The Question No One Will Ask
No question, the last several days have been very busy. Speaker John Boehner is gone. Or at least on his way out, set to officially step down on October 30th. That was big news but even bigger has been the aftermath.
Not only that, but we have Congress passing a short-term spending bill that will fund the government for another ten weeks. Obama and I actually agree on something when the White House issued a statement saying “Americans deserve far better than last-minute, short-term legislating.” Well put.
Then on top of all that, we had House Committee hearings on the Planned Parenthood sting videos. Well over three hours of discussion of a completely ridiculous “issue”, because it shouldn’t even be a question in the first place. But I’ll get to that.
With this article, I want to show you how these three issues are integrally connected, why that matters and what the solution is. Because I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of these kind of items hitting the news, being talked about and then forgotten. There are a lot of things seriously wrong with our country, and if action is not taken, then the only change will be for those things to get worse.
I am probably in the minority in being able to say that I listened to the entirety of both Congressional hearings on Planned Parenthood. For all six hours I felt nothing but frustration. Questions were asked, both in support and not, concerning Planned Parenthood. Many questions were asked several times. Some being asked were expert at avoiding direct answers at all costs. But that was not what was frustrating.
What was frustrating is that no one was asking the real question that needs to be asked. The question that I was desperately, yet vainly hoping to hear is this - Where in the Constitution is the United States Congress given the authority to delegate taxpayer money to organizations like Planned Parenthood?
A simple question. One that would seem obvious in a room full of people who took oaths to uphold the Constitution. Yet it was not asked.
Why was it not asked? It would solve this problem so quickly. I pondered this long and hard. But the answer didn’t come, until Boehner’s announcement and temporary budget was approved. Then I saw it.
That all important question was not asked because it would completely revolutionize our entire system of government. And that is not an exaggeration. Think about it.
If someone in Congress actually, honestly wanted to find where in the Constitution they were given power to fund organizations like Planned Parenthood, they wouldn’t be able to find it. And if they weren’t able to find justification for organizations like Planned Parenthood, they would logically have to begin asking the same question concerning the funding of other organizations. Where is the Constitutional justification for doing this?
And that is where the rabbit hole begins. No one has the guts to question along these lines because they know what the implications would be. No one asked because as a country we have been lulled into a sleep of believing that since this is how it is, it is how it always has been and how it should be.
If there is no Constitutional justification for funding Planned Parenthood, then there is no Constitutional justification for funding a lot of things. Such as:
Constitutionally speaking you cannot justify spending taxpayer money like this! So what does Congress do? They don’t speak Constitutionally. Instead they argue about who the Speaker will be. They argue about whether an organization that kills unborn children does enough “good things” to still get funding. They argue about funding our hopelessly indebted, money-drunk government for another month or two. Smoke and mirrors. Avoiding the real question that no one will ask.
I do not write this to get you riled up. I do not write this to condemn Congress or anyone else. I write this as a wake up call.
We don’t even know our Constitution, so how can we know when someone is obeying it or not? So this article is to you, as an American citizen. Know your Constitution and then hold your leaders accountable.
Jonathan Paine
@painefultruth76
P.S. For more on taxes, check out my article here. And if you do want to learn more about the Constitution, I highly recommend The Constitution Made Easy and Constitution Alive! A Citizen’s Guide to the Constitution.
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