Amidst all this handwringing over the current financial crisis, we are all asking who is to blame and how did this happen.
The answer is very simple. Congress has not done its job. The Constitution is quite clear that the Congress, and not the President, is tasked with managing the economy. Article I, Section 7 specifically tasks the House of Representatives as the body responsible for raising all revenue. Section 8 assigns the power to borrow money to the Congress as well as the job of of “… coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin…” So there is no doubt that our founding fathers said that Congress is the body in charge of economic matters.
However, Congress has failed miserably over the last century, since 1913 at least, when fiat banking came into existence through the Federal Reserve Act. There is hardly a member of Congress that has even the slightest inkling of how the economy works, let alone banking. Instead, Congress has abnegated its responsibility to the Federal Reserve, an organization that is a private bank, owned by foreigners, and can pretty much do whatever it wants. The Fed was created to prevent banking panics among other things, but it looks like that didn’t work very well.
The Federal Reserve can print money anytime it feels like it, and that devalues all of the money already in circulation. That means that your paycheck is worth less, and your savings account is less valuable than it was. It means that your Social Security won’t buy what it did last year. This is a hidden tax on every person in the United States, and it was never debated, or even mentioned in the Congress.
I think it is time for Congress to do its own job, and not turn it over to a quasi-private bank which has little accountability for its actions. There is more to managing our economy than just spending money, the one thing Congress does know how to do. If Congress is not able to do its job, perhaps it is time to clean house and elect officials who can.