought, since President Bush emphatically stated that it was
unnecessary, as he received his authority from the United Nations.
Without an actual declaration of war and support from the American
people, victory is unachievable. This has been the case with the
ongoing war against Iraq. Without a legitimate concern for our national
security, the willingness to declare war and achieve victory is
difficult. The war effort becomes narrowly political, serving special
interests, and not fought for the defense of the United States against
a serious military threat. If we can win a Cold War against the
Soviets, we hardly need a hot war with a third world nation, unable to
defend itself, Iraq.
Great concern in the 1960's over the excessive presidential war
powers was expressed by the American people, and, thus, the interests
of the U.S. Congress after Vietnam in the early 1970's. The War Powers
Resolution of 1973 resulted, but due to shrewd manipulation and
political chicanery, the effort resulted in giving the President more
authority, allowing him to wage war for 60 to 90 days without
Congressional approval.
Prior to the Korean War, when the Constitution and historic precedent
had been followed, the President could not and for the most part did
not engage in any military effort not directly defensive in nature
without explicit Congressional approval.
The result of the passage of the War Powers Resolution was exactly
opposite to its authors' intentions. More power is granted to the
president to send troops hither and yon, with the various Presidents
sometimes reporting to the Congress and sometimes not. But Congress has
unwisely and rarely objected, and has not in recent years demanded its
proper role in decisions of war, nor hesitated to continue the funding
that the various presidents have demanded.
Approval of presidential-directed aggression, disguised as ``support
for the troops,'' comes routinely, and if any member does not
obediently endorse every action a President might take, for whatever
reason, it is implied the member lacks patriotism and wisdom. It is
amazing how we have drifted from the responsibility of the Founders,
imagine, the Congress and the people would jealously protect.
It is too often and foolishly argued that we must permit great
flexibility for the President to retaliate when American troops are in
danger. But this is only after the President has invaded and placed our
troops in harm's way.
By what stretch of the imagination can one say that these military
actions can be considered defensive in nature? The best way we can
promote support for our troops is employ them in a manner that is the
least provocative. They must be given a mission confined to defending
the United States, not policing the world or taking orders from the
United Nations or serving the special commercial interests of U.S.
corporations around the world.
The 1995 effort to repeal the War Powers Resolution failed because it
was not a clean repeal, but one still requiring consultation and
reporting to

[[Page H316]]

