Foreign Reliance

The head of the Government Accounting Office, David Walker, has severe criticism for the Congress due to its fiscal irresponsibility. He has said in Business Week Magazine that the current course is liable to lead to the economic destruction of this nation just as fiscal irresponsibility destroyed the Roman Empire.

This is not the first time the United States has engaged in fiscal irresponsibility to the point of possibly bankrupting the nation; however, it is the first time our government has acted with reckless malice while the nation has been the economic powerhouse of the world. The Guilded Age and the 1920s were both decades with the government and the people spending out of control. During neither of those decades was the United States looked upon as the most important world market, which is why those times are different from the times we are currently in. If the United State’s cannot reign in its current spending, then its entire economy could collapse and with it could go the entire world.

The world market is financing the reckless spending. China is one of the nation’s biggest creditors. It is constantly purchasing US bonds which are then used to pay the interest and payments on the deficit. It is dangerous to have China and other nations continue to finance this nation’s economy mainly because at any time China could decide to no longer purchase the US bonds and economic ruin would result.

If China invaded Taiwan, the United States would be politically obligated to intervene militarily. Or if North Korea announced that it was going to return to its prior policy of building nuclear weapons and the United States determined that it was in the nation and world’s best interest to militarily intervene in the nuclear weapons proliferation, China could decide that it will retaliate by stopping its constant purchases of US bonds. The United States would be in desperate need of money to finance the new wars, yet its largest financier would have disappeared.
Without China continuing to purchase the bonds, economic ruin could result. The United States could face the same scenario as Argentina just a few years ago when all of its debt was called in and Argentina could not pay it. The nation spiraled into depression and unemployment spiked. Argentina’s currency became worthless almost overnight.

Many economist say this could never happen to the US, but such rosy eyed views of the future are misplaced. There is no reason to think that the US will continue to be the world’s dominant economy. In years past the Netherlands dominated the world economy and then it was Great Britain. When they were the economic heavy weights they believed that the good times would never end, but they did. While it may now be the US which is the economic gorilla, it will not always be that way. Since China holds a significant amount of the US debt, if China wanted to become the next dominant economy it could send the US into ruin for the sole purpose of allowing China to become the principal economy.

The GOP has taken away protections for Americans who have over extended themselves financially, such as the bankruptcy protections. The GOP did this while saying that the people have to be responsible for their own actions. Yet, the GOP refuses to be responsible for its own actions. It refuses to stop the frenzied spending and reckless tax cuts. This course will result in a continued dependence on other nations and one day bankruptcy of the entire nation could result. The only question is, who will be there to pick up the pieces when it does occur.

The Fundamental Questions

During the recent Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings questioning, Judge Alito, among other things, said that Roe v. Wade was an important case and since the decision had been affirmed on more than one occasion, its precedence must be respected. Judge Alito’s responses were circular and were not enlightening in the least about how he would rule on a matter concerning abortion.

The issue around Roe is not whether precedence requires that the decision be upheld; rather, whether a fundamental right can be taken away whenever political expediency mandates such a reversal. A fundamental right is one that is so inherent and so embodied in the Constitution that it is beyond the government’s ability to restrict or remove it. No right has been deemed fundamental and then subsequently removed by the Supreme Court.

Roe established a fundamental right in a women’s right to privacy within their own body which includes being allowed to obtain an abortion under specific circumstances. The fact that abortion has been deemed to be fundamental requires that it forever remain part of the rights embodied in the American people.

The Senators asked Judge Alito if time was a factor in determining whether a case must be upheld or could be overturned. One example that was used during the questioning was whether it was proper for Plessy v. Ferguson to be reversed by Brown v. Board of Education nearly fifty years after Plessy was decided. What was not discussed or acknowledged was that there is a significant difference between the "separate but equal" doctrine set forth in Plessy, which is merely a national policy, and the fundamental right created in Roe. Plessy did not grant a right in a class of persons; rather, it prevented a group of people from obtaining a right and was used to suppress blacks. Whereas, Roe established a fundamental right that is inherent in the American people and firmly embedded in the Constitution. No amount of time can pass to remove this fundamental right in the same way that politics altered over the course of fifty years to go from separate but equal to integration. Fundamental rights, once created, must be deemed to be sacrosanct. Such rights cannot be taken away not just because precedence precludes the Court from removing the right, but because the Constitution prohibits such a removal of the right.

