Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget proposal will find it’s way into the House this week for debate. Hopefully they are actually allowed to debate this ginormous budget and not just forced to shove it through as they have with all other expensive outputs of our taxpayer dollars. If you have read Obama’s budget you will understand why so many people are outraged by the massive spending. Spending that we simply cannot afford.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that if you don’t have the money to buy things you don’t ‘need’ then you do not spend that money. You wait until times are better and you can afford to spend on things that are ‘nice-to-have’ or ‘wants’. Mr. Obama does not seem to grasp this concept. Even though the Congressional Budget Office told him that his budget will cause a $9.3 trillion deficit over the next 10 years, Obama simply does not care.

We pay more per child for education than most, if not all, countries. Yet the test scores do not improve year over year. So what is the solution according to Obama? Throw more money at education rather than actually solving the problem as to why our children are not getting ‘smarter’. He may want to look at his beloved unions as part of the problem.

Universal Health care will destroy the healthcare system as we know it today. It will be outrageously more expensive for taxpayers and for those of us with private insurance. We will have to make up the high costs of insuring the entire country, not to mention still footing the bill for the 20 million plus illegal aliens who use the emergency room as their primary care facility. All you have to do is look to England, Sweden, Switzerland or Canada to see how their socialized healthcare systems work – people DIE because the government uses rationing as a form of controlling costs. The government has proven they cannot run ANY type of business efficiently or effectively yet we are going to allow them to have control over our healthcare??? What needs to be done is to figure out exactly why heathcare costs are so outrageous and then implement a solution so that all Americans can pay for their OWN insurance rather than having half the population foot the bill at a very high expense.

Mr. Obama’s cap & trade proposal is following the insane and unproven ideologies of Al Gore. In case anyone hasn’t noticed our wonderful mother Earth is actually getting colder, NOT warmer. The cap & trade program will tax business and ALL people at alarming rates based on their use of utilities. The more you use, the more you pay in taxes based on ‘polluting the atmosphere’. Earth to Obama – there are hundreds of scientists who completely debunk Gore’s ‘global warming alarmist ideologies’. The cap & trade program is estimated to cost taxpayers from $1,600 - $3,000 MORE in taxes every year. This includes the very poor and middle class who Obama pretends to care so much about.

There are many more ‘nice-to-haves’ in Mr. Obama’s outrageous and unaffordable budget. You can read all about it here: www.omb.gov. Do yourself a favor and take the time to look through it and understand exactly what our President is proposing. Then be sure to see what the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says about his budget and what it will do to our economy in the future here: www.cbo.gov. Don’t hesitate to contact your Senators and Representatives. We simply cannot sit back and allow government to continually overspend money that we do not have. You can contact your representatives here: http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/. Just as we are cutting back on our own personal budgets in this time of recession, so too should the government. They are spending our future, our children’s future and our grandchildren’s futures without hesitation. TAKE ACTION and let your voice be heard. We cannot afford Obama’s budget. We cannot afford to spend money that we do not have. We cannot afford to watch our country go further down the road into oblivion all because the President wants to push his far left ideologies.

The sign of a thawing frozen credit market and rising home sales was not enough to stop Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner from constructing another unnecessary big-government plan. The market may have initially reacted in favor to the announcement; however, the long-term picture does not illustrate anything nearly as positive.

Last Monday, Geithner announced a hybrid plan between the public and private sector that would help to remove toxic assets from the balance sheets of banking institutions. The plan will provide financing for $500 billion with some funds coming from taxpayer dollars from the initial Wall Street bailout and the rest from private-sector investors. The plan’s cost could expand to $1 trillion over time according to Geithner. (1)

Geithner’s plan is hardly original, as former Bush Administration Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson had initially proposed a plan of this nature, although he never followed through. He decided to give the funds directly to the failing banking institutions. Regardless, both approaches continue to avert systemic risk because investors have a guarantee from the government.

After all that has happened, it is still unclear to our lawmakers that the government cannot fix a problem that it caused. Government guarantees are what caused the financial turmoil in the first place. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guaranteed over half of the United States’ $12 trillion mortgage market, and both were among the largest lenders in the secondary mortgage market. (2) Now the government wishes to guarantee the very same assets it guaranteed in the past.

