Let me start by stating what should be obvious to everybody who knows even a little about my political convictions: I have been opposed to the Emergency Economic Stimulation Act of 2008 from the beginning. I am appalled by the idea of spending $700 billion dollars to assist corporations whose fiscal idiocy has caused the housing market to go haywire and the stock market to nosedive. These crooks made their beds; it is time for them to lie in them.

On closer examination of the bill, I see that the issues are more substantial than government interventionism, the federal deficit, or corporate influence in Congress. The entire issue shows us that our Constitution is on life support, and both major parties (including the two major Presidential candidates) are yanking furiously to pull the plug. Our political system is more corrupt than the media will admit, and every single one of our liberties are at stake.

Let us review the commonly-known facts. On Monday, the House of Representatives rejected an economic stimulus package by a vote of 228-205. On Wednesday, the Senate voted on a bill, which commentators said was essentially the same as the one rejected by the House two days earlier. The Senate overwhelmingly approved this legislation. It went back to the House of Representatives, which suddenly had a change of heart, passing the bill by a vote of 263-171.

Those are the commonly-known facts. Now for the facts nobody reported.

First, let us remember that our Constitution establishes a system of checks and balances, designed to protect the American people from an overgrown government. Most of us know that the government has laid claim to more power in recent decades, finding loopholes through which to claim authority in areas never previously imagined.

Article I of the Constitution spells out the rights and responsibilities of Congress, and specifies the specific roles each house may have. One particular passage states that "All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills" (Article I, Section 7, Paragraph 1). It seems harmless enough; a number of people shared my initial impression that the Constitution forbids the Senate from initiating spending bills. Although it has become customary for the House to initiate such bills, the clear wording of the Constitution shows that either chamber of Congress may initiate a spending bill. However, only the House of Representatives may initiate a bill to raise revenue.

Article I, Section 8 provides a definition of "raising revenue." "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises…; [and] to borrow Money on the credit of the United States…."

Now for the problematic part. Most Americans see a spending bill here. However, the bill contains several new or increased taxes. You may read the bill yourself at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.1424.enr:. It is all there. For example, Title III, Division B, Sec. 113 of the bill, extends an increase in a coal excise tax.

Some people may think I am nitpicking here, but I suspect that President Bush and the members of Congress knew very well that the bill was unconstitutional. Unfortunately, the smoking gun is now hidden on the Library of Congress website now, but it should prove something is wrong with this bill. If you follow the link I provided above, and go to the page of "Major Congressional Actions," you will notice that this bill's number was H.R. 1424, and that it was introduced into the House of Representatives by Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) in March 2007; it was passed by the House of Representatives in March 2008, and was finally voted on by the Senate earlier this month.

Wait a minute.... Didn't the Senate vote on a bill that had been rejected by the House of Representatives earlier in the week? Yes and no. Here is where we see deception at its most flagrant. Kennedy's bill was named "The Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act of 2007." It had nothing to do with an economic stimulus. It was designed to expand certain government-funded mental health benefits to people seeking addiction treatment.

Several Senators proposed "amendments" to this bill before voting on it. By the time it reached the floor of the Senate for a vote, the marked-up version of the bill, indicating amendments, read as follows:

RESOLVED, That the bill from the House of Representatives (H.R. 1424) entitled `An Act to amend section 712 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, section 2705 of the Public Health Service Act, section 9812 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to require equity in the provision of mental health and substance-related disorder benefits under group health plans, to prohibit discrimination on the basis of genetic information with respect to health insurance and employment, and for other purposes.', do pass with the following AMENDMENTS:
Strike all after the enacting clause and insert the following:

What I find truly criminal is how few Americans know what happened, and how even fewer care. Why did Congress allow this to happen? After all, if the Senate were constitutionally permitted to introduce this bill, why would no Senator simply write a new economic stimulus bill, have a brand new Senate bill index number assigned, and have the Senate fast-track this bill through the process? Chris Dodd (Democratic Senator from Connecticut) introduced the "amendments" to the bill. Surely he has enough clout in Congress to get a brand-new bill fast-tracked through the legislative process, especially when the nation faces a financial crisis.

Do the Congressmen who voted for this bill truly care about honesty and integrity? Apparently not. I will point out that both major Presidential candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain, voted for this bill. Both willfully voted for a bill that was designed to deceive the American people. Both have shown that they do not care to be honest. Neither is worthy to hold public office in the United States. Neither can be trusted to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" (President's oath of office, Article II, Section 1, Paragraph 8 of the Constitution; incidentally, all Congressmen take this oath as well).

I admit, I do not have all the answers about this. However, the suspicious method of passing this stimulus package is enough to raise questions all by itself. One can search the Internet for the other issues: whether or not this form of government spending is constitutional or not (I think it is not); whether this sort of legislation protects the free market and individual liberties or not (it actually fits the definition of "fascist," and is strongly comparable to the economic policies of Adolf Hitler); and so on. There are countless problems with the Emergency Economic Stimulation Act of 2008. This article focuses on just one, in hopes that readers will take it to heart.

I hope at some point someone has the nerve to get this information out into the public sphere. It is high time that the American voters realize that we cannot expect our nation's salvation to come from the Democrats or the Republicans. In fact, we need to be saved FROM the Democrats and Republicans.