By Les Dunaway

During the budget debate last December, during the lead-up the the debt-ceiling debate, … I’ve listened to statements made by various politicians, pundits and some real people. I’ve concluded that there really are people who believe that we can just raise taxes to support any desired level of spending. When they are asked about the example of Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland, … they respond “Well, that’s Europe; that’s different”. Since I’m not masochistic, I haven’t tried to take the conversation further.

I’m reminded of a story a friend told on his wife when we were all 20-something. The wife had received an overdraft notice from the bank and told the husband “This can’t be right! I still have checks in my checkbook”.

Some people I’ve talked with agree that 90+% of voters are economically illiterate but dismiss the problem with “Well, that’s why we elect smart people”. Let me ask you “How’s that working for you?”. I submit that, given the nature of politics, the average politician is less “smart” than the average voter in their district. Politics is a “people” business.  It’s about being liked and trusted and neither of those have anything to do with any sort of economic knowledge or competence. Given the above, the economic illiteracy of the general population insures that politicians, in general, will be economically illiterate. There are, of course, exceptions: Paul Ryan comes to mind. There are also, and these are our hope, some who know what they don’t know and hire staff to fill the gaps and actually listen to said staff. However, this approach has limitations. Staff costs money and there’s always tension in the staff between those focused on technical issues and those focused on campaign issues. Guess who wins, mostly? Think tanks (Heritage, Hoover, Cato, …) can and do fill some of the gaps. But, in the end, we face the “explaining rainbows to earthworms” problem. The bulk of elected officials do not have the basic knowledge necessary to understand and internalize the information they receive and to recognize when they are being told what they want to hear rather than the hard facts.

I believe that the first step toward an actual solution to this problem was taken when the new Republican majority put in place a rule that each bill filed in the House “cite its specific constitutional authority.” They followed up with classes on the Constitution for staff.  Read  more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/46565.html#ixzz1Wkd6XEIy Does it bother you that elected officials and their staff NEED a course on the Constitution?

I cite this as part of the solution to legislative economic illiteracy because that issue arises only in association to government spending, generally of large amounts of taxpayer money. IF the governments of your town, county, state and our nation confined their activities to Constitutionally (federal or state) authorized activities, the complexity would be reduced by several orders of magnitude. For that to happen, you and your neighbors must become Constitutionally literate and consult that literacy when you select candidates and when you interact with elected officials.

Here’s a short Constitution test: True or False – Supreme Court Justices are appointed for life. The answer is Article Three, Section One. I encourage you to look it up and ask every politician you meet.