the Congress. This led to enough confusion to prevent its passage.
What is needed is a return to the Constitution as a strict guide as
to who has the authority to exert the war powers and, as has been
scrupulously followed in the 19th century by essentially all political
parties and presidents.
The effort to curtail presidential powers while requiring
consultation and reporting to the Congress implies that that is all
that is needed to avoid the strict rules laid out by the Constitution.
It was admitted in the House debate by the House leadership that the
repeal actually gave the President more power to use troops overseas
and therefore urged passage of the measure. This accurate assessment
prompted antiwar pro-peace Republicans and Democrats to narrowly reject
the proposal.
The message here is that clarification of the War Powers Resolution
and a return to constitutional law are the only way presidential
authority to wage war can be curtailed. If our presidents do not act
accordingly, Congress must quickly and forcefully meet its
responsibility by denying funds for foreign intervention and aggression
initiated by the President.
The basic problem here is that there are still too many Members of
Congress who endorse a presidency armed with the authority of a tyrant
to wage war. But if this assumption of power by the President with
Congress' approval is not reversed, the republic cannot be maintained.
Putting the power in the hands of a single person, the president, to
wage war, is dangerous and costly, and it destroys the notion that the
people through their Congressional representatives decide when military
action should start and when war should take place.
The sacrifice of this constitutional principle, guarded diligently
for 175 years and now severely eroded in the past 50, must be restored
if we hope to protect our liberties and avoid yet another unnecessary
and, heaven-forbid, major world conflict, and merely changing the law
will not be enough to guarantee that future presidents will not violate
their trust.
A moral commitment to the principle of limited presidential war
powers in the spirit of the republic is required. Even with the
clearest constitutional restriction on the President to wage undeclared
wars, buffered by precise legislation, if the sentiment of the
Congress, the courts and the people or the President is to ignore these
restraints, they will.
The best of all situations is when the spirit of the republic is one
and the same, as the law itself, and honorable men are in positions of
responsibility to carry out the law. Even though we cannot guarantee
the future Congress' or our president's moral commitment to the
principles of liberty by changing the law, we still must make every
effort possible to make the law and the Constitution as morally sound
as possible.
Our responsibility here in the Congress is to protect liberty and do
our best to ensure peace and trade with all who do not aggress against
us. But peace is more easily achieved when we reject the notion that
some Americans must subsidize foreign nations for a benefit that is
intended to flow back to a select few Americans. Maintaining an empire
or striving for a world government while allowing excessive war powers
to accrue to an imperial president will surely lead to needless
military conflicts, loss of life and liberty, and a complete
undermining of our constitutional republic.
On another issue, privacy, privacy is the essence of liberty. Without
it, individual rights cannot exist. Privacy and property are
interlocked and if both are protected, little would need to be said
about other civil liberties. If one's home, church or business is one's
castle, and the privacy of one's person, papers and effects are rigidly
protected, all rights desired in a free society will be guaranteed.
Diligently protecting the right to privacy and property guarantees
religious, journalistic and political experience, as well as a free
market economy and sound money. Once a careless attitude emerges with
respect to privacy, all other rights are jeopardized.

Today we find a systematic and pervasive attack on the privacy of all
American citizens, which undermines the principle of private property
ownership. Understanding why the attack on privacy is rapidly expanding
and recognizing a need to reverse this trend is necessary if our
republic is to survive.
Lack of respect for the privacy and property of the American
colonists by the British throne was a powerful motivation for the
American revolution and resulted in the strongly worded and crystal
clear Fourth Amendment.
Emphatically, searches and seizures are prohibited except when
warrants are issued upon probable cause supported by oath or
affirmation, with details listed given as to place, person and things
to be seized.
This is a far cry from the routine seizure by the Federal Government
and forfeiture of property which occurs today. Our papers are no longer
considered personal and their confidentiality has been eliminated.
Private property is searched by Federal agents without announcement,
and huge fines are levied when Federal regulations appear to have been
violated, and proof of innocence is demanded if one chooses to fight
the abuse in court and avoid the heavy fines.
Eighty thousand armed Federal bureaucrats and law enforcement
officers now patrol our land and business establishments. Suspicious
religious groups are monitored and sometimes destroyed without due
process of law, with little or no evidence of wrongdoing. Local and
state jurisdiction is rarely recognized once the feds move in.
Today, it is routine for government to illegally seize property,
requiring the victims to prove their innocence in order to retrieve
their property, and many times this fails due to the expense and legal
roadblocks placed in the victim's way.
Although the voters in the 1990's have cried out for a change in
direction and demanded a smaller, less intrusive government, the attack
on privacy by the Congress, the administration and the courts has,
nevertheless, accelerated. Plans have now been laid or implemented for
a national I.D. card, a national medical data bank, a data bank on
individual MDs, deadbeat dads, intrusive programs monitoring our every
financial transaction, while the Social Security number has been
established as the universal identifier.
The Social Security number is now commonly used for just about
everything, getting a birth certificate, buying a car, seeing an MD,
getting a job, opening up a bank account, getting a driver's license,
making many routine purchases, and, of course, a death certificate.
Cradle-to-the-grave government surveillance is here and daily getting
more pervasive.
The attack on privacy is not a coincidence or an event that arises
for no explainable reason. It results from a philosophy that justifies
it and requires it. A government not dedicated to preserving liberty
must by its very nature allow this precious right to erode.
A political system designed as ours was to protect life and liberty
and property would vigorously protect all citizens' rights to privacy,
and this cannot occur unless the property and the fruits of one's
labor, of every citizen, is protected from confiscation by thugs in the
street as well as in our legislative bodies.
The promoters of government instruction into our privacy
characteristically use worn out cliches to defend what they do. The
most common argument is that if you have nothing to hide, why worry
about it?
This is ludicrous. We have nothing to hide in our homes or our
bedrooms, but that is no reason why big brother should be permitted to
monitor us with a surveillance camera.
The same can be argued about our churches, our businesses or any
peaceful action we may pursue. Our personal activities are no one
else's business. We may have nothing to hide, but, if we are not
careful, we have plenty to lose, our right to be left alone.
Others argue that to operate government programs efficiently and
without fraud, close monitoring is best achieved with an universal
identifier, the Social Security number.
Efficiency and protection from fraud may well be enhanced with the
use of a universal identifier, but this contradicts the whole notion of
the proper role for government in a free society.

