The real plan!

Friday – September 2, 2011

The real plan!

On today’s date, in 1789, the U.S. Treasury Department was established by Congress.

The United States Department of the Treasury is a Cabinet department and the treasury of the United States government. It was established by an act of Congress to manage the revenue of the United States government. The Department is administered by the United States Secretary of the Treasury and the Treasurer of the United States who receives and keeps the money of the United States. The Department prints and mints all paper currency and coins in circulation through the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the United States Mint, respectively. It also collects all federal taxes through the Internal Revenue Service.

The Office of the Treasurer is the only office in the Treasury Department that is older than the Department itself, as it was originally created by the Continental Congress in 1775. The act of Congress read:
And be it... enacted, That it shall be the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to digest and prepare plans for the improvement and management of the revenue, and for the support of public credit; to prepare and report estimates of the public revenue, and the public expenditures; to superintend the collection of revenue; to decide on the forms of keeping and stating accounts and making returns, and to grant under the limitations herein established, or to be hereafter provided, all warrants for monies to be issued from the Treasury, in pursuance of appropriations by law; to execute such services relative to the sale of the lands belonging to the United States, as may be by law required of him; to make report, and give information to either branch of the legislature, in person or in writing (as he may be required), respecting all matters referred to him by the Senate or House of Representatives, or which shall appertain to his office; and generally to perform all such services relative to the finances, as he shall be directed to perform.

The plan was to have a balanced approach by which the nation’s business could be conducted. In 1789, the forefathers never envisioned that the Department of Treasury would become the personal bank of Presidents and future Houses of Congress.

This weekend, the President will be putting the final touches on his new jobs plan. I do not believe that his new plan will have anything new in the way of content. He is more concerned about making the argument that will put the Republicans on the defense. He will say if you aren’t for this plan, then you are playing partisan politics. He will say in front of a joint session of Congress on Thursday night, if you aren’t with me and the millions of Americans who are for this plan then you are not American. This is the push and pull that he is banking on. The other side of the coin is just how much money is this new plan costing the bank. How will the treasury handle the needed revenue that will be required to implement and fund the plan once Congress can get its hand around the plan?

In 1789, the forefathers and Alexander Hamilton worked to put in a system that would guarantee prosperity for the nation, if a few rules were followed. Alexander Hamilton the first Secretary of the Treasury said: “A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.”

The plan then was not to be excessive. Hamilton went onto say: “A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever may be its theory, must be, in practice, a bad government.”

Hamilton said of credit in his report on Public Credit January 9, 1790: “As on the one hand, the necessity for borrowing in particular emergencies cannot be doubted, so on the other, it is equally evident that to be able to borrow upon good terms, it is essential that the credit of a nation should be well established.”

You now can see the basis of the plan that was laid out more than 200 years ago. Today, the plan is to keep the Treasury and Congress borrowing to create jobs in false markets. Until the president’s plan can include what Hamilton stressed in his report on a National Bank on December 13, 1790, nothing will change: Industry is increased, commodities are multiplied, agriculture and manufacturers flourish: and herein consists the true wealth and prosperity of a state. Another 409,000 new unemployment claims were made last week. According to the labor department there were zero (0) net jobs created in the month of August.

These words will not be part of the plan on Thursday night that is why the plan is destined to fail before it is even announced. To have a plan you must have something to say. The forefathers had a plan when they created the Treasury, they enacted it. Reagan had a plan when he inherited the same kind of jobless economy when he took office. His policies and his words inspired the country to start down the road of unprecedented growth. The question is what will the president now say? His policies have not worked. They have been rejected. He will not reject the ideology that he thinks is America.

As we prepare to celebrate the last few days of summer over the upcoming Labor Day weekend, we must celebrate all those who contribute to the nation’s wealth by their labor. We must remember what the intent of the country’s labor was meant to provide; people working and building people sharing their wealth with one another through free enterprise and freedom of choice. A tax system that is equitable with every American contributing and an America that was free of its debt and that could be thankful for its blessings.

This is a plan that we will never see because some politicians don’t want to celebrate the blessings that can keep America giving, because that would take the power from them and keep it among the people.

Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives

A footnote: The most simple of plans would be to go back to the roots of what gave us our original prosperity. A plan that let’s the minds of the people work so that creativity is rewarded and industry is less regulated so that it makes it attractive for manufacturing to bring back the jobs and become the main part of the economic engine once again in the country.