On Fox News Sunday, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer spoke of his dissenting decisions in the several Second Amendment cases that he heard as a Justice. He told host Chris Wallace that he thought that James Madison only included the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights as a sop to the states and Breyer insisted that historians agreed.

In essence, Breyer was saying that Madison was not interested in an individual’s right to gun ownership and self-protection and for that reason his dissenting opinions against that individual right accorded well with what the founder’s thought on the issue.

But Breyer’s assumption that a citizen’s right to bear arms is not sacrosanct and his following contention that the founders would agree seems to ignore much of the history of the era not to mention the precedents in law and the historical record upon which the founders relied to define their political ideas — including Madison.

Of course, it is a bit ridiculous to take one lone founder’s words and assume that it represents the opinion of all of them. It is quite easy, after all, to find quotes from any particular founder that in no way reflected even a minority opinion of the day. For instance, Thomas Jefferson once advocated that all laws be dumped every few decades so that the next generation could start over with their own ideas unencumbered by past generations. Even Madison thought that idea was absurd. Hamilton found that many of his most dearly held financial ideas left his fellows cold. John Adams thought that we should call the president “your majesty,” an idea that earned him much derision. And Poor Richard himself, Benjamin Franklin, once proposed that each galaxy had it’s own “God” that ruled in his own sphere meaning that there were infinite gods for infinite galaxies. Not every idea the founders had were gems, to be sure.

Still, Madison spoke with most of his contemporaries, not outside them, when he considered the meaning of the Second Amendment.

It is certainly true that the founder’s chief interest in creating the Second Amendment was to serve two important roles. One was to create a citizen army, a militia that could be called upon to defend the nascent nation. The second was to prevent the necessity of a large standing army, a body that most of the founders feared. Based on a clear reading of history, the prevailing opinion of the day was that a standing, powerful army served the forces of tyranny far more often than it served those of liberty. Consequently they wanted to figure out a way to make sure that the U.S. Army was small and too weak to threaten the citizenry.

This fact is what Breyer pointed to in order to prove his contention that Madison was not concerned with an individual’s right to own firearms.

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Using just a big piece of pork, a large knife, and a small knife, the budget chef shows how to balance the federal budget by 2020.

As a special treat, he does it without raising taxes from the current Bush-era rates!

It seems like a complicated preparation at first, but it’s so simple that almost any elected official should be able to pull it off like a pro!

Domestic and foreign investors will love this, and it will also help create a stable environment conducive to long-term, sustainable economic growth.

Between 2011 and 2020, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that total federal outlays – for defense, agriculture subsidies, Medicare, Social Security, you name it – will total a whopping $42.1 trillion (in 2010 dollars). To bring outlays down to revenue, we need to cut a total of $1.3 trillion in total expenditures over the next 10 years.

That sounds like a really tall order until you realize that it cutting just 3.6 percent a year for each of the next 10 years.

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Okay, perhaps the title of this post is not quite as memorable as Charlton Heston’s famous line from Planet of the Apes, but it certainly captures my sentiments after reading an article in Slate that calls for the elimination of the $100 bill. The author, Timothy Noah, says that large bills are only for “criminals and sociopaths.” Here’s the crux of his argument.

…why does the U.S. continue to print C-notes…? Technological change has reduced much further the plausible need of any law-abiding American to carry a C-note in his wallet or to stash a pile of C-notes in his mattress.

Noah’s argument is unconvincing for several reasons. First, he is underestimating the degree to which “law-abiding” Americans use “Benjamins.”  And with higher inflation almost certainly around the corner, one can safely expect that $100 bills will become even more common in the future. Second, his entire argument rests on the statist assumption that government should restrict honest people because this will somehow make life more difficult for criminals. Yet he debunks his own anti-money laundering argument by noting that the government already has stopped printing larger bills, such as the $500 note. Has that stopped the drug trade? Hello? Anyone? Bueller?

Like much of what government does, the campaign against money laundering is a costly exercise with very few tangible benefits. This video examines the cost-benefit issues.

I actually think the moral arguments against anti-money laundering laws are even more powerful. As Americans, we should have a presumption of innocence in our daily lives. What business is it of government whether we want to carry $20 bills or $100 bills? And think about the implications of these laws.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to talk about his legal victory yesterday against Obamacare.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Virginia Court Rules Obamacare Individual Mandate is Unconstitutional
A Guide to Severability and Obamacare

Health Policy Innovation Is About More Than Just Timing
TNL: The Individual Mandate: Can States Opt Out?

