What would the founder of the Democrat Party think of Obama’s reckless deficit spending?
By Ken Falkenstein | Sunday, September 18th, 2011 | Policy
Thomas Jefferson, the founder of Barack Obama’s Democrat Party, would be appalled and consider it a moral crime against our children:
“Then I say, the earth belongs to each of these generations during its course, fully and in its own right. The second generation receives it clear of the debts and incumbrances of the first, the third of the second, and so on. For if the first could charge it with a debt, then the earth would belong to the dead and not to the living generation. Then, no generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of its own existence.”
–Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789.
“[Using], for instance, the table of M. de Buffon, [it can be determined that] the half of those of 21 years and upwards living at any one instant of time will be dead in 18 years, 8 months, or say 19 years as the nearest integral number. Then 19 years is the term beyond which neither the representatives of a nation nor even the whole nation itself assembled can validly extend a debt… With respect to future debts, would it not be wise and just for [a] nation to declare in [its] constitution that neither the legislature nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years? And that all future contracts shall be deemed void as to what shall remain unpaid at the end of 19 years from their date?”
–Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789
“The conclusion then, is, that neither the representatives of a nation, nor the whole nation itself assembled, can validly engage debts beyond what they may pay in their own time.”
–Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789
“[The natural right to be free of the debts of a previous generation is] a salutary curb on the spirit of war and indebtment, which, since the modern theory of the perpetuation of debt, has drenched the earth with blood, and crushed its inhabitants under burdens ever accumulating.”
–Thomas Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes, 1813
“We believe–or we act as if we believed–that although an individual father cannot alienate the labor of his son, the aggregate body of fathers may alienate the labor of all their sons, of their posterity, in the aggregate, and oblige them to pay for all the enterprises, just or unjust, profitable or ruinous, into which our vices, our passions or our personal interests may lead us. But I trust that this proposition needs only to be looked at by an American to be seen in its true point of view, and that we shall all consider ourselves unauthorized to saddle posterity with our debts, and morally bound to pay them ourselves; and consequently within what may be deemed the period of a generation, or the life of the majority.”
–Thomas Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes, 1813
“Ought not then the right of each successive generation to be guaranteed against the dissipations and corruptions of those preceding, by a fundamental provision in our Constitution? And if that has not been made, does it exist the less, there being between generation and generation as between nation and nation no other law than that of nature? And is it the less dishonest to do what is wrong because not expressly prohibited by written law? Let us hope our moral principles are not yet in that stage of degeneracy, and that in instituting the system of finance to be hereafter pursued we shall adopt the only safe, the only lawful and honest one, of borrowing on such short terms of reimbursement of interest and principal as will fall within the accomplishment of our own lives.”
–Thomas Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes, 1813
“I sincerely believe… that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”
–Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816.
“Funding I consider as limited, rightfully, to a redemption of the debt within the lives of a majority of the generation contracting it; every generation coming equally, by the laws of the Creator of the world, to the free possession of the earth He made for their subsistence, unincumbered by their predecessors, who, like them, were but tenants for life.”
–Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816
“To preserve [the] independence [of the people,] we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses, and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes, have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account, but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers.”
–Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816
“It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.”
–Thomas Jefferson to A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy, 1820
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About the author
Ken Falkenstein has been a staffer in the United States Senate and the Virginia House of Delegates. He has managed political campaigns. He was a military intelligence analyst in the U.S. Army in West Germany during the Cold War. He is currently a civil litigation attorney with Poole Mahoney, P.C. in Virginia Beach. But his concern for his kids' future is what most informs his writing.
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22 Responses to "What would the founder of the Democrat Party think of Obama’s reckless deficit spending?"
Thomas Jefferson was NOT the founder of the Democratic Party.
That “honor” goes to Andrew Jackson.
Jefferson’s Republicans evolved into the French-inspired Democratic Clubs… and are probably better termed as “Republicans” as opposed to the Federalists… though the more modern “Democratic-Republican” is historically accurate as both the Democrats and the Whigs evolved after the end of the Era of Good Feelings.
Jefferson, like most of the old Republicans, can be claimed by either neither — or both — of today’s political parties. But Jefferson was surely not the founder of either.
The “Republican” Party of the founding era was founded by Jefferson, and it was that party which ultimately became the Democrat Party.
