Constitution... We don't need no stinkin Constitution....

Deleveraging the World Economy

If there ever was an event where our elected representatives showed their complete and utter disdain for the numbskulls who elected them, this was it.

By the way, some of you may have wondered how a spending bill could originate in the U.S. Senate. Doesn't the Constitution require that all appropriation bills begin in the House of Representatives? (Not that anyone in Washington, on either side of the aisle, pays any attention to the Constitution anymore.)

Here's how that particular trick was done. The Senate took a bill that had been passed in the House some time ago - in this case, the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act of 2007 - and voted to replace all of the text with their spanking-new measure. Presto-chango, a new (but unconstitutional) spending bill was transformed into an appropriations bill that originated in the House.

Did I already mention how this measure, more than any other I've seen, shows the total and complete disdain our representatives have for us? I guess it doesn't really matter if its origins were strictly Constitutional, since the measure itself will finance the biggest government takeover of business we've ever seen in this country. Would someone please show me where the Constitution says that the Treasury can take taxpayers' money to buy stock in a bank, an insurance company, or another financial institution?

But I keep forgetting; we don't operate under the Constitution any more. Haven't for decades.