There is no talk anywhere in Washington D.C. about reviving sound lending practices, doing away with the sub-prime mortgage market or stopping government meddling in the financial sector – the very actions that were responsible for the crash. Instead, the government offers more guarantees for the same type of recklessness.

Also, absent from Geithner’s plan is assurance regarding regulator cooperation with the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s willingness to change mark-to-market accounting rules. If this valuation technique is not changed, Geithner’s plan will do little to help, as it will not have a positive cash flow effect. The current rules force companies to show realized losses (“paper” losses) because the “mark-to-market” price is lower than its cash flow value. For this reason, institutions were forced to show losses in the hundred billions – hence the “toxic” asset effect.

Perhaps the most concerning issue with Geithner’s plan is the likelihood of more government control. If the government becomes both a shareholder and stakeholder in the financial sector, it could very well have the power to regulate executive compensation. Driven by populist outcries, the government has been empowered to attempt to pass unconstitutional ex post facto laws. These types of actions could very well cause the private sector to say “thanks but no thanks” to the government’s generosity. The fear of success being taxed to unprecedented levels along with negative publicity will make investors in the private sector reticent to partner up with the government. However, this could be a ray of hope that a limited non-interventional government works best for everyone.

Geithner’s plan in conjunction with the Federal Reserve’s announcement last week gives a despairing long-term picture. The U.S. dollar is on the decline, and China and Russia are calling for a new reserve currency. Both countries are among the United States’ largest debt holders. In the midst of these events, President Obama has spent this week selling his budget that will cost over $9 trillion over the next 10 years according to Congressional Budget Office estimates. If only our elected officials were half as concerned about the long-term impact of their spending decisions…

(1) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123776536222709061.html

(2) http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2008/09/08/daily9.html

The bill itself is known as H.R. 1586 - The AIG Key Executives Bonus Accountability and Capture (TAKE BACK) Act. The Act itself calls for taxing bonuses that were given after January 1st on specific companies who were given TARP money by the federal government – aka – U.S. Taxpayers. This act that the House of Representatives just voted into law is in direct violation of the United States Constitution – Article 1 – Section 9 specifically states: "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed. Ex post facto is defined as formulated, enacted, or operating retroactively. In the context of the Constitution, a Bill of Attainder is meant to mean a bill that has a negative effect on a single person or group.” The $165 million retention bonuses that were given to certain AIG Executives fall into both of these categories.

It was the members of Congress and the President who signed the stimulus bill into LAW that had a specific clause allowing the bonuses to be given. Now they want to feign anger and outrage at the very bonuses THEY allowed? Not only was it a bad idea to vote the stimulus in the first place but then to pretend they are outraged because the people of the United States are outraged is absolutely an ‘ACT’. Most people in the country do not realize this violation of the Constitution. While the bonuses are outrageous, the violation of our Constitution should cause MORE outrage than bonuses totaling approximately 1% of the bailout money given to AIG.

This proves a few things – neither the members of Congress who voted for the stimulus bill NOR the President – actually read the bill. Something most of us already knew but their tomfoolery is proving the point. It also proves the complete hypocrisy of both groups because they are outraged by the bonuses but NOT by their OWN behavior for allowing the bonuses to be given. It also shows that neither Congress NOR the President actually take the Constitution of the United States of America seriously. Violating the Constitution is nothing to take lightly or to joke about.

It is simple to see that all of the outrage and anger occurring on Capitol Hill is literally and figuratively an ‘ACT’. A great show put on by Congress and the President to pretend they actually care about the people of this great country. People need to understand that it is Congress and the President who were actors in the great AIG bonus ‘giveaway’. The H.R. 1586 is just another scene from their political pandering play but one that could open doors for more Constitutional violations and abuses in the future.

http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#A1Sec9

I'm going to be blunt: the anger over the AIG bonuses is bull-effing-crap.

Bullcrap. Straight from the rear, not even on the ground yet bullcrap.

What Congress and the Democratic majority won't tell you is that the AIG bonus “loophole” was written in AIG bailout by the Democrats at the behest of AIG's bosses, who somehow thought that running the newly government-owned company like a business, and not as congressional political puppet, would be a good thing. Of course, the CEO and the management are quite undeserving of bonuses since their company is no longer independent due to their choices, but there are employees at AIG who did nothing wrong and who rely on these mostly merit-based bonuses in their paychecks.