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The disturbing protests that are spreading across Europe are setting the table for similar showdowns across America in the coming months and years.  Public employee unions and their socialist allies will take to the streets of Washington, D.C. and state capitals as the federal and state governments finally deal with out of control spending.

It’s largely because, for the longest time, our elected leaders were more interested in courting unions for money and votes than keeping government spending in check.

And some are still putting the problem off – and actually making it worse – by continuing to negotiate multi-year contracts with unions with no real way to pay for them. That’s particularly true in our nation’s public schools.

In Anderson, Indiana, the union-controlled school board recently tried to pull a fast one and actully negotiated an unheard-of 10-year contract with the teachers union.  Community outrage led to court action and the length of the contract was cut to 5 years – still way too long in this economic climate.

More recently, news surfaced that the state could be taking over that district because it could be insolvent within two years.  But who cares?  The union now has a signed contract that carries the weight of law.  The children may not be learning, but at least the adults know somebody has to come up with their pay and benefits!

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From Stuart Rothenburg in Roll Call:

On one level, it’s entirely reasonable for liberal Democrats to oppose the [tax cut extension] compromise. Those Democrats have different priorities and values than Republicans, and many of them represent very liberal constituents who also oppose the compromise.

Nobody — nobody — is saying that those House liberals should change their views. If they want to vote against the package that the president negotiated with Congressional Republicans, that’s their right.

But the outrage by House liberals, many of whom were responsible for the party’s legislative agenda and for Congress’ earlier inaction on the tax cuts, is more than a little hard to take.

Congressional Democrats had two years to address the Bush tax cuts. They certainly could have dealt with them one way or the other between late April 2009 and mid-January 2010, when the party had a 60-seat majority in the Senate and a huge majority in the House.

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Network Neutrality is a metaphysically bad idea.

But it remains a Leftist wish list item.  So Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Don Quixote – I mean Julius Genachowski – is set to ram it down our throats on December 21st, tilting at ideological windmills to the egregious detriment of the American people.  And commandeering vast new unconstitutional authority over the Internet in a pathetically transparent attempt to justify Net Neutrality’s emplacement – a power grab to justify another power grab.

This is a last minute, behind closed doors, unreviewed, un-Public Commented upon, under cover of Christmas government takeover of 1/6 of our nation’s economy.  The only portion of the economy that is actually still functioning in the midst of what is otherwise is a doldrum-laden Obama Recession.

Not coincidentally, the Internet remains perhaps the only major portion of the economy President Barack Obama has not yet assaulted with oppressive legislation and/or regulation.  A fact that will remain true – for another eight days.

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Nothing changes so much as it stays the same. The Democrats continue to be relentless in their determination to expand all levels of government, and Republicans, despite just coming off an historic electoral victory nationwide, still don’t get it.

It would be impossible, under normal circumstances, to imagine that Democrats in Congress, having gone through what they have for the past two years, do not yet have their facts straight. They still are mired in the rhetoric of the past, and apparently are determined to remain there.

Following the Republican “deal” with President Obama on the expiring Bush tax cuts, socialist Senator Bernie Sanders (the only Democrat politician honest enough to identify his true political ideology) said:

Republican colleagues want huge tax breaks for the richest people in this country, but the reality is that the top one percent already — today — owns more wealth than the bottom 90 percent,” he said. “How much more do they want? When is enough enough? You want it all?

Just for the record, let’s put the facts on the table and burn them into the consciousness of every single Republican in Congress.

1. Nobody, but nobody is getting a tax cut by extending current law. We are simply maintaining the current tax structure. It gets us nothing and costs us nothing. Obama has referred to tax cuts, Republicans have referred to tax cuts, and Sanders, cited above, has referred to tax cuts, as have many other Democrats. How is it that Republicans so easily fall into the Democrats’ lexicon trap? Nobody is getting a tax cut by extending Bush-era tax law!
2. Those of us who pay taxes already pay way too much. The gaffe-prone Vice President, demanded that the “rich” be “patriotic…be part of the deal.” The top 1 percent of income earners pay about 40 percent of all income taxes. That is almost half of all income taxes collected in the US, Mr. Biden! Exactly how patriotic do they need to be?

