Conversations with a Congressman

Economics Political Theory
1

I’ve been e-mailing back-and-forth with the Congressman from my district (David Price) regarding the Audit the Fed bill. He keeps explaing that he supports Federal Reserve transparency and did so by voting for the Dodd-Frank bill. This is my next e-mail to him, but I was hoping you guys could give me some extra stuff to explain to him. Also, I’m going to send him some links just in case he actually cares to learn. He seems incredibly confused or crooked by the way he responds. Feel free to add something. I’ll be sending the e-mail within the next few days.

Congressman Price,

I am responding to your e-mail to me regarding the Federal Reserve and the Dodd-Frank bill that places regulations on Wall Street. As you surely know, Congressman Frank isn’t completely innocent when it comes to the risks taken on Wall Street considering his friendship with Angelo Mozilo and his plan a few years ago to dump about $300 billion bad loans into the hands of taxpayers via the Federal Housing Administration refinancing program, but I don’t really want to talk about him too much.

While I understand the bill placed regulations on Wall Street, it does not matter to them. The reason that the executives are working for these firms is because they know what they’re doing more so than government regulators do and can make more money outside of government. Wall Street executives will find other ways to take risks, no matter what the law says. When government gets involved the way they did with the Dodd-Frank bill, it is corporatism. It lets the investment firms know that the government will force taxpayers to bail them out if they fail - but only if they follow the rules. What does this do? It convinces them to find loopholes. There is no doubt in my mind that every firm was completely aware that Paulson was going to bail them out. You don’t grow firms as big as they were by making mistakes. Instead, all we need to do is pass a bill saying that we do not purchase assets from private or public companies. If we had let them fall, their employees would have lost their jobs, the stock price would have fallen, possibly to zero, and then a more responsible company would have risen in its place. Such is the profits-and-losses system of the free market.

And the bill did not make the Federal Reserve more transparent. That is simply a lie. It gives them the power to decide whether or not a bank is, in essence, too-big-to-not-be-given-a-bailout after being handed reports by the SEC. We gave 3,500 regulators in the SEC and they couldn’t find excessive risk-taking in the top few financial firms. Why would the answer be to give them further oversight of the entire financial industry?

What has the Federal Reserve ever done for the United States? Inflation. Recession. Ben Bernanke admitted they they caused the Great Depression at Milton Friedman’s birthday, something the Austrian economists had been saying forever. It was caused by the Federal Reserve and lengthened by FDR’s corporatist policies, so why are we following in the footsteps of a failed history by centralizing an already-centralized bank, especially now that we don’t follow the fold standard?

There is no incentive for responsible than the speculation that you could lose everything if the wrong risks are taken. If you support phony transparency by means of unproductive regulation, I wonder why you didn’t support the Audit the Fed bill sponsored by Congressman Ron Paul. The only thing they successfully do is give Tim Geithner more power than he should ever have.

2

Brian,

Please don’t take this the wrong way, I am not being critical and don’t wish to offend.

But…

Why are you writing to this Congressman? What is the point? What do you intend to accomplish?

The Congressman is doing exactly what he has been placed there to do; expand the power and scope of the Federal government. He says the Dodd-Frank bill promotes transparency, therefore he is an ignoramus, a fool, or a liar. The Dodd-Frank bill gave the Fed unprecedented power to regulate the system that they prop up as the head of the cartel.

Please consider my advice. Stop writing to this or any Congressman (Ron Paul, of course, is the only exception, but you don’t need to write to him, he already knows).

Politicians are not going to accept sound economics. They have legions of economists telling them how their interventions will help the economy. They know what it takes to get reelected; deliver more government benefits. Krugman tells them to print more, spend more. Economists have equations that are based on empirical data and statistical correlations. Equations don’t lie! Equations have no ideology or bias! /sarcasm.

Nothing you say will change his mind. He is not there to listen to “constituents”, unless you are a lobbyist with millions of $ in campaign funding behind you.

I’m not cynical. I wish it was so simple as to merely be cynical. Rather, I am realistic. I am explaining how politics works.

If you persist, he will probably brand you as a trouble maker, and that could cause trouble in your life. No fly list, maybe? IRS audit?

Much better to spend your time studying liberty rather than trying to teach a dog not to bark. Dogs are made to bark. It is their nature. Politicians are made to expand power, it is their nature.

No offense to dogs by the politician reference, above.

I, too, was in letter writing mode during my transition away from “independent conservative” toward liberty. Once I realized that liberty is the goal, not wasting my time on power mongers, I never sent another letter.

I know this is not what you asked for, but it is what I think.

I dream of the day when they hold an election and nobody shows up. But then they would make it mandatory to vote, right?

3

Thanks for that comment. Don’t worry, I don’t take it the wrong way at all. The reason I wrote to him in the first place was just because I saw Ron Paul’s website how you could write to your local congress(wo)man and ask him or her to support the Audit the Fed bill. That was a long time ago. Not necessarily so long ago in time, but after joining this website a few months I seriously consider myself so much more intelligent when it comes to liberty. Everything people on here say makes sense to me. The only problem I have is with my future.

