Issues with the United States Government & Economy as it Currently Functions in 2024
A nation whose entire conception is based on the concept of taxation, representation and a rebellious-breakaway mentality from intolerable acts, that limited our freedoms economically-passed by tyrants, is not one that you’d think would hand over their freedoms and standard of living so willingly. Yet after the Civil War, Congress passed a series of Acts that caused economic strife, inadvertently leading to increased support for government revenue for defense and war expenditures, along with closing mass amounts of independent businesses and banks, forcing merges and the creation of monopolies, mega corporations, and giant trusts. All because of mismanagement, corruption, and the resistance to tamper with resource ratio pricing, even though it had been done successfully in the past (Nugent, W. T. K. 1968).
During the conception of our nation, one of our Founding Fathers’ first debates was over how to finance the U.S… Federalists (like Hamilton) supported national banking institutions, while Anti-Federalists (like Jefferson) supported state and local banking institutions. One side believed in a manufacturing society and another in an agrarian one. During Jefferson’s time in office, the First B.U.S. (Bank of the United States) was allowed to dissolve, only having been established to finance the debts from the Revolutionary War, during this time financial institutions/taxes were established (chartered for a certain amount of time) for specific events, noting that decades the economic situation might call for a different financial solution to debt. During this time all government revenue was gained from duties on imports, exports, and excises. The first major issue of funding a war was felt in 1812 after the trading incursions by Great Britain. This allowed for support of a Second B.U.S. to be chartered for a time. During this time appropriation of funds for a standing army was limited to two years, so the debt was of little issue, it was the implication of a national financial institutions that caught attention at this time.
Our tale of tyranny moves to the beginning of the Banking War era. 1832, President Andrew Jackson vetoed the bill passed by Congress to recharter the Second B.U.S… This act of decentralization, regardless of whether Jackson’s opinion of the bank favoring the ‘monied interest’ over ‘the planters, the farmers, the mechanic, and the laborer,’ allowed for a mismanagement of large scale financial decisions resulting in the direct involvement and influence of foreign powers (Davis, J. H., Hanes C., Rhode, P. W. 2009). Due to quickly decreasing silver deposits and the lack of silver specie circulating in the economy caused by an increase in the cost to mint silver, President Jackson and Congress changed the national gold-to-silver ratio from 15:1 (15 oz. of silver to 1 oz. of gold) to 16:1. This encouraged silver bullion to be minted into specie and circulated within the U.S. instead of being sold abroad as bullion in order to achieve an economic advantage, called the Coinage Act of 1834 (Library of Congress 1834). The only true issue which was unseen and unthought of, was of the total supply of the bimetallic system (unless of course this was to encourage the physical expansion of the U.S. and to procure new natural resources from the unknowing natives, which unknowingly led to American Manifest Destiny as an accepted form of U.S. Imperialism against the natives, and the direct inspiration for Hitler’s Holocaust). Jackson’s decentralization of the U.S. economy by not rechartering the national bank, and the influence of foreign powers in local financial investments (which were speculative loans given to not-yet-existing industries by British banks) led to a high reliance on exports to Europe to uphold our economy and most of our capital investments to be in British markets rather than ones in the U.S… This resulted in British banks being in direct control of U.S. interest rates due to a paper currency trade during the Opium Wars with Qing, with the backing of silver. British banks, noticing the bubble being created by speculative investments, began to raise their own interest rates in order to halt lending practices in order to increase their own money supply. New Trade with Qing and the Philippines allowed the U.S. to keep silver within U.S. economic circulation (by using a paper currency instead), instead of sending it to China and the Philippines for trade, coupled with an influx of silver from the Mexican economy ended in over-inflating the amount of circulated silver, lowering the price. England than called in loans from the cotton/wheat export driven South forcing U.S. business owners to default on the loans they had taken from abroad due to the silver on hand lowering in price, leading us to the Panic of 1837. While Jackson’s goal was to eliminate the national debt-which he achieved-the President left individual States and local businesses to build their own debt, unmanaged by the federal government (Lepler, J. M. 2013).
