Federal Unaccountability or the Collapse of Consent

Our philosophy of government is derived from British experience. Parliament developed a doctrine called 'supply' which meant that the only national funds the King and his executive could have to spend were those voted by the sovereign representatives of the people sitting in Parliament. The King could dismiss Parliament, but then he couldn't have any money. This system is predicated on parliament (or in our case Congress) being accountable to the people. But what if this no longer holds?

We the people have made it plain to Congress the level of taxation that we will abide. Normally it is the duty of the legislature and the executive to figure out how to allocate those funds to maximize the public good or to persuade the people that the amount needs to be adjusted. This is how we the people have traditionally limited the ambitions of our political class: In the English phrase: we have limited "supply".

But our Federal government has a magic money machine through which they can issue debt and print money that obligate us just as sure as if we had put it on our credit card. The result: the Feds are not limited by "supply". Indeed I think it is fair to say that without a limitation on the amount of money they can spend and a limitation on the future liabilities that they can undertake, that our Federal government is effectively unaccountable. And since they have not limited their activities to the people's level of 'supply' they are acting without our consent.

And government without the consent of the governed, as the founders put it, is Tyranny.