Jefferson’s Republican Party was not a national party in the modern sense of having a unified national platform, but it was a national party in the sense of attempting to organize people from each of the states to support the same ticket for President and Vice President (which worked better after the passage of the 12th Amendment after the 1800 election debacle).
Granted there was not a lot of ideological uniformity between the Virginia Republicans of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe and the New York Republicans of George Clinton and Aaron Burr (or even between Clinton and Burr), but they were unified in their mutual disdain for the Hamiltonian Federalists and for quasi-Federalist John Adams (who wasn’t liked much better by the Federalists than he was by the Republicans).
After 1800, the Federalists became primarily a regional party and were never able to organize nationally again. The Republicans became the only national political party. Predictably, over time it split into factions that themselves became quasi-parties, the democrats and the Whigs – but all were Republicans, or later “Democratic-Republicans.”
Jackson later renamed this fractious party the “Democrats.” But Jackson didn’t found that party. He took over an existing party and gave it a new focus and name. Jefferson founded the party that Jackson took over and reformed.
A good (although imperfect) modern analogy is what Ronald Reagan did to the Republican Party. Until Reagan was elected, the Republican Party was a party of moderate conservatives who were merely less liberal than the Democrats. This had been the case for nearly 50 years, since the defeat of Herbert Hoover in 1932. Reagan redefined the Republican Party and gave it renewed purpose by instilling it with a solid conservative vision and agenda. The Republican Party has retained this vision and agenda ever since. So, Reagan can be can be credited with reforming the Republican Party, but he cannot be credited with founding it. The same goes with Jackson: He reformed and renamed his party, but he did not found it. Jefferson did.
There is absolutely zero evidence for that assertion, Ken. None — after the Jeffersonian Republicans triumph in 1800 and the long train of events that led to President James Monroe’s election, party affiliations bled away — Jefferson *hated* Jackson and the new “Democratic” Party… and the Whigs he simply wasn’t around to be a part of (though I doubt he would have joined).
The Democratic Party today has no more claim to the Jeffersonian Republicans than the GOP. It just ain’t so.
I never said that Jefferson supported or liked Jackson. I said that Jackson inherited a party that had been founded by Jefferson. This is a fact. You are just plain wrong in your assertion that Jackson founded the Democrat Party. He reformed a party already in existence that was founded by Jefferson.
Jackson didn’t inherit the Jeffersonians. At all. The old Republicans dissolved with Madison and Monroe.
You both make me smile. Here is a Democrat that inspires me still to this day. He doesn’t sound like the democrats of today. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLmiOEk59n8
God Bless America.
Of course it was President Bush who put the nation on the course of reckless deficit spending, reversing a President and Congress that had restored the budget to surplus and was paying down the debt. His reckless policies of fighting two wars and a new drug benefit for Medicare put us on the current path, and his and Congress’s failure to regulate the greed of Wall Street predestined the need for bailouts and stimulus. Now, we need long term deficit relief and we need short term policies to create jobs. We know deficit relief must be balanced between cuts and increased revenue, and today, we still need to invest in job creation. The republican attention to the needs of the top 1% has been shown to be an utter fiscal failure; let’s rebuild America and reinstitute a prosperous middle class.
And no Teleprompter.
These revisionist history talking points brought to you by Mike Barrett, local spokesmouth for the Democrat Party and Obama ’12. We now return you to the regularly-scheduled truth.
Well Ken, regretfully your denial of the truth of my statement above reveals that a necessary component of any republican’s thinking these days is the ability to divorce oneself from reality. Whether it is denying climate change, or evolution, or the value of vaccinations, or the view that sufficient deficit reduction can be done by cuts alone, citizens who by every other account are rational and responsible, are divorced from reality when politics enters the fray. Clearly, responsible governance and philosophic consistency are endangered species in the republican party of today.
If only you guys knew as much about economics as you do about political minutiae. Still, your lack of economic knowledge doesn’t dim or even temper your willingness to use the political system to run the economic one. Frightening, that, and a perfect illustration of the real, underlying problem.
But all is not lost. Excellent article on Zerohedge today which, if you read it carefully, includes arguments about the vanishing marginal utility of debt, mispricing of assets, misallocation of capital, and the unsustainability of the managed economy.
