One of the children of one of the friends of my family is a really smart guy. If my memory serves me correctly according to his Facebook posts he’s currently going for a PhD in astrophysics. Those of you who regularly read my posts know that I’m kind of a hard core guy when it comes to the Constitution. I think rather than any big government scheme to restrict the voters, like term limits for example, what we should do is create and enforce a system of punishment for people who are sworn to it, who violate it, or vote in favor of bills that violate it. Depending on the seriousness of the infraction it would be basically three levels of charges. There would be contempt of the Constitution for the more mundane violations. Perjury would be for the more serious ones, basically emphasizing that they are in violation of their oaths. And treason when it reaches the level of aiding the country’s enemies or endangering the United States.
This kid (I shouldn’t probably call him a kid, he’s an adult now but I’m getting older so I’ve earned the right) said that he would rather have the big government do term limits because, “who’s to decide what’s Constitutional?” I, being a rather fervent student of the Constitution, was rather seriously taken aback by this comment. “What’s constitutional? Who’s to decide what’s Constitutional? Duh! It’s right there written into the freaking Constitution! It’s already been decided! You’re going for a PhD in astrophysics and can’t take the hour or two to see for yourself what is constitutional?”
I dressed him down pretty hard and have some regret for doing so, on one hand, on the other hand, liberals, you know.
Anyhow one of my favorite hobbies is astronomy. Yep. Old guy with a telescope outside all night staring into space. That’s me. It gives you a lot of time to think.
One night I was out there looking at the Moon and wondered, “If we convert the national debt of the United States to one dollar bills I wonder how high it would stack.” So I went to it.
(Side note here: Two presidents account for about 16 trillion dollars of that. Two presidents have racked up more national debt than all of the others combined. They account for five whole stacks of bills all of the way to the Moon, just between them. Those two presidents are Trump and Obama.)
I was quite shocked by this! Ten stacks of bills all of the way to the Moon! Wow! So I mentioned it to some of the people where I work at my day job. One of these guys has somewhat of a reputation as a wise guy. He suggested I should see how they stack up when recalculated into pennies. One of the other guys suggested that it might even reach some of the planets. Well, being into astronomy I found that quite hard to believe but what the hell? Might be fun. I’m thinking maybe half of the way to Mars or something like that. Planets are really pretty far out there in Earth based terms.
So, a penny is .0598 inches thick. Good. That’s 16.722 pennies per inch. A bit more than two hundred pennies per foot. 1,059,532 pennies to the mile. Miles to the Moon is 238,855, so it would take 253,074,461,538 pennies to make a stack all of the way to the moon. The national debt at the time (8/26/22) was 30,738,317,800,000. Multiply that times a hundred to convert dollars to pennies and we get a national debt of 3,073,831,780,000,000. Okay. What’s the number for that many decimal places? Okay…got it. Quadrillion. More than three quadrillion pennies in the national debt. So given that the pennies are significantly thicker than dollars, and that there are a hundred times more of them, it comes to 12,146 stacks of pennies all of the way to the Moon.
How about Jupiter? It certainly wouldn’t reach that far! No effing way man! What’s that quadrillion number again? Average distance to Jupiter? 444 million miles. Divide that out and we get…wait for it… 6.534 times. So the national debt, six and a half stacks of pennies all of the way to Jupiter.
Yes! It made it! (I was feeling a bit delirious by this time. You see, I drank a shot for every planet I passed along the way, just to calm my nerves.) The United States national debt in pennies stacks all of the way to the average distance to Neptune with 198 million miles to spare! The change left over from this transaction exceeds the average distance to Mars!
Hmmm…this creates a problem. It’s more than I can fit in my penny jar. I’ll have to get a bigger jar.
So the national debt is growing. I tracked it for a while and it came to a million dollars every forty seconds. If we were stacking pennies to keep up with it we would have to stack them at a rate of about 508 miles per hour. Good! At least we wouldn’t have to go any faster than the average cruse speed of a commercial jet to keep up with it. That makes it easier. At least we don’t need a rocket.
What’s that you say? The Constitution? What does this have to do with any of that? Ha! Thought I’d deviated from the subject did you?
Well my dear and loyal reader, here’s what it has to do with the Constitution.
Article One, Section Eight is one fairly long sentence. It includes a list that outlines all of the things that Congress is allowed to spend money on. I’m going to abbreviate it a bit here to emphasize the relevant parts.
First we have this clause; “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;”
Then we have a list of things they are allowed to do, relevant to the preceding clause:
1) To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
2) To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
3, 4) To establish an
uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies
throughout the United States;
5, 6) To coin Money,
regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights
and Measures;
7) To provide for the
Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United
States;
8) To establish Post
Offices and Post Roads;
9) To promote the
Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors
and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
10) To constitute
Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;
11) To define and
punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against
the Law of Nations;
12, 13, 14) To declare
War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures
on Land and Water;
15) To raise and
support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer
Term than two Years;
16) To provide and
maintain a Navy;
17) To make Rules for
the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
18) To provide for
calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections
and repel Invasions;
19) To provide for
organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part
of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to
the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of
training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
20, 21) To exercise
exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding
ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of
Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to
exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the
Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts,
Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;
They are allowed to do twenty-two things and spend our money on them. They are allowed to do nothing else.
Those twenty-two things ARE what is constitutional for the federal government. Everything else is up to the States. Anything not listed among them that the federal government is doing is unconstitutional for them to do.
This is not an interpretation. It is what the Constitution literally says. Anybody sworn to uphold the Constitution who is doing anything other than the above is in violation of it and their oaths.
The current (2022) federal budget is six trillion dollars per year.
That’s two stacks of bills all of the way to the Moon that the federal government is sucking out of the economy. In pennies that would still be enough to stack clear out to Jupiter!
Every! Effing! Year! If you ever wonder why you don't seem to have enough money then right there it is.
Do you want to pay off the national debt? Is it ridiculous for the federal government to suck enough money out of our pockets that we could stack it to any celestial body, near or far?
Well, my friends, I very obviously think so. If you agree with me, or if you are just curious about it, then I kindly invite you to go through the budget with a highlighter and mark off the things that are not mentioned in the twenty-two powers listed above.
It would be enlightening to discover just how easy it would be to bring the national debt down to a more Earthly level.
All we have to do is follow the Constitution.
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