Cap and Trade Uncosititutional

Dear Senator:

I have heard both that you do support and that you are considering not supporting HR2454 ‘Cap and Trade’. I write today to encourage you to vote against this bill. I do not do so without consideration of the environment, we have a great responsibility to be wise stewards of the environment and to live sustainably. However, this bill is not written to any great effect for our environment, I have read various estimates but most agree that there would be less than a 1% change in our emissions.

Congressional Budget Office (CBO) May 7, 2009 testimony to the Senate Committee on Finance from Director Douglas W. Elmendorf about the Distribution of Revenues from a Cap-and-Trade Program for CO2 Emissions clearly states that the costs of this program would be borne by the American people and that the primary reason for this is to force people to change. “Such price increases would be essential to the success of a cap-and-trade program because they would be the most important mechanism through which businesses and households were encouraged to make investments and behavioral changes that reduced CO2 emissions.” Since scientists worldwide are far from reaching consensus on the topic of global warming, let alone it’s causes, I do not understand how government coercion of the people is justified. Further, there is no authority explicitly or implicitly granted in any document, law, or precedent to the federal or state governments, granting power to force the people to change in any way. I believe this to be just cause for anyone to reject this bill but there is further cause to vote against it.

The CBO has estimated the annual cost of this bill to be $147 per household. Others have estimated the cost to be between $1500-$3000 annually per household. In either case the cost is obviously not inclusive of all possible costs since the costs cannot be specifically enumerated at this point. Our economies both nationally and in the state of Missouri are weak. Investor and consumer confidence are shaky at best. The added variable cost of this bill is not likely to improve these facts, instead it is likely to further destabilize our already tenuous circumstances. If there is any real hope in government that we can recover from our current economic down turn voting for this bill would show intentions to the contrary.

One other major reason why this bill must be voted down: it is unconstitutional. Article 1 Section 8 paragraph 1 states “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;” this law does not comply with the requirement that it be ‘uniform throughout the United States.’ it has instead been intentionally written to penalize certain geographic areas, industries, and populations. The duties or consumption tax levied by this law are required by the Constitution to be uniform and if not uniform then unlawful.

Please consider these points. I encourage you to vote against HR2454 ‘Cap and Trade’.

Sincerely,

Mark Galbraith
Maryville, Missouri
660-254-0714

To be an American indeed

January 3rd, 1919

Dear Mr. Hurd:

I cannot be with you and so all I can do is to wish you God speed. There must be no sagging back in the fight for Americanism merely because the war is over. There are plenty of persons who have already made the assertion that they believe the American people have a short memory and that they intend to revive all the foreign associations which most directly interfere with the complete Americanization of our people. Our principle in this matter should be absolutely simple. In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here does in good faith become an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American and nothing but an American. If he tries to keep segregated with men of his own origin and separated from the rest of America, then he isn’t doing his part as an American. There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile. We have room for but one language here and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, of American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house; and we have room for but one soul loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people.

Faithfully yours,

Theodore Roosevelt

This is the text of a letter from Theodore Roosevelt to the President of the American Defense Society, Richard Hurd. Theodore Roosevelt died three days after it was written on January 6, 1919. The more times I read this letter the more inspired I am by the message, it proclaims without prejudice the sovereignty of the American people and the expectation that immigrants not just respect that sovereignty, but that they embrace it, and become every whit an American. Immigration is and will continue to be a challenging issue, especially illegal immigration, but I want to focus on the idea here presented of “complete Americanization” verses the segregation that so permeates our nation. My message in writing is to send out a call to all Americans to unite and rise in the might of our sovereignty as The People and force our government to bend to our will or be expelled.

We are at a crossroads in American history that has stymied Americans since the time this letter was written; we have so many internal divisions that we cannot exercise the power of our sovereignty to any effective degree. America is failing to some extent because we cannot let go of our divisions and simply be united under our Constitution. We have allowed race, ethnicity, political party, religion, special interests, lobbies, gender, the environment, and a host of other things to become so demanding of our energy and divisive that we have become impotent as Americans: we no longer have a government “of the people, by the people, for the people” and the very idea of this type of government is under attack by our current government and many who call themselves Americans.

In a few days we will celebrate Independence Day. It is a good time to reflect on what it means to be American. I believe that the flame of liberty still burns bright in the hearts of most Americans. I believe we can transcend divisions and be united under our Constitution and the flag that represents our Republic. I believe we can restore our sovereignty as a people and I believe the words of Abraham Lincoln: “It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

There are millions of Americans who have gone before us and have made this nation great; who have kept the flame of liberty bright. The flame is now ours to protect or to extinguish. The choice is clear: do we unite and return to the simplicity of Constitutional law or do we divide and proceed into the quagmire of special legislation and case law that will drown the flame of liberty? Here is the challenge: we must scrub Washington D.C. clean and we must scrub each state capital clean; we must research and study and unite to remove from office every politician who will not hold aloft the flame of liberty, who bends to special interest groups and lobbies, who yields to calls to enact laws that favor this group or that cause, who bows to foreign powers, or who heeds the siren call of compromise without principle to ’get things done’. Let us petition for impeachment with truth and evidence, let us bring to light the closed door meetings and the back room deals, let us reveal and tear down corruption, and let us once again be free and sovereign Americans under the Constitution “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” “…we have room for but one soul loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people.”

Happy Independence Day