[[Page H317]]

Most of the Federal programs are unconstitutional to begin with, so
eliminating waste and fraud and promoting efficiency for a program that
requires a violation of someone else's rights should not be a high
priority of the Congress. But the temptation is too great, even for
those who question the wisdom of the government programs, and
compromise of the Fourth Amendment becomes acceptable.
I have never heard of a proposal to promote the national I.D. card or
anything short of this for any reasons other than a good purpose.
Essentially all those who vote to allow the continual erosion of our
privacy and other constitutional rights never do it because they
consciously support a tyrannical government; it is always done with
good intentions.
Believe me, most of the evil done by elected congresses and
parliaments throughout all of history has been justified by good
intentions. But that does not change anything. It just makes it harder
to stop.
Therefore, we cannot ignore the motivations behind those who promote
the welfare state. Bad ideas, if implemented, whether promoted by men
of bad intentions or good, will result in bad results.
Well-intentioned people, men of goodwill, should, however, respond to
a persuasive argument. Ignorance is the enemy of sound policy, every
bit as much as political corruption.
Various management problems in support for welfarism motivates those
who argue for only a little sacrifice of freedom to achieve a greater
good for society. Each effort to undermine our privacy is easily
justified.
The national I.D. card is needed, it is said, to detect illegal
aliens, yet all Americans will need it to open up a bank account, get a
job, fly on an airplane, see a doctor, go to school or drive a car.