Bush v. Gore created a fundamental right. It is the only decision by the United States Supreme Court dealing with the counting of ballots and the requirement that it be done consistently throughout specific areas. This case cannot be overturned the next time a vote counting case comes to the Court just because there is no other case affirming the decision but because it created a fundamental right. Such a right once articulated becomes integral in society and even the Supreme Court should not be able to remove such rights.

Judge Alito should have been asked when the last time the Court removed a fundamental right from the American people and under what circumstances a fundamental right could be taken away. The correct answer is that a fundamental right can never be taken away. If Judge Alito responded with anything other than a fundamental right can never be taken away, then it would have been clear that he disregards the Constitution and only serves his political ends. Since the questions were not properly asked, we will never know what Judge Alito’s opinion is on this important issue.

Taking Personal Responsibility

Relatively recently, some high profile legislation has either been introduced into or passed by Congress giving corporations an unprecedented free pass on the injuries their products cause to consumers. One piece of legislation is the infamous "Cheeseburger Bill" which would allow fast food restaurants to be immune from so called obesity lawsuits. The lawsuits allege that McDonalds and other similar companies are liable to the person for their obesity. Another corporate immunity bill, which was passed, is for the gun industry, and it prevents people from suing gun manufacturers for injuries sustained by their product. The currently pending lawsuits allege that the gun manufacturers intentionally place more guns than the market can handle into the market stream of states with lax gun laws such a Virginia. These guns then make their way up the "iron pipeline" (e.g., the NJ Turnpike) and are sold illegally in northeastern states.
Champions of these pieces of legislation argue that the lawsuits merely require that people (i.e., potential plaintiffs) take personal responsibility for their own actions and not try to hold corporations responsible for the person’s own decisions to use these products. But when is the corporation responsible for its actions?

When a corporation puts a product on the market that is dangerous to the user then the corporation should be held responsible for the injuries its product causes. The corporation made the conscious decision to place the product on the market despite there being dangers to the unsuspecting public. The corporation is in the best position to know what dangers their product poses and the corporation must be held responsible for failing to pull an unreasonably dangerous product off the market or at a minimum warning the consumer of the potential hazards their product can cause.

For a decade lawyers sued the tobacco companies arguing that the companies placed a dangerous product on the market, which, when used as designed, caused lung ailments and resulted in death of the consumer. Eventually, juries started ruling against the tobacco companies when it was learned that the companies had lied about their product and had conducted experiments to ensure that the product was addictive. Despite the first victories for the tobacco companies, the plaintiffs kept bringing suit and eventually, the truth about the product was placed in front of a jury and the tobacco company lost. Additionally, states started suing the tobacco industries for the medicaid costs associated with tobacco related illnesses. The state lawsuits terminated in a settlement of over $200 billion.

The book Fast Food Nation details how the fast food industry adds specific ingredients into their products to create addictive properties. Specific amounts of salts and sugars in the hamburgers establish an addictive nature to them so that the consumer is sure to return. Additionally, the product is largely marketed to children, so they will establish the addiction early in life, and the companies seek to have people eat their product several times per week despite the high calorie content and the potential for the consumers becoming obese and unhealthy. The direct result of obesity from fast food restaurants can be tracked through obesity’s dramatic increase in nations where McDonalds is newly opening: Japan and African nations. This is evidence that the fast food industry produces and knowingly markets a product which is dangerous to the consumer. Yet, Congress is trying to protect the industry from being held responsible for producing harmful products.

Today we would not say that Ford should have been immune from lawsuits caused because of the defect in the Ford Pinto a defect Lee Iaccoca knew of prior to the car being placed on the market or Chevrolet for its Corvair. Today, few would deny that the tobacco industry should be held responsible for its malfeasance, so why should the fast food industry or the gun industry receive a free pass for placing unsafe products on the market. Holding the corporations responsible for the injuries they cause consumers is not a result of the consumers failing to take personal responsibility, it is holding the corporations responsible for their personal actions.