Out of all the well thought-out, farseeing ideas of our founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton not foreseeing the size of our economy outgrowing that of the total supply of gold and silver is not just disappointing, it’s devastating to the future of the U.S. economy and the well being of the common class. Soon after in 1853, the market price for silver changed to a ratio of 15.66:1, Congress hesitated to debase the total value of our backing and instead passed the Coinage Act of 1853 (coin debasement vs. currency debasement) which lowered the silver content of the coins and authorized new gold specie which instead of encouraging an increase of silver in the market promoted hoarding of silver specie (Library of Congress 1855). This was the first step towards an entirely gold standard, lack of money supply and the direct tax debate (Martin, D. A. 2010). These two coin acts and the decentralization of the banking system set the tone for the rest of the monied Nineteenth Century-quite literally taking the U.S. economy in the wrong direction in terms of amounts of available resources that are considered legal backing. What ensued was one of the first world-wide economic panics, the Panic of 1857 (Huston, J. L.1999). The British Bank Charter Act of 1844 required that all banks follow new restrictions and to fill reserves equal to the amount of currency in circulation. Since the price of silver in the U.S. was too high to coin, hoarding and selling of bullion abroad occurred due to the banks in Britain, scrambling to purchase enough gold and silver in order to not be absorbed into the Central Bank of England. This blatant mismanagement(?) of U.S. legislation and international banking schemes-involving ‘paper industry’ bubbles both in Western U.S. Territories like Kansas and the in the late Holy Roman Empire, fueled anti-banking, anti-monarchy movements that spawned ideologies like that of Napoleon III, whose ideas were based upon the Revolutionary French Empire and the previous ‘multi-state, communal’ functionality that the H.R.E. or that tribal nations had grown out of, both spawning the twisted, misguided ideologies-creating differing dictatorships like the Second French Republican Dictatorship or the soon to come October Revolution in Russia, (Paul 1911).
Speculation of the end of the Atlantic Slave Trade and the abolishion of slavery as a whole only fueled conflict in the U.S. coupled with the devaluing of U.S. specie and finacial panic caused by Jacksonian decentralization, British Banking Acts, Opium Wars, the western ‘paper railroad’ bubble, Mexican silver influx, and the reliance of Southern exports to Europe during the Crimean War all led to the Panic of 1857 and the beginning of the U.S. Civil War (Davis, D.B. 1975)(Huston, J. L. 1999). Instead of a reestablishment of U.S. monetary policies, a war over the economic policies waged. The Union used wartime privileges to bypass Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution in order to fund a war effort against the South, due to a total lack of support from the North to fund a conflict against their fellow Americans, and the financial hardship that the States found themselves in. More than halfway through the war, the focus of the war effort was shifted from the reunification of the States, and instead focused on the social and racial values of the differing policies, freeing the slaves of the rebelling states in a politically/strategically motivated move rather than a morally motivated one in order to cause civil discord within the Confederacy rather than directly fight them, while also speeding up the reintegration process. Hence the blockage and ‘anaconda’ strategy of waiting out the war, to leave the South without resources or civil stability. Don’t misunderstand, the civil values of slavery and democracy were and are incompatible. The result of the freedom of slaves is the outcome that all today (hopefully) can agree with. But rather, taking the same ‘Right to Revolution’ as our Founding Fathers against Britain, and thus the protection of the citizens’ standard of living from ‘intolerable economic legislation’ (which to the Confederacy was the faulty reliance of trade with foreign powers/legislation limiting the growth of an industry; that being slavery) passed by the ‘big banking/industrial’ Union. In the late 19th Century income taxes were the hot topic debate in Congress. At the time, the first income tax acts were passed during the beginning of the Civil War crushing the vision set by Thomas Jefferson, "What farmer, what mechanic, what laborer ever sees a tax-gatherer of the United States?” In order to fund the Union’s war effort and pay the debt incurred during the war, Lincoln and both the 36th and 37th Congresses passed and signed the Internal Revenue Act of 1861, '62 and '64 which established the collection of federal taxes and raised said taxes (Folsom, B.W. 2011)(Library of Congress 1863)(Library of Congress 1866). During the Reconstruction Era of the U.S. the history and relevance of the Civil War would become about its social and racial values, as important as they are, but not it’s equally as important economic ones, for the industrialized big banking industries of the Northern States had won, and the victors get to write history.