{time} 1815

Financial privacy must be sacrificed, it is argued, in order to catch
money launderers, drug dealers, mobsters and tax cheats. Privacy for
privacy's sake, unfortunately for many, is a nonissue.
The recent know-your-customer plan was designed by Richard Small,
Assistant Director of the Division of Banking Supervision Regulation at
the Federal Reserve. He is not happy with all of the complaints that he
has received regarding this proposal. His program will require that
every bank keep a detailed profile on every customer, as to how much is
deposited, where it comes from, and when and how the money is spent. If
there is any deviation from the profile on record, the bank is required
to report this to a half dozen government agencies, which will require
the customer to do a lot of explaining. This program will catch few
drug dealers, but will surely infringe on the liberty of every law-
abiding citizen.
After thousands of complaints were registered at the Federal Reserve
and the other agencies, Richard Small was quoted as saying that in
essence, the complaints were coming from these strange people who are
overly concerned about the Constitution and privacy. Legal
justification for the program, Small explained, comes from a court case
that states that our personal papers, when in the hands of a third
party like a bank, do not qualify for protection under the Fourth
Amendment.
He is accurate in quoting the court case, but that does not make it
right. Courts do not have the authority to repeal a fundamental right
as important as that guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment. Under this
reasoning, when applied to our medical records, all confidentiality
between the doctor and the patient is destroyed.
For this reason, the proposal for a national medical data bank to
assure us there will be no waste or fraud, that doctors are practicing
good medicine, that the exchange of medical records between the HMOs
will be facilitated and statistical research is made easier, should be
strenuously opposed. The more the government is involved in medicine or
anything, the greater the odds that personal privacy will be abused.
The IRS and the DEA, with powers illegally given them by the Congress
and the courts, have prompted a flood of seizures and forfeitures in
the last several decades without due process and frequently without
search warrants or probable cause. Victims then are required to prove
themselves innocent to recover the goods seized.
This flagrant and systematic abuse of privacy may well turn out to be
a blessing in disguise. Like the public schools, it may provide the
incentive for Americans finally to do something about the system.
The disaster state of the public school system has prompted millions
of parents to provide private or home schooling for their children. The
worse the government schools get, the more the people resort to a
private option, even without tax relief from the politicians. This is
only possible as long as some remnant of our freedom remains, and these
options are permitted. We cannot become complacent.
Hopefully, a similar reaction will occur in the area of privacy, but
overcoming the intrusiveness of government into our privacy in nearly
every aspect of our lives will be difficult. Home schooling is a
relatively simple solution compared to avoiding the roving and snooping
high of big brother. Solving the privacy problem requires an awakening
by the American people with a strong message being sent to the U.S.
Congress that we have had enough.
Eventually, stopping this systematic intrusion into our privacy will
require challenging the entire welfare state. Socialism and welfarism
self-destruct after a prolonged period of time due to their natural
inefficiencies and national bankruptcy. As the system ages, more and
more efforts are made to delay its demise by borrowing, inflating and
coercion. The degree of violation of our privacy is a measurement of
the coercion thought necessary by the proponents of authoritarianism to
continue the process.
The privacy issue invites a serious discussion between those who
seriously believe welfare redistribution helps the poor and does not
violate anyone's rights, and others who promote policies that undermine
privacy in an effort to reduce fraud and waste to make the programs
work efficiently, even if they disagree with the programs themselves.
This opportunity will actually increase as it becomes more evident that
our country is poorer than most believe and sustaining the welfare
state at current levels will prove impossible. An ever-increasing
invasion of our privacy will force everyone eventually to reconsider
the efficiency of the welfare state, if the welfare of the people is
getting worse and their privacy invaded.
Our job is to make a principled, moral, constitutional and practical
case for respecting everyone's privacy, even if it is suspected some
private activities, barring violence, do not conform to our own private
moral standards. We could go a long way to guaranteeing privacy for all
Americans if we, as Members of Congress, would take our oath of office
more seriously and do exactly what the Constitution says.

The Financial Bubble

On a third item, the financial bubble, a huge financial bubble
engulfs the world financial markets. This bubble has been developing
for a long time but has gotten much larger the last couple of years.
Understanding this issue is critical to the economic security of all
Americans that we all strive to protect.
Credit expansion is the root cause of all financial bubbles. Fiat
monetary systems inevitably cause unsustainable economic expansion that
results in a recession and/or depression. A correction always results,
with the degree and duration being determined by government fiscal
policy and central bank monetary policy. If wages and prices are not
allowed to adjust and the correction is thwarted by invigorated
monetary expansion, new and sustained economic growth will be delayed
or prevented. Financial dislocation caused by central banks in the
various countries will differ from one to another due to political
perceptions, military considerations, and reserve currency status.
The U.S.'s ability to inflate has been dramatically enhanced by other
countries' willingness to absorb our inflated currency, our dollar
being the reserve currency of the world. Foreign central banks now hold
in reserve over $600 billion, an amount significantly greater than that
even held by our own Federal Reserve System. Our economic and

