Part of my family lore is that, through my paternal grandmother, I’m descended from Davy Crockett.  Maybe I am and maybe I’m not.  Someday I’ll join Ancestry.Com and find out.

There’s a Davy Crockett story from his time in Congress that bears repeating during the Debt Ceiling debate.  The reason we have a spending and debt problem in the Federal Government is that people have wanted too much and the politicians have fatuously obliged them with countless giveaway programs including the trio that threaten to bankrupt us: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

But, as I mentioned in my last post it wasn’t supposed to be that way.

The story, which you can read here, regards two bills in the House of Representatives, the first Crockett voted for, the second he quashed by making a speech against, after a constituent told Davy he wouldn’t be voting for him again and gave him a very cogent analysis of the Constitutional powers of Congress.

The first bill awarded $20,000 to victims of a fire in Georgetown. So what’s the problem? The frontier constituent explained:

“The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means.”

The man went on to explain that if they could vote $20,000, they could just as well vote $20 million (or $20 trillion!). But he continued:

“No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose…”

“So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people.”

There’s much more to the speech, but the upshot was that when a similar bill was brought before Congress, Crockett spoke against it but pledged one week’s pay for the cause of the bill.  As a result the bill was defeated and other members of Congress contributed their own money to help the people in need.

Congressmen giving their own money?  I know, it’s bizarre.