The Internal Revenue Acts of the early 1860s were charted until 1873. In '73, the Congress at the time was debating over a new Coinage Act, as the weights and standards of specie that could be minted at a U.S. Mint had not changed since 1835 and '53, which were generally deemed as outdated. The Coinage Act of '53 had encouraged the hoarding of the pure silver specie of '35-rather than the large growth they hoped for which was achieved under Jackson’s fiscal policies (along with the use of greenbacks/fiat currencies during the Civil War). Rather than seeing the mistake of previous lawmakers, (which was the coin debasement of '53 and the lack of protection in trade of the '30s) Ulysses S. Grant signed the Coinage Act of 1873 into law. Also known as the Crime of '73, the Coinage Act of '73 abolished the use of three previous coins, established a paper tender for export trading (to prevent further loss of our total money supply/trade with Asian markets), and most importantly established a strictly gold standard by omitting the silver dollar (Library of Congress 1873)(Library of Congress 1855). This began the first great depression, called the Long Depression which would last until the end of the century. There was little to no publication of Coinage Act of '73 during its time in Congress, and it’s main supporting factor (being that the previous Coinage Acts were outdated due to them being reliant on silver, which was absent in the economy due to the Coinage Act of '53 and pure silver hoarding) was mute due to the widely known soon-to-open/boom silver mines, like the Comstock Lode Silver Mine. When citizens who had been working for weeks if not previous months-who were reliant on the income that coining/selling their silver would have brought them-arrived at U.S. Mints they were turned down. In 1873 the price of silver per oz. tanked to $0.75 forcing silver mines (see example 1), businesses who were based in silver, and citizens whose wealth was saved in silver to become homeless, bankrupt-or if you were a business, forced to merge (Bryan, W.J. 1896). Along with further debasement of our currency, Congress passed new tariffs in an attempt to finance the debt (soon-to-be-surplus due to the income tax lasting until '73) from the Civil War and Reconstruction. Along with this, a cost to mint silver dollars had been established, as it wasn’t legal tender since '73. The demand for the government to do something about the building debts and lowered price of silver that had built up due to surging mines opening in the west, so in 1890 the Sherman Silver Purchase Act was passed. The Act didn’t reestablish the free-coinage of the silver backed dollar past, but required the government to buy four and half million ounces of silver a year to help pay debts and increase silver prices (though they were still lower than pre-1873). The U.S. government sat with a surplus after the Civil War due to the Revenue Acts of the '60s lasting until the early '70s and the high tariffs brought on by the Mckinley Tariff. A great debate ensued over the issue of how tariffs would be used to deal with a large surplus that would become known as the Great Tariff Debate of 1888. To deal with the surplus, two propositions were made. One to lower tariffs on imports in order to lower government revenue, and the other to raise tariffs to lower imports therefore lowering revenue.
Rather than use the surplus government revenue on social programs, or infrastructure (progressive ideas that wouldn’t gain even modest traction for another ~30 years) Congress chose to make their goal to manage/influence trade and goods within the nation and lower total revenue by increasing rates on tariffs with the Mckinley Tariff. Their plan succeeded, but at the cost of the supply of goods, literally. Congress would rather raise taxes on the raw imported materials businesses depended on to survive, rather than figure out beneficial ways to allocate the funds for the public during a depression caused by faulty legislation. This act majorly hit smaller businesses that were forced/unable to pay the high tariffs for imports. High tariffs angered U.S. manufacturers, therefore the platform for the 1893 presidential election held promise of lowered tariffs in response to the Mckinley Tariff, under Grover Cleveland. The plan was to lower tariffs to the point of free trade on certain goods/materials and establish an income tax to make up for the lost revenue from the tariffs. Pres. Cleveland and Rep. Wilson helped to write and pass the bill, but only after Sen. Gorman helped to add hundreds of smaller amendments effectively nullifying and raising tariffs right back to their previous rates, ruining Cleveland’s plan for lowered tariffs, but while also establishing an unconstitutional, unapportioned tax. In 1895 The Supreme Court stated that, the doctrine “…that courts must close their eyes on the Constitution, and see only the law . . . would subvert the very foundation of all written constitutions.” when ruling in the Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co,. Case (157 U.S. 429 1895). They overturned the income tax that had been established by the Wilson-Gorman Tariff, finding it unconstitutional citing Article I, Section 9, Clause 4 of the Constitution, “No capitation, or other direct, tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census or enumeration hereinbefore directed to be taken.”
At the beginning of the 20th Century, more specifically in 1913, the 62nd Congress passed the Sixteenth Amendment allowing Congress to impose an unapportioned income tax contrary to Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution which states that direct taxes should be apportioned among the States per their population. Senator Aldrich proposed that an income tax would prevent another tariff being added to the recent Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act, which raised tariffs to create government revenue due to the inability to inject liquidity into the market-as displayed by the Panic of 1907 where banks failed across the country due to runs caused by a scheme to corner the market on the United Copper Company stock and J.P. Morgan had to ‘graciously’ uphold the U.S. economy using his own funds. This generated enough support for Congress to propose the Sixteenth Amendment in 1909, which passed in 1913. For the first time the U.S. had established a National Bank since the Civil War with the passing of the Federal Reserve Act. Yet this time it was supposed to function as a mixture between state banks, and a national one-but was for the first time, a permanent financial institution which ended Congress’s ability to mint/control the U.S. currency. It was also after this that the Permanent Appropriation Act of 1929 ended the expansion of the House of Representatives per the population of the multiple States. Today, 1 representative can represent up to a million people, whereas in the Constitution, Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 it plainly states that “The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made.” By ending the expansion of representation of the expanding populace, the voice of the people has been severely limited. Missouri, a population of just over six million is being represented as if it had a population of half that, per its 1920 census which the 1929 act adheres to. The 1920s saw a large era of growth fueled by the credit and loans of the Federal Reserve, ending up in large amounts of debt for U.S. citizens and businesses, seen as a normalized ‘healthy’ part of economics. The speculative market, combined with reliance on debt, rather than savings, Americans invested their liquid savings in stocks rather than goods and valuables like gold (and previously silver) thinking that the market would stay good. A speculative market combined with commercially accepted debt, credit, and loans as a way to finance rather than savings and a surplus led to the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the 1930’s Great Depression.