[[Page H318]]

military power gives us additional license to inflate our currency,
thus delaying the inevitable correction inherent in a paper money
system. But this only allows for a larger bubble to develop, further
jeopardizing our future economy.
Because of the significance of the dollar to the world economy, our
inflation and the dollar-generated bubble is much more dangerous than
single currency inflation such as Mexico, Brazil, South Korea, Japan
and others. The significance of these inflations, however, cannot be
dismissed.
The Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, when the Dow was
at approximately 6,500, cautioned the Nation about irrational
exuberance and for a day or two the markets were subdued. But while
openly worrying about an unsustained stock market boom, he nevertheless
accelerated the very credit expansion that threatened the market and
created the irrational exuberance.
From December 1996, at the time that Greenspan made this statement,
to December 1998, the money supply soared. Over $1 trillion of new
money, as measured by M-3, was created by the Federal Reserve. MZM,
another monetary measurement, is currently expanding at a rate greater
than 20 percent. This generous dose of credit has sparked even more
irrational exuberance, which has taken the Dow to over 9,000 for a 30
percent increase in just two years.

When the foreign registered corporation long term capital management
was threatened in 1998, that is, the market demanding a logical
correction to its own exuberance with its massive $1 trillion
speculative investment in the derivatives market, Greenspan and company
quickly came to its rescue with an even greater acceleration of credit
expansion.
The pain of market discipline is never acceptable when compared to
the pleasure of postponing hard decisions and enjoying for a while
longer the short-term benefits gained by keeping the financial bubble
inflated. But the day is fast approaching when the markets and Congress
will have to deal with the attack on the dollar, once it is realized
that exporting our inflation is not without limits.
A hint of what can happen when the world gets tired of holding too
many of our dollars was experienced in the dollar crisis of 1979 and
1980, and we saw at that time interest rates over 21 percent. There is
abundant evidence around warning us of the impending danger. According
to Federal Reserve statistics, household debt reached 81 percent of
personal income in the second quarter of 1998. For 20 years prior to
1985, household debt averaged around 50 percent of personal income.
Between 1985 and 1998, due to generous Federal Reserve credit,
competent American consumers increased this to 81 percent and now it is
even higher. At the same time, our savings rate has dropped to zero
percent.
The conviction that stock prices will continue to provide extra cash
and confidence in the economy has fueled wild consumer spending and
personal debt expansion. The home refinance index between 1997 and 1999
increased 700 percent. Secondary mortgages are now offered up to 120
percent of a home's equity, with many of these funds finding their way
into the stock market. Generous credit and quasi-government agencies
make these mortgage markets robust, but a correction will come when it
is realized that the builders and the lenders have gotten ahead of
themselves.
The willingness of foreign entities to take and hold our dollars has
generated a huge current account deficit for the United States. It is
expected a $200 billion annual deficit that we are running now will
accelerate to over $300 billion in 1999, unless the financial bubble
bursts.
This trend has made us the greatest international debtor in the
world, with a negative net international asset position of more than
$1.7 trillion. A significantly weakened dollar will play havoc when
this bill comes due and foreign debt holders demand payment.
Contributing to the bubble and the dollar strength has been the fact
that even though the dollar has problems, other currencies are even
weaker and thus make the dollar look strong in comparison. Budgetary
figures are frequently stated in a falsely optimistic manner. In 1969
when there was a surplus of approximately $3 billion, the national debt
went down approximately the same amount. In 1998, however, with a so-
called surplus of $70 billion, the national debt went up $113 billion,
and instead of the surpluses which are not really surpluses running
forever, the deficits will rise with a weaker economy and current
congressional plans to increase welfare and warfare spending.
Government propaganda promotes the false notion that inflation is no
longer a problem. Nothing could be further from the truth. The
dangerous financial bubble, a result of the Federal Reserve's
deliberate policy of inflation and the Fed's argument that there is no
inflation according to government-concocted CPI figures, is made to
justify a continuous policy of monetary inflation because they are
terrified of the consequence of deflation. The Federal Reserve may
sincerely believe maintaining the status quo, preventing price
inflation and delaying deflation is possible, but it really is not.
The most astute money manager cannot balance inflation against
deflation as long as there is continued credit expansion. The system
inevitably collapses, as it finally did in Japan in the 1990s. Even the
lack of the CPI inflation as reported by the Federal Reserve is
suspect.
A CPI of all consumer items measured by the private source shows
approximately a 400 percent increase in prices since 1970. Most
Americans realize their dollars are buying less each year and no chance
exists for the purchasing power of the dollar to go up. Just because
prices of TVs and computers may go down, the cost of medicine, food,
stocks and entertainment, and of course, government, certainly can rise
rapidly.
One characteristic of an economy that suffers from a constantly
debased currency is sluggish or diminished growth in real income. In
spite of our so-called great economic recovery, two-thirds of U.S.
workers for the past 25 years have had stagnant or falling wages. The
demands for poverty relief from government agencies continue to
increase. Last year alone, 678,000 jobs were lost due to downsizing.
The new service sector jobs found by many of those laid off are rarely
as good paying.
In the last 1\1/2\ years, various countries have been hit hard with
deflationary pressures. In spite of the IMF-led bailouts of nearly $200
billion, the danger of a worldwide depression remains. Many countries,
even with the extra dollars sent to them courtesy of the American
taxpayer, suffer devaluation and significant price inflation in their
home currency.