“Andy Lees Kills The Argument Of Endless Debt-Funded Stimulus”
Teaser (if only the political class understood this, we’d have a fighting chance):
“The only meaningful reduction in debt throughout this crisis has been the forced deleveraging of households in the US through foreclosure, and in Europe through job losses. Total debt has increased throughout the crisis as the public sector initially socialised the private sector debt, whilst running large fiscal deficits. The zero interest rate policy also continues to misallocate capital, supporting unsustainable consumption levels at the expense of productive investment. QE2 and the hotly anticipated QE3 will drive a speculative bubble in risk assets and give cheer to the financial markets but will not support or drive sustainable investment. As you can see below, the continued misallocation of capital in Japan from similar policies has not only lifted the debt to frightening levels, but has also raised the cost of servicing that debt as it strangles the productive assets, despite the zero rate policy. Far from lowering the cost of business, the printing of money by central banks sustains this misallocation of capital and thereby adds to the costs of business. Governments are simply crowding out the only part of the economy that can get us out of this mess, and thereby killing the overall economy with their supposed kindness.”
A little bit more:
“…if debt is causing a better allocation of capital, then debt will fall, not rise, relative to GDP.”
This, of course, is just another way of saying: “If the debt is used productively, then the economy will grow faster than the debt because of the wealth-producing effect of productive activity.”
Marginal productivity of debt; see?
But Jamie, debt can also be “weaponized” to target a struggling economy such as ours to a point beyond where our laws and our institutions can cope with the consequences. I wonder if the failure is being orchestrated, planned or is a confluence of individual circumstances where opportunists are waiting to institute a draconian alternative for which there will be no other choice.
It’s called the Cloward-Piven strategy, and Obama is implementing it on a national scale.
This article was written by Obama’s college room mate Wayne Allyn Root in June 2010. Interesting read: http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/obama-s-agenda–overwhelm-the-system-95716764.html
Tim,
There are so many things being done “to” the economy that are exactly wrong, that seem carefully calculated to cause harm…things I have ranted about here at length (to the chagrin of many), things that are known to be destructive of capitalism in general and of the American economy in particular…it is nearly impossible to conclude that they are anything other than deliberate.
To ascribe them only to Obama, though, is incomplete. Bush, too, failed utterly to investigate the obvious financial frauds that were revealed on his watch. Bush signed TARP. These acts convince knowledgeable capitalists that the rule of law is arbitrary, that crony capitalism is the new rule, that the supposed “health” of the economy is completely subject to the whims of the Federal Open Market Committee and is thus unreliable, and thus that if your capital is in play it is exposed to being arbitrarily stolen or destroyed. The only safe place for capital, then, is somewhere besides “in play” in the U.S.
Tim, also read the Bill Black interview with Jim Puplava; Link posted on my recent piece on Richmond Tea Party dot com titled “William Black: Why Nobody Went To Jail During The Credit Crisis.” Debt was indeed weaponized, knowingly and on purpose; warnings were made and unheeded, even by the FBI (so much for “If you see something, say something”), everyone was enjoying the party, the credit bubble was of course unsustainable but it kept people employed and tax coffers full, so no one in power wanted to stop it. As Black notes in the interview, we’ve known for hundreds of years what happens when debt is not underwritten. Yet, the criminal banksters knowingly did it anyway (Black says they all knew), and then got bailed out with taxpayer debt which they used to pay themselves performance bonuses. This is also weaponized debt; it is used as a weapon against the taxpaying productive middle class, smashing us further down into debt bondage.
Yes, and most herein want to put the same guys back in power that did that?
Mike, they are currently in “power”. This new crop of thugs have successfully “weaponized debt” and are striking on a global level to destroy, influence, control and change the fate of countries, governments and currencies.
Ah yes, another consiracy theorist. You can always find a conspiracy if you only look at shadows. No need to do so with regard to the Bush Administration. They were right up front with their devastating policies, leaving the current administration, and us, the citizens, in the most precarious position since the Great Depression. For any of us to think recovery from the fiscal debacle they created was absurd, and of course, one must add in the decision of the republican party to cause more fiscal duress by a self imposed rancorous debate over the debt ceiling. Given their intrasigence, it is a wonder we are in recovery at all.
Our dear leader lectured at the UN today to Israelis and Palestinians: “And the deadlock will only be broken when each side learns to stand in the other’s shoes; each side can see the world through the other’s eyes.”
Hygiene aside, why hasn’t he proposed that the Repubs and Dems swap and stand around in each other’s shoes to break the deadlock on taxes, debt and deficits as seen through the other’s eyes? If it’s good enough for them at the UN, then it would be real game changer for us.
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