I don’t want to live in a world where the government takes all of my money and supresses everything. It’s not so much that I’m worried about myself because I’m fine with basically going underground if such an necessity were to arise, but all I want right now is for my future kids to be happy in the future. I can’t even be happy planning for my future without knowing my kids will be able to live in a free world, and I don’t know whether to change things by simply not accepting the legitimacy of government or at least trying to change the people in power right now.

Just wondering, on a side note, could that really happen?

4

No and I don’t see why he would even make that up.

5

My intent is not to induce paranoia. But let’s consider a hypothetical example.

A citizen continually writes letters to a Congressman. The citizen is agitating for radical change, like ending the Fed. He sends links to non-mainstream websites. The tone of the letters become more agitated as time passes.

The letter, including the name and address of the person, is passed on to the Homeland Security Department.

The Secretary of Homeland Security recently remarked that Americans must be on the watch for domestic terrorism (she did if fact say that today).

Would it happen? Who knows, probably not. Could it happen? What do you think? Seems plausible to me that it could happen.

That is one of the reasons why I stopped writing to my U.S. Representative and U.S. Senators. My tone was always professional, but I was supporting policies that are considered non-mainstream. Politicians are not going to abandon the expansion of power to defend liberty.

Remember how government acts during a crisis. The first thing that is thrown out the window is individual liberty. Maybe the scenario would not happen today. But maybe it could happen tomorrow.

We now submit to full body scanners at the airport. Old ladies in wheelchairs in the security line are humiliated during searches as everybody watches in full view (I will never forget the expression on that old lady’s face as she sat helpless in her wheelchair, I was so angry but I did not dare say a word, I would have been kicked of the flight. I would have lost my job).

We as Americans have accepted this. It would have been unconscionable prior to 09/11. Now it’s commonplace.

You have just described the good 'ol U.S. of A as it is today.

Do not waste time trying to change people in power, remember, they are not there to decrease their own power. Better to change yourself, ie, learn to value liberty more each day. Better to discuss these things with family and friends, real people, not politicians. Expose the interventionist approach to economics and politics, that’s easy because they can see the consequences of intervention all around them.

Once they reject what they see, it is easier to introduce the ideas of liberty to them.

I’ve rambled on too long, but the topic hits close to where I “live”.

6

Props brian. Some congressmen seem to half believe they are really serving the country, so I don’t think your letters are in vain. You might do well to cut down on the bulk of your letters, or add bold/headings etc. As far as I can tell, they’re the same drunken frat boys who go into business so they don’t have to do math. They don’t even read the bills they pass, so why would they take the time to read your letter in full?

Here’s prolly what they see

Brian: “I’m upset about X”
Congressman:“Sorry to hear that brah! I did my best about X…”
Brian: “No you didn’t. I’m still angry”
Congressman - hmm, I probably can’t make this guy happy. No point trying anymore…

7

Although I agree with some people here that congressmen can’t/won’t do much, and this was more of a spelling error-

centralizing an already-centralized bank, especially now that we don’t follow the fold standard?

shouldn’t it be gold? (2nd to last paragraph, last line).

I know the chance I had to talk with a congressperson, the Democrat from central Florida (can’t remember her name), she stood by the healthcare bill even after one student destroyed the entire reason of “X many people lack coverage”, to the joy and applause of everyone there.

8

^How pray tell did the student destroy her?

9

The congresswoman was at the Lou Frey Symposium at UCF in the Fall of 2009, and she was trying to convice us why the health care bill was good, and why she was a good congress person, although 90%+ of the room was not in her district.

She kept citing the 40+milloion americans without coverage (I forget her excat number), and when she opened the floor to questions, one of the students, he must of knew the topics to be covered, my class was just told were we going to UCF on X day, stood up and asked, “If we are to cover these X million, why? 10 million are illegals, 5 million are foreingers, 5 million can afford it, but chose not to get it, and 4 million can get Medicare/caid, why do we have to adjust 1/6th of the ecomony for 1/100th of the population?” (numbers are pulled out of the air here, but he then citied where he got his real figures, and the math worked out)

She was speechless, and the room burst into applause.

And considering the rest was that us “Millenials” are the “chosen” generation to be the next “Greatest Generation” and be the ones who won WW2, created social welfare, and be the same as Washington and FDR, everyone were sick of the presenters. It was a cyclial view of ever 40yrs new ideas form.

10

I would agree that writing any congressman will make you feel better but it really doesn’t result in any change.
There is a perfectly good candidate that is endorsed by both Campaign For Liberty, Ron Paul and The Independence Caucus…his name is BJ Lawson and he needs your help to remove Mr. Price. Dr. Lawson is against the fed and is libertarian leaning. Price was beat in 1994 and he can be beat again. I would encourage anyone and everyone to help BJ Lawson any way you can. http://www.LawsonForCongress.com

I have met Dr. Lawson on multiple occasions and had the pleasure of interviewing him for an hour…it was recorded and posted to the iCaucus website at http://icaucus.ning.com/

There was an 80 question vetting test that was submitted online and then a vote by state members in addition to the recorded interview. This man is as solid as they get.

11

Thanks for mentioning his name to me! I go to school and write for the newspaper here in Arizona, so I end up having to be more attention to this state’s politics. I hadn’t had the time to look up my own state’s choices yet, so I’ll be sure to do so!