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Yesterday, a federal judge in Virginia rule that the individual mandate in Obamacare is unconstitutional. (Well…yeah.) The ruling sets up a showdown in the Supreme Court.

A new human rights curriculum that was recently introduced to middle schools and high schools all across New York is a disservice to students because it wastes precious instruction time which would be more wisely spent on academic fundamentals.

From Mike Allen at Politico:

Norm Coleman — former U.S. senator from Minnesota and the current chief executive officer of the American Action Network and Forum, a key outside GOP group — is likely to enter the race for Republican National Committee chairman now that Michael Steele is expected to announce that he will not seek reelection.

“Norm is leaning towards running, based on his ability to raise money and act as a national surrogate,” a close source said.

Friends say Coleman’s big push would be his ability to help the RNC retire its daunting debt: “I was the best fundraiser of all the Senate candidates.”

However, committee insiders say Coleman was hurt by leaked news that he had promised Steele he wouldn’t run against him, since many in the GOP are agitating for change. (more…)

In early December, Congress passed the Child Nutrition Act of 2010 (The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act); however, controversy still surrounds the bill regarding the cuts to the food stamp fund in order to pay for the act.

With a record number of Americans receiving food stamps as this WSJ report highlights, are those cuts to the fund such a good idea?  From the WSJ:

Some 42.9 million people collected food stamps last month, up 1.2% from the prior month and 16.2% higher than the same time a year ago, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Nationwide 14% of the population relied on food stamps as of September but in some states the percentage was much higher. In Washington, D.C., Mississippi and Tennessee – the states with the largest share of citizens receiving benefits – more than a fifth of the population in each was collecting food stamps.

With Obama signing the bill, it is noted that Democrats were not happy with the looting of the food stamp fund:

The major snag was over how to fund healthier school meals and related programs. The deal called for cuts in future food stamp benefits, which alarmed members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Rouse met with CBC members at a White House session to listen to their concerns, and President Obama dropped in for a quick visit. In the end, the White House pledged at some future time to deal with the food stamp issue.

From the Associated Press:

A federal judge declared the Obama administration’s health care law unconstitutional Monday, siding with Virginia’s attorney general in a dispute that both sides agree will ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson is the first federal judge to strike down the law, which has been upheld by two others in Virginia and Michigan. Several other lawsuits have been dismissed and others are pending, including one filed by 20 other states in Florida.

Virginia Republican Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli filed a separate lawsuit in defense of a new state law that prohibits the government from forcing state residents to buy health insurance. However, the key issue was his claim that the federal law’s requirement that citizens buy health insurance or pay a penalty is unconstitutional.

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Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute blogs at Carpe Diem and perhaps is best known as being the go-to guy for things-are-better-than-you-think statistics. But he has bravely waded into the PC battlefield with a new video examining lower test scores for females on the math portion of the SAT.

Using the same technology as the famous QE2 video, Mark pokes big holes in the feminist argument that cultural bias is responsible for differences in test scores. I suspect “The Janet Hyde” will not be happy with the results.

Lest anyone accuse him of misogyny, Mark’s video also points out that girls do much better than boys on the reading and writing portions of the test, and also get far more college degrees.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss astonishing disposable income numbers in America. Then, Ben talks to Maureen Martin, legal expert with the Heartland Institute, about today’s expected ruling in Virginia on the legal standing of Obamacare.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

In Entitlement America, The Head Of A Household Of Four Making Minimum Wage Has More Disposable Income Than A Family Making $60,000 A Year
Full Chart of Income Comparrisons
Why Work?
Ben: Ruling Today on the Individual Mandate in Virginia
Virginia Passes Health Freedom Bill, Setting Up Legal Challenge to Individual Mandate
Virginia Ruling on Standing to Challenge Individual Mandate
Health Care Lawsuits

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Governor Pawlenty in today’s Wall Street Journal:

When Americans think of organized labor, they might think of images like I saw growing up in a blue-collar meatpacking town: hard hats, work boots, tough conditions and gritty jobs. While I didn’t work in the slaughterhouses, I did become a union member when I worked at a grocery store to help put myself through school. I was grateful for the paycheck and proud of the work I did.