The fact that the same Congress who wrote the bailout is now screaming bloody murder to inflame populist anger against AIG and Wall Street is disgusting to extremes. These are the same people who told oil companies that they'd be nationalized if they did not co-operate with Congress' paranoid hearings during high gas prices (Hugo Chavez has admirers in Congress, apparently). These are the same people who refused to fix the very obvious problems with government owned Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac years before those problems infected the economy. Fanny and Freddie held held over 50% of the so-called toxic mortgages that sunk companies like AIG. These are the same people who now attack capitalism itself for the economy when it was the failings of their own confusing and unbalanced regulatory system. And now they have the stones to throw a bone to the populist mob, sacrificing a major American company for political gain.

Disgustingly dishonest.

Populism is not an old ideology, if you can call it an ideology. Anytime a leader gave in to the protests or riots of angry people, that was populism. Anytime a leader inflamed a group of people with an “us vs them” speech or a “poor vs rich” speech, that was populism. Anytime a politician claimed that everyone but an agree upon social pariah deserves the same rights as everyone else, that's populism. Populism is a broad-reaching, very successful way to gain votes and turn a population against a minority.

Populism is, for lack of a better term, the poor man's revolutionary theory. While Marxists, anarchists and even Islamists have written and debated about how to exactly create a revolution, all populists have to do is get a group of people together and say key words. With conservatives in 2008, it was things like “liberal”, “socialist” or “abortion”. With liberals in 2008 (actually, pretty much from 2000) it was things like “free market”, “war on terror”, “Guantanamo”, “Iraq”, “privatization”, “surge”, “war”, “patriotism”, “success” or “George W. Bush”. When these words were said crowds would become filled with a renewed energy and maybe even anger. They'd become even more motivated to take on the people they see as harmful to the United States.

This kind of serious politics is cheap. It supports rumor mongering, anti-intellectualism and, to be blunt, the most stupid people in politics. At the height of the election, when both candidates were basically carrying torches and pitchforks to every rally, the worst of the worst in attacks made it to everyone's doorstep.

Intentional or not, Barack Obama supported people who went after John McCain's age, spread rumors about his mental capacity, insulted his wife, demeaned his service in the military and so on. Obama's populist army also took horrible shots at Sarah Palin's intelligence and her skills as a mother as well as her husband, her soldier son, her pregnant daughter (and still to today attack her daughter) and her disabled infant son.

From our side, we had people questioning Obama's citizenship (which still continues to this day in an insane, paranoid crusade), holding Obama's race against him (his blackness and/or his mixed blood, humorously), accusing him of being a closet Muslim terrorist despite the fact a huge scandal erupted over his loudmouthed Christian pastor, and countless bigoted statements and cartoons from so-called patriots.

Call me an elitist, but I believe pandering to the mob doesn't help the country all that much. I understand that in a democratic nation like ours the people are the last word on any politician or policy, as they should be, but the extent our leaders pander to the bottom of the intellectual barrel as they do today just shoves out any real chance we have at high minded debate. Political laymans, those who have a very shallow knowledge of politics and history, should not be the ones defining where our country goes.

Our Founders were not kids with a crush on Obama or wearers of large T-shirts with Sarah Palin's face painted on the front. Our Founders were some of the best and brightest people of their generation in British North America. They knew the difference between rights and privileges. They debated law, society, war and justice. They could tell when a king was overstepping his bounds in a constitutional monarchy. Today's laymans write to each other using a massacred version of the English language. Today's laymans read both US Weekly as well as political blogs (US Weekly being more accurate in its reporting). Today's laymans get enraged when a President uses his constitutional powers to listen in on our foreign enemies, but do not blink when Congress usurps the power of states to decide their own fates as they have with the stimulus package and as some want to do with gay marriage.

The need to inflame populist outrage has a lot to do with education. We don't teach critical thinking. We don't teach proper history or enforce proper economic teaching, let alone ideological history and proper identification of ideologies. We have professors teaching that fascism and communism are polar opposites when they are actually nearly the same. We have entire sections of American military history focused (Vietnam) on while others are blatantly ignored (War of 1812, early 1900s Progressive imperialism). These things should be taught in high school or elementary school. Our kids should be able to know what populism is before they vote, not after they have a tenured professor skip over the crimes of the Soviet Union so he can talk about the joys of the command economy.

