America has beaten the big government statists and imperialists before in our history, and we will do it again now. As Mark Twain said, "History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme."
The British Empire realized at the end of the French and Indian War in 1763 that it had no competitors in North America and could now attempt to reduce the American colonies to subservience by abridging their rights as free Englishmen. Led by Sam Adams, Americans organized, and we freed ourselves from British tyranny in the American Revolution.
The ink was barely dry on the Constitution when Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists tried to impose a centralized, imperialistic, national government controlled by big banking interests. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison took the case for freedom to the American people and crushed the Federalists in the election of 1800, founding the Democratic Party in the process.
In the 1830s statists tried to impose a powerful national bank to control the money supply and fund a big business, centralized economy. President Andrew Jackson blew that up with his veto.
Unfortunately the centralized, big government interests succeeded in creating the Federal Reserve in 1913, handing over control of our money to New York banks and Wall Street. A dollar is worth less than two cents today compared to 1913, and we have the least upward mobility and the greatest concentration of wealth of all developed countries.
Also, in 1916, monied interests got the income tax passed, taxing the American people directly for the first time and giving the Federal government a huge income stream. It is no coincidence that we entered World War I only a year later.
Today both political parties are completely owned by large corporations and the superrich those corporations have spawned. A person who earns $40,000 a year in America now is in a tax bracket for income taxes, Social Security, Medicare, and sales taxes almost twice the bracket of a person who makes $1,000,000 a year or more! Eighty-five percent of all corporations which make a profit pay no federal tax; the top 500 corporations in the U.S. have over $9 trillion in cash alone! The oil industry makes $200 billion a year in profits yet receives $15 billion in Federal tax breaks. The Supreme Court says that corporations are people!
The time is ripe for a new political party that believes the principles our country was founded on: equal opportunity; peace; and a limited federal government which mainly is a stern umpire enforcing fairness, human rights, and public health and safety. Of course there will be flexibility incorporating common sense when absolutely necessary. Didn't Jefferson himself make the Louisiana Purchase knowing it was unconstitional? Isn't our national road system a marvel?
Time for a revolution. Let's make history rhyme again.
Dana J. Andrusik, Baltimore
The writer chairs the New America Party.