By Dr. Harold Pease
George Washington said, “Government is like fire, a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” The Founders understood that the biggest obstacle to freedom was the tendency of all governments to grow, absorbing power unto themselves. He also observed the natural inclination of the people to shove decision making power upward to the seat of government as they became more apathetic and indifferent. One force pulls and the other pushes, but in time they accomplish the same thing: eventually all significant power resides in Washington D. C. thousands of miles away, just as it was in Parliament in Colonial times, and the people are not free. The Founders planned to stop both forces by authorizing only a legislative branch to make rules. This legislative branch was limited to only specific grants of power, listed in Article I, Section 8.
Nothing better represents the tendency of government to grow like fire more than the following fictitious, but all too real, account written by an unknown author:
“Once upon a time the government had a vast scrap yard in the middle of a desert. Congress said, ‘Someone may steal from it at night.’ So they created a night watchman position and hired a person for the job.” Never mind that the yard had had no theft problems previously.
“Then Congress said, ‘How does the watchman do his job without instruction?’ So they created a planning department and hired two people, one person to write the instructions, and one person to do time studies.
“Then Congress said, ‘How will we know the night watchman is doing the tasks correctly?’ So they created a Quality Control department and hired two people. One to do the studies and one to write the reports.
“Then Congress said, ‘How are these people going to get paid?’ They created a time keeper, and a payroll officer, then hired two people.
“Then Congress said, ‘Who will be accountable for all of these people?’ So they created an administrative section and hired three people, an Administrative Officer, Assistant Administrative Officer, and a Legal Secretary.
“Then Congress said, ‘We have had this command in operation for one year and we are $18,000 over budget, we must cut back overall cost.’ So they laid off the night watchman.”
The reason this story is so powerful is that it is so readily apparent in any government run program; virtually everything it touches is wasteful and broken. In addition to adhering to the Enumerated Powers, The Founders’ collective view to never elevate to a higher level that which can be resolved at a lesser level would stop most waste. Instead of limiting their power, we gave them charge of education, energy, banking, part of the auto industry and now our healthcare–none of which are Enumerated Powers and thus unconstitutional. The recently passed Health Care Bill created 159 new committees and commissions to manage all the new power. And we wonder why we have lost so much freedom.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College.