”Barnes Federal Code,” published by Bobbs-Merrill Co. in 1919, is a book I found in a used book store many years ago. A sub heading of the title says: “Containing all Federal Statues of General and Public Nature Now in Force.” The book has 2512 pages, is bound in leather, and contains, literally, all federal codes, statutes, and laws in existence in 1919. That’s one volume of 2512 pages, and these pages also include the Constitution, and Declaration of Independence.
Today, I found that in 1980…forty years ago… the federal laws and codes in existence then, occupied 50 volumes of over 23,000 pages each. How many federal agencies are there now? According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, in 2015, “Nobody knows how many federal agencies exist. If nobody knows how many agencies exist and by whose decrees we must abide, that means we don’t know how many people work for the government (let alone contractors making a living from taxpayers), nor know how many rules there are.” How many employees does the federal government have? “usa.gov” says two million, but that is a blatant lie. The post office department alone has over 600,000 employees and the Department of Defense has 3.2 million on the payroll.
Google says that, “The number of federal contractors grew from 3 million in 1996 to 4.1 million in 2017.” How many employees does a federal contractor have? Who knows? The largest private employer in the U.S. is Walmart with 1.5 million employees. Obviously, the federal government must have at least four times that many on the public payroll. The hundreds of federal agencies make their own rules and regulations, which have the rule of law, even though they were not elected, and that alone is in violation of our Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, which says in part that the Congress is “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States, or by any department thereof.” In other words, the Congress shall vote for, and have the president sign all laws, not a bureaucrat or agency inventing rules and regulations on their own.
From page 65 of the book I wrote 32 years ago, titled “I Hold These Truths,” here is a two-paragraph quote. “I recently sat in my favorite chair and looked around, thinking of the origins of all the things I know so well. The furniture, wallpaper, building materials, carpet, kitchen, windows, furnace, laundry equipment, plumbing, garage doors, concrete, cars, trucks, art, refrigerator, TV sets VCRs (now DVD’s of course) CD’s Tapes, telephones, computers, food, beds, dishes, silver, jewelry, clothing, shoes, newspapers, light fixtures and bulbs, wiring, lumber, nails, screws, roofing, landscaping, and literally hundreds of items right here in my home in Colorado.
“Who manufactured, installed, delivered, invented them, or even fixes them when they break? Is it government? Or the private sector? Did government make any of the above listed items, or in any way is it responsible for them? A hearty NO! Who did it then? Obviously, it was the private sector. Private individuals, businesses or corporations invented the above, risked capital for their manufacture, and provided the jobs required to make, sell, and distribute them. Our entire life, property, food, housing, clothing and possessions, have nothing to do with government.”
Over 330 million Americans are subservient to a host of unelected bureaucrats, agencies, and departments of the enormous, ever enlarging, federal government, which had nothing to do with our everyday lives and possessions. They were not elected by Congress, no one knows how many there are, nor does anyone know how many rules and regulations they invent, enforce, fine us if we violate them. As in Communist China perhaps? No wonder Washington D.C. and surrounding counties in Maryland and Virginia, are the wealthiest in the world. These areas are inhabited by employees of the federal government, and their numbers increase daily, in spite of Trump’s desire to reduce the size of government. Is there any way to stop this, which is destroying our western civilization? I know of none.
Don Stott
don@coloradogold.com