There is nothing wrong with anyone talking politics or speaking out on politics. The First Amendment gives citizens the right to do so, but it does not means we have to listen to them or think they are smart. We should not be afraid of giving in to mobs just because they threatened to whine and bitch about something they thing is wrong. Like the AIG bonus anger, lowbrow populist anger over Rush Limbaugh's comments on how he wants President Obama's socialist agenda to fail misleads the general voting population, and I have little doubt the ringleaders of the mob intend for that to happen. Alas, relativity smart people like David Frum and David Brooks give in to such people, for reasons I don't know, but when they do it hurts the future of the conservative movement.

I'm pretty cynical on the future of my generation and its ability to think past the next issue of People or the next paycheck, but that does not mean we have to give up on the future of us or our children. Teach your children to read the news. Teach your kids to read the classic stories, to read history and economics. Teach your kids to remain loyal to country, not party.

If we can do that, maybe we can beat populism and the dumbing down of our citizenry and maybe we can have our wonderful nation last a little big longer as a intellectual powerhouse.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) has had a very nice run over the past week. After falling below 6,500 on March 9th - a low not seen since 1996, it has rebounded to 7,486 at yesterday’s close on March 18th. (1) This rally was driven in part by an unexpected rebound in new home construction in February, Citigroup’s positive earnings, and the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s willingness to rewrite the valuation techniques on mark-to-market accounting.

Investors are looking for any sign of optimism to plow back into the market. However, the Federal Reserve (FED) has just given investors a reason to believe that the rally we have seen over the past week is nothing more than a typical short-term bear market “fake out.” On March 18th, the FED purchased $300 million in longer term Treasury Bonds. This move has blown up its balance sheet to $4 trillion. In addition, the Federal Open Market Committee said it would purchase an additional $750 billion in mortgage-backed securities. (2)

When the FED makes this bold of a move, it shows that it has no confidence that the economy will recover not only in the short-term, but in the long-term as well. In addition, this is yet another example of the dangers of a large and powerful central banking system. The reason why this action was taken was to keep long-term borrowing rates low. The FED’s purchase of these bonds increases the price which, in turn, decreases the yield. (An inverse relationship exists between price and yield.) During difficult economic times, rates are kept low to induce borrowing to get the economy moving again.

One may ask why such a move is dangerous, as it is prudent to keep borrowing rates low in a recession. However, what happens if borrowing rates are kept too low for too long? We already know the answer to this question, as it is the key reason why we are in the current situation. Alan Greenspan already made this mistake in the early 2000’s, and now Ben Bernanke is about to repeat history. The three key factors that need to be considered regarding the FED’s decision are as follows: 1) impact on the U.S. dollar, 2) increased concerns foreign investors have on America’s economic policy and 3) potential for hyperinflation.

The dollar’s rebound will come to a screeching halt…

In order for the FED to take this action, the printing presses will have to be fired up. Between the extra money supply and the country’s astronomical budget deficit, investors will begin to sell off the dollar. In just one day, the trade-weighted dollar index fell 2.7% - its biggest one-day drop since 1971. In addition, the dollar fell yesterday by the most in nine years against the Euro as well as falling against the Japanese Yen. (3) A weak dollar means weaker purchasing power for Americans, which cannot come at a worse time. The biggest sting comes with inelastic goods such as gasoline. It’s quite possible that Americans could be feeling some pain at the gas pump once again in the near future.

The rest of the world is not fooled by the FED’s gimmick…

America’s foreign investors and largest bondholders such as China and the United Kingdom will see the action taken by the FED as a confidence deflator. The only country that is not concerned about reckless spending is America! It is unwise to ignore the concerns of our foreign investors especially when their capital is so desperately needed – now more than ever before.

Inflation, inflation, inflation…

It seems that none of my columns can be published without mentioning the “I” word. I’ll continue to hammer on this as long as the wild spending spree in Washington continues. The 1970’s was a wonderful decade for music. People still enjoy the music and relive the days dancing the night away in “retro” bars. People may want to resurrect the disco ball, but stagflation need not make a comeback! The FED is concerned about deflation when it should be concerned about inflation. The action taken by the FED shows that it has no confidence in a quick economic recovery. If that is the case, folks not old enough to remember high prices and double digit unemployment of the 1970’s would prefer not to experience such trauma.