{time} 1830

But this, although helpful to banks lending overseas, has clearly
failed, has cost a lot of money, and prevents the true market
correction of liquidation of debt that must eventually come. The longer
the delay and the more dollars used, the greater the threat to the
dollar in the future.
There is good reason why we in the Congress should be concerned. A
dollar crisis is an economic crisis that will threaten the standard of
living of many Americans. Economic crises frequently lead to political
crises, as is occurring in Indonesia.
Congress is responsible for the value of the dollar. Yet, as we have
done too often in other areas, we have passed this responsibility on to
someone else; in this case, to the Federal Reserve.
The Constitution is clear that the Congress has responsibility for
guaranteeing the value of the currency, and no authority has ever been
given to create a central bank. Creating money out of thin air is
counterfeiting, even when done by a bank that the Congress tolerates.
It is easy to see why Congress, with its own insatiable desire to
spend money and perpetuate a welfare and military state, cooperates
with such a system. A national debt of $5.6 trillion could not have
developed without a willing Federal Reserve to monetize this debt and
provide for artificially low interest rates. But when the dollar crisis
hits and it is clearly evident that the short-term benefits were not
worth it, we will be forced to consider monetary reform.
Reconsidering the directives given us in the Constitution with regard
to money would go a long way towards developing a sound monetary system
that

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best protects our economy and guides us away from casually going to
war. Monetary reform is something that we ought to be thinking about
now.
Mr. Speaker, let me summarize. We in the Congress, along with the
President, will soon have to make a decision that will determine
whether or not the American republic survives. Allowing our presidents
to wage war without the consent of Congress, ignoring the obvious
significance of fiat money to a healthy economy, and perpetuating
pervasive government intrusion into the privacy of all Americans will
surely end the American experiment with maximum liberty for all unless
we reverse this trend.
Too often the American people have chosen security over liberty.
Allowing the President a little authority to deal with world problems
under a U.N. banner has been easier than reversing the trend of the
past 50 years. Accepting the financial bubble when on the short run, it
helps everyone's portfolio, helps to finance government spending, is
easy, even if it only delays the day of reckoning when the bills come
due, as they already have in so many other countries in the world.
Giving up a little privacy seems a small price to pay for the many
who receive the generous benefits of big government, but when the
prosperity comes to an end and the right to privacy has been
squandered, it will be most difficult to restore the principles of a
free society.
Materialistic concerns and complacency toward the principles of
liberty will undo much of what has been built in America over the past
200 years, unless there is a renewed belief that our God-given rights
to life and liberty are worth working for. False economic security is
no substitute for productive effort in a free society, where the
citizens are self-reliant, generous, and nonviolent. Insisting on a
limited government designed to protect life and property, as is found
in a republic, must be our legislative goal.

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