In the early 1930s, progressive ideas had been popularized by union and worker movements, leading to the generalized support for President F.D.R. to move on with his ‘New Deal’ and economic progressive social programs. In 1933, as a part of his ‘New Deal’ and also to help ease the financial hardship of the Depression he signed in, with the help of Congress, the Emergency Banking Act of 1933. Which was amended along side the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, using the powers given to prohibit people from using banks on a declared national holiday and execute Executive Order 6102. Executive Order 6102 effectively did what the Coinage Act of 1873 did, but this time under the threat of persecution and the pretense of financial disaster. 6102 required all gold bullion and specie hoarded and in circulation be surrendered to the U.S. Treasury under threat of 10 years imprisonment or $10,000 in fines, paying gold owners $20.67 per ounce of gold seized. The next year F.D.R. passed the Gold Reserve Act, ending all financial institution’s ability to redeem dollars in gold, and raising the price of gold to $35 per ounce, essentially robbing citizens of their wealth. Since then, we have moved off the standard price of gold, now using the labor of the U.S. citizen as a backing to the dollar. Americans keep working, and pouring tax money into the interest payments on the debt that Congress has incurred funding War, Insurgents, Radical Militants, over its citizens General Welfare.
Just like the speeches spoken by Hitler in the 1930s, the U.S. changed its legislation on the allocation of funds for a standing army, removing the limit, under the pretenses of ‘national security.’ In 2023 The U.S. spent $816.7 billion on defense spending, while spending $879.3 billion on interest on the U.S.'s national debt. The system of currency backing using the citizen’s continuous labor to stave off debt in order to achieve near unlimited spending, is unrepresentative, undemocratic, unconstitutional, and destined to end either in bankruptcy or extremist political/economic change. The Congress of the United States has passed a series Intolerable Acts that outweigh even that of the economic and moral depravities of Great Britain’s Acts that led to our founding. Congress has stripped away representation by passing the Reapportionment Act of 1929, Congress has devalued our currency by debasing it’s purity, replacing it’s backing with debt, and using it as a tool of Imperialism through sanctions. Legislation in the U.S. represents the monied interests who can afford to out-lobby the economic conglomerates that rule our market, rather, they define corporations as people, create legislative loopholes and footnotes. The backing of our currency needs to be based on a physical material with agreed upon value. Our government needs change - Congress needs term limits, lobbyist caps; presidential campaign funding caps, and the destruction of entangling alliances and economies with foreign powers. If funds for a standing army are going to be allocated under the pretense of national defense, the weapons of war need to stay within the U.S. territory, as defense tools rather than ones of containment. The people have a right to Life, Liberty, and Happiness, a weak dollar and an indebted economy reap the opposites of life, liberty, and happiness.
Ideas and conflict of race, creed, gender, etc. all function as a divide and conquer tactic, abroad and here at home; we are all people. True autonomy can only be gained through homesteading.
“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.” - James Madison
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” - Benjamin Franklin
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.” - Thomas Jefferson
“The people are the only legitimate fountain of power.” - James Madison
“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” - James Madison
“I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.” Thomas Jefferson
“If our nation is ever taken over, it will be taken over from within.” - James Madison
“The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.” - James Madison
“Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.” - Thomas Jefferson
“Never spend your money before you have earned it.” - Thomas Jefferson
“When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.” - Thomas Jefferson
“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.” - Thomas Jefferson
“The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home. A man has a property in his opinions and the free communications of them. No nation could preserve itself in the midst of continual warfare.” James Madison
Some Intolerable Acts:
•Coinage Act of 1853
•Coinage Act of 1873
•Sherman Silver Purchase Act
•ArtI.S8.C12.2 Time Limits on Appropriations for Army
•The Sixteenth Amendment
•The Federal Reserve Act
•Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929
•General Provisions; Ch. 1: Words denoting number, gender, and so forth.
•Emergency Banking Act of 1933
•Executive Order 6102
•Gold Reserve Act of 1934
•Coinage Act of 1965
•Coinage Act of 1972
•USA Patriot Act of 2002
•Homeland Security Act of 2002
•SAFETY Act 2002
Ages of some of the Founding Fathers at the time of the Revolution in 1776:
George Washington, 44
Andrew Jackson, 9
Benjamin Franklin, 70
James Monroe, 18
Alexander Hamilton, 21
Samuel Adams, 53
Thomas Jefferson, 33
Aaron Burr, 20
Henry Knox, 25
Nathanael Greene, 33
Samuel Whittemore, 81
Edits: grammar