It would be grand if our federal officials were not so historically challenged so maybe just once, history would not have to repeat itself…

(1) http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=INDEXDJX: DJI

(2) http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/story.aspx?guid=%7B7DB91E8A-FD87-4BD4-9296-3C6EA402C920%7D&siteid=rss

(3) http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/cbuilder?ticker1=USD

Calling for the Federal Government to regulate the derivatives market is like leaving the fox alone with the chickens. In an era of misguided economic policies comes yet another step in the wrong direction.

The call for this regulation began while the Bush administration was still in office in October 2008. Recently, the very liberal New York Times asked President Obama if he was a socialist. Concerned that his first answer was not sufficient, he made the following statement: "…It was hard for me to believe that you were entirely serious about that socialist question. I did think it might be useful to point out that it wasn't under me that we started buying a bunch of shares of banks. It wasn't on my watch." His answer did not imply that he wasn’t but does ironically resemble Pee-Wee Herman’s famous line: “I know you are, but what am I?”

If President Obama is not a socialist, then he could take America off of George W. Bush’s path to that governmental structure. There is no denying the fact that advocates of the free market have nothing but harsh criticisms for George Bush’s economic policy. Last fall, I wrote about the hazards of mark-to-market accounting in the banking industry and the role it played in the crash of the financial sector (view here). With the stroke of a pen, President Obama could change this rule and abandon burdensome regulation in the derivatives market. These measures began with the Bush administration and could end with the Obama Administration. That would be “change we can believe in” and lay to rest the socialist accusations.

Arguments for regulation center around the fact that credit default swaps (CDS) pose a great risk as an over-the-counter (OTC) derivative. They are OTC because no clearinghouse exists in the middle to guarantee the deal. The government and proponents of regulation believe that such clearinghouses would provide greater transparency in the market.

CDS are bought as an insurance policy against a debt default. In the event of a default, the buyer receives a lump sum payment. The buyer pays a premium to purchase a CDS, and the seller receives monthly payments from the buyer.

CDS are bought as a hedge against a total loss of investment – in other words, to drastically minimize risk exposure. For example, if an investment fund owned mortgage bonds and was concerned about the company defaulting, it could purchase CDS from a hedge fund. The spread on CDS relies on a company’s credit rating and overall financial position. Speculation varies depending on institution’s financial behavior. One of the reasons why CDS have grown immensely in the market was due to many institutions taking on risky mortgages. Quasi-public companies such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have guaranteed loans that private lenders made which, in essence, removed natural risk aversion and drove the speculation in CDS. Private lenders have nothing to lose if the government guarantees their recklessness.

In the aftermath, the government now wants to regulate the derivatives market – the very body that drove the speculation, created the artificial bubble and caused the crash. Regulation will do very little to avert problems in the future because increased regulation does not address what caused the situation. Government regulation will do nothing more than increase transaction costs and divert people away from the OTC market.

Burdensome regulation prevents business from protecting itself. As with oil speculation, CDS are insurance policies for business. Politicians conveniently ignore the fact that joint ventures between government and the private sector are what caused increased volatility and bubbles. Elected officials understand one thing: increased government regulation EXPANDS their power and emboldens the lobby influence.

The derivatives market is very difficult to explain, but I encourage my readers to take the following into consideration when doing further research:

• The CDS market did not fail, and did not cause institutions like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers to fail. All of these failed and struggling institutions made big bets on the wrong side and lost. Greed in the market, regardless of whether it is driven by the government or executives should not be rewarded and encouraged through bailouts. Failure is part of business and becomes someone else’s opportunity.
• The CDS market was quietly the most stable throughout all of the financial mayhem. It survived the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
• There is transparency in the CDS market. There is no talk outside of political circles about the worries of identifying CDS participants and with whom they are trading.

Markets that are self-regulating weaken the power that lobbyists and politicians have on the market. Fear is used to coerce the public into accepting the fact that the government must step in and protect people from unregulated markets, when in truth, these are the markets that can restore stability. Crisis is a friend of the state as Rahm Emanuel knows all too well. It is being used too often as an excuse to strip power away from the people and the private sector.

