newjerseynewsroom.com

BY MURRAY SABRIN

COMMENTARY

The outcome of the Anna Little/ Frank Pallone race in the sixth congressional district will set the tone of the Tea Party's strength around the country. If Anna Little wins the House seat, there is a high probability that Republicans could win as many as 100 seats today. If Little loses by one or two points, Republicans should pick up at least 70 seats. This race is in so many ways a bellwether for the rest of the nation.

According to the latest poll numbers at RealClear Politics, Frank Pallone, a 22-year incumbent with a campaign chest of more than $4 million and one of the most left-wing members of the House of Representatives, is in the race of his life. Pallone is ahead by only five points, down from 12 points earlier in the month. In previous elections, Pallone has won by margins of two to one. In other words, Little is in striking distance of one of the greatest upsets in New Jersey politics. In fact, a case can be made that Pallone will lose to Little because he is not ahead by double digits going into the last weekend of the campaign.

Frank Pallone epitomizes what is wrong with career politicians and the policies of the federal government. His campaign has been running radio ads accusing Little of "extremism" because she has called Social Security and Medicare unconstitutional. Let me help Frank out.

The U.S. Constitution (the document Pallone and his colleagues in the Congress as well as Supreme Court Justices and the President of the United States have sworn to uphold) authorizes only four cabinet departments --- Justice, State, Treasury, and War (now the Defense Department). The constitution does not authorize the following cabinet departments ---Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, HUD, HHS, Homeland Security, Interior, Labor, and Transportation. They should be phased out over the next several years in order to return the country to its founding structure ---- a constitutional republic. Nowhere in the constitution is the federal government authorized to pay for the American people's healthcare, retirement income, education, housing, etc. Yet, Pallone and the rest of the big government types in both parties have continually supported spending that is not authorized by the constitution.

When the Supreme Court ruled that a federal income tax was unconstitutional in 1895, the political establishment eventually got the U.S. Constitution amended so the federal government could directly tax the incomes of the American people. Moreover, when the Prohibitionists wanted to ban alcohol, they got the U.S. Constitution amended giving the federal government the power to prohibit the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages. However, in the past 100 years our political culture has changed 180 degrees. Now we have such unconstitutional institutions and programs as the Federal Reserve, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, farm subsidies, bank bailouts, corporate welfare, preemptive war, and the list goes on and on.

In the next Congress, Tea Party candidates should work to abolish the unauthorized cabinet departments because they redistribute income and make us poorer as a nation, except the crony capitalists who benefit from a big government in Washington D.C. Nowhere in the constitution is the federal government authorized to redistribute income.

The guiding principle of the constitution is to "promote the general welfare." Promoting the general welfare means self-government. States and local governments should be responsible for a few uncontroversial activities like local roads and the courts, and the nonprofit sector should eventually deliver all the social services the American people want in their communities, including education. Instead, Pallone and his cronies have no qualms about the federal government taking money from New Jerseyans and sending it to Wyoming, North Dakota, etc., and supporting the welfare-warfare state.

If scores of Tea Party members, including Anna Little, win on Tuesday and do what they have been asserting during their campaigns --- adhere to U.S. Constitution when they serve in Congress --- then there is hope our lost freedoms will be restored.

Murray Sabrin is professor of finance at Ramapo College. He was the Libertarian Party nominee for governor in 1997 and a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2000 and 2008. Check www.MurraySabrin.com for more of his writings.

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