The rise of the labor movement in the early 20th century was a triumph for America’s working class. In an era of deep economic anxiety, unions stood up for hard-working but vulnerable families, protecting them from physical and economic exploitation.

Much has changed. The majority of union members today no longer work in construction, manufacturing or “strong back” jobs. They work for government, which, thanks to President Obama, has become the only booming “industry” left in our economy. Since January 2008 the private sector has lost nearly eight million jobs while local, state and federal governments added 590,000.

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While the new Congress deliberates over ways to repeal or defund the Obama Administration’s “healthcare reform” law, twenty states and the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), have filed suit in federal court arguing that the law is unconstitutional and should be struck down immediately. This is the largest of several legal challenges to Obamacare across the country.

Lawyers for NFIB and the states will appear in a Pensacola, Florida federal court this Thursday, December 16th.  They will ask U.S. District Court Judge Roger Vinson to rule that the heart of the law – and “individual mandate” that obligates private citizens to obtain health insurance whether they want it or not – is unconstitutional.  NFIB and the states will accordingly ask that Judge Vinson to strike down Obamacare in its entirety.

The Constitution does not allow Congress to force Americans to purchase a product solely because they are alive and the federal government’s claim of such authority contradicts more than two hundred years of Supreme Court precedent.  Yet the individual mandate, which would obligate private citizens to obtain health insurance whether they want it or not, does just that.

Counsel for NFIB and the states will make the following arguments:

1) The Individual Mandate in Unconstitutional

Under the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, Congress has the power to regulate people when they engage in an economic activity that affects interstate commerce.

The Obama Administration argues that choosing not to purchase something (like a health insurance policy) is somehow an “activity” that affects the economy.  The federal government’s theory that a decision to do nothing is “activity” that may be regulated by Congress under the Commerce Clause is unprecedented. The Administration’s lawyers have been unable to identify a single pre-Obamacare decision upholding a law that forces a private individual to enter into a market for goods or services against their will.

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The President proposed a national conversation about the proper role of government during last week’s hastily arranged press conference designed to smooth the ruffled feathers of his party’s bantam roosters who have been cackling their dissatisfaction over the common-sense compromise on taxes the White House reached with the new Republican leadership.  The American people seem quite ready to have that national conversation as should all serious candidates for Congress and the White House in the run up to the 2012 elections.  We doubt, however, that it is a conversation in which the President or those in his Administration really want to engage.  The President has tried really hard to sell to America European-modeled statism, budget-busting deficit spending, monetized public debt, and taxing our way to prosperity. Last month the people responded with a resounding, “No Sale!” But let’s have that conversation.

Just what should be the proper role of government? Let’s stipulate that America should provide a reasonable safety net for the neediest among us, and that the government must provide for the common defense of our nation and prosecute those who break the laws of the land.   Then what?  Do we continue indefinitely to provide retirement benefits through social security to individuals and families that have sufficient personal income to provide for their retirement without government assistance?  Need we pay through Medicare for routine illnesses and ailments for those seniors who can afford to handle the less serious and less costly illnesses themselves?  As life expectancy continues to improve shouldn’t retirement eligibility be adjusted as well?

Shouldn’t Congress be expected to eliminate defense spending that the Pentagon itself says it doesn’t need or want?  Has increased federal funding for education resulted in increased achievement by our schools and their students?  Shouldn’t too big to fail sometimes also be too big to be? We could go on for several pages posing questions the answers to which might seem obvious to most people who are worried about where the country is headed.  There is, however, the one overriding question the answer to which makes all of the other questions superfluous.  Just what should be the role of our government?

America should still be premised on the original idea collectively formulated by the Founders.  We were founded as the world’s first meritocracy, where citizens were free to determine their own destiny, free to choose (to borrow from Milton Freidman) free to excel and, yes, also free to fail.  Sure, times have changed.

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Today, RNC Chair Michael Steele is hosting a conference call to announce whether or not he will seek re-election as head of the GOP. Candidates to succeed him include his right-hand-man/chief cheerleader, the main architect of the RNC’s disastrous plan to saddle itself with enormous debt, a lobbyist for ObamaCare and a professional, career party official who mixes business with party work. Fortunately, there are alternatives. Watch BG for more on this over the next few weeks.