Can't we all just get along?

[kandrathe]

Not like that we can't. Oh and btw, this was on Yahoo. Hardly a conservative website.

We just need to reign in all executive power, then whomever is in the office won't be able to act in a manner contrary to the Congress (i.e. the representatives of the people).

Yahoo is the place you found it, and AP is the news organization who published it. Written by MATTHEW LEE and RICHARD LARDNER.

In this case, we could expect "consequences" in the form of "the well of free money is dry for you, sorry".

The people in "fly over country" seem to have gotten tired of the multitude of urban assholes screwing up the country: they want their turn to screw up the country. This time, some of the got off of their asses and voted.

Maybe my other point was lost; it is hard for Congress ( federal, state, or local) to determine what amount of spending is equitably fair. Say it is you, or your child facing a life threatening illness, what amount of health care spending is appropriate for you, or you child? So long as we are in debt at $20 trillion, whats a few million or so to save a life? I think it is very hard for politicians to not say yes eventually to every spending request, for every need. It seems to be the humane thing to do, which is why it was not much of a thing the federal government did back in the day when politicians were less corrupt. Slowly, I think by precedent, we've lost our way until now we're so dependent we no longer notice.

Not yours to give... a recount of Sen. Davy Crockett

One day in the House of Representatives, a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support. The Speaker was just about to put the question when Davy Crockett arose:

“Mr. Speaker–I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him.

Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as a charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week’s pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks.”

He took his seat. Nobody replied. The bill was put upon its passage, and, instead of passing unanimously, as was generally supposed, and as, no doubt, it would, but for that speech, it received but few votes, and, of course, was lost.