Sources:

http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/top-5/2008/11/14/Regulating-OTC-Derivatives
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/toby_harnden/blog/2009/03/08/barack_obama_george_w_bush_is_a_socialist

BY: MIKE PORTER

Washington District of Columbia (DC) is currently home to about 600,000 people. The majority of DC residents believe they should have representation in Congress. At the present time, DC is represented in the House of Representatives by a non-voting delegate. Non-voting delegates can be on committees, debate issues and actually introduce legislation. The only thing they cannot do is vote in the House. Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands all have non-voting delegates as well. Unlike the others, Washington DC is subject to all US federal laws and taxes. Many residents think they should have some kind of representation. “Taxation without Representation” has become the area slogan. It may be difficult for the rest of us to believe or understand what residents there must feel like. The feeling of being muzzled while they must obey all the laws, pay all the taxes, but cannot have a vote in what goes on. While this may seem unfair to the people who live there, DC should never have representatives in Congress.

Let's begin by examining why DC is not a state. The federal government moved to DC in the year 1800. Prior to the move, the US federal government operated primarily out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In the late 1700’s, it was decided the federal government should have a permanent center of operations. Several states and cities wanted to host the newly established government in their cities assuming it would be a tourist attraction and become an industrial hub for the nation. These debates became heated as every city thought they deserved to house the federal government. Alexander Hamilton suggested the country build the capital on government owned land outside of any state territories. Congress finally agreed on an area near the Potomac River. Virginia and Maryland donated some land and the capital was named Washington. Back then, the area was sparsely inhabited, but eventually the area became a home for many residents. In 1960 the twenty-third amendment was passed granting three electoral votes to the citizens of DC.

Legislation has been proposed and expected to pass granting DC full representatives in the US House. The only problem with this is that it is unconstitutional. The constitution clearly states that only states can have representatives in Congress. In order for this to pass, the constitution would have to be amended or DC would have to apply for statehood. To do neither would be illegal according to our constitution, and the final vote would go before the Supreme Court of the United States. How our Supreme Court will vote on this issue remains to be seen.

So why not have DC apply for statehood and join the union as the fifty-first state? There are quite a few reasons. The first being why it was decided to move the federal government out of existing cities in the first place. No state in the union should get favorable treatment over all the others. Any state that houses the federal government would certainly be treated differently. State governments work for the state and the federal government works for union as a whole. States are represented in the federal government by elected officials in a democratic republic. If DC were to become a state, it would house a state government as well as the federal government. If these two coexist within state lines, then they will work as one. This opens the potential for a conflict of interest. The state of DC could get dollars from the state as well as significant dollars from the federal government - a privilege no other state currently has. The money for state defense and police would be disproportionate. There would be continued questioning as to how the money was used. Residents of Delaware do not want to pay for things being done in Vermont. The same would apply here. There is no doubt our founding fathers ran into something similar, which is why it was decided to move the home of the federal government out of a state in the first place. Also some people have argued that if this is done to DC, then every territory owned by the US should get the same treatment. Some would think Guam and Puerto Rico should soon follow. Some have also said what is to stop other large cities from doing the same? Could we find ourselves in a debate where Chicago and NY want their own representatives or statehood as well?

The Democrats have been really pushing hard for this legislation which brings me to my final and perhaps most disturbing reason why DC should not get representation. The area in DC has been overwhelmingly Democratic. Some people believe the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress are trying to buy themselves another blue state. While none of this can be proved, it really makes one think why there is such a push to have this done right now. DC statehood or voting representatives in the district could increase the gap between the GOP and the Democrats further than it is today. A gap this wide would allow the Democrats to push through bills without any Republican support. In addition, DC is the home of the federal government. Granting representatives would be almost like giving the federal government voting rights for the federal government itself. Instead, the federal government is supposed to be made up of elected officials in each state. One wouldn’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to see ways in which this can be abused and that it is dangerous to the rest of the union.

Residents in DC are aware they do not live in a state. While I do feel for them and certainly understand their frustrations, I fear for the ramifications of making a radical change like this. I would not support this if the Republicans or Libertarians were pushing for this measure. There is no law that says anyone has to live in DC. People who feel they are not getting the voice they deserve are free to move into Maryland or Virginia. Doing so would give them all the benefits of living in a state relatively close to home. I do not believe it is in the best interest of the United States to make DC a state or give Congressional representatives.