Stop blaming James Madison for the shutdown By Valerie Strauss

[Galileo Galilei]

Stop blaming James Madison for the shutdown By Valerie Strauss

James Madison, the principal author of the U.S. Constitution and the fourth president of the United States, is suddenly getting prime-time attention over his supposed role in the current government shutdown (even though he died 177 years ago).

For example, my colleague Dylan Mathews over at the great Wonkblog wrote that there are a number of people currently alive who could be blamed, “but the deeper answer is that it’s James Madison’s fault.” Why? Apparently because of “an underlying disease in our democracy whose origins lie in the Constitution and some supremely misguided ideas that made their way into it in 1787, and found their fullest exposition in Madison’s Federalist no. 51.”

Really?

MORE DETAILS HERE:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/10/03/stop-blaming-james-madison-for-the-shutdown/

[Aratus]

i'm surprised that they did more than simply skimmed thru the Federalist #51
given that they just namedropped a founding father. madison's poly-sigh take
on how to bring a gov't into being is not the main culprit here, instead its the
partisanism that likes the idea of brinkmanship for starters ...that is less willing
to step back from this confrontation. madison is checks + balances personified.

[angelatc]

In Federalist 58 Madison was answering the charge that the House of Representatives — which in the first Congress was a very small body with only 65 members — would not be expanded so that the number of representatives would increase as the general population grew. Madison argued that the states would have an interest in enlarging the House over time for a variety of reasons, to which he added his observation that the House would always hold the power of the purse, as Rep. Meadows said, for “obtaining a redress of every grievance.” But the Congressman has omitted the rest of Madison’s sentence here, which states “and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure.” Whether Obamacare and closing down the government fall into the category of “just and salutary” measures, of course, is another question.

Madison was wrong.

[Galileo Galilei]

i'm surprised that they did more than simply skimmed thru the Federalist #51
given that they just namedropped a founding father. madison's poly-sigh take
on how to bring a gov't into being is not the main culprit here, instead its the
partisanism that likes the idea of brinkmanship for starters ...that is less willing
to step back from this confrontation. madison is checks + balances personified.

Another big point is that when Madison was around and up until 1913, the federal government was very small, less than 2% of GDP, so it was not a big deal to shut down the government in those days.

[libertyjam]

Stop blaming James Madison for the shutdown By Valerie Strauss

James Madison, the principal author of the U.S. Constitution and the fourth president of the United States, is suddenly getting prime-time attention over his supposed role in the current government shutdown (even though he died 177 years ago).

For example, my colleague Dylan Mathews over at the great Wonkblog wrote that there are a number of people currently alive who could be blamed, “but the deeper answer is that it’s James Madison’s fault.” Why? Apparently because of “an underlying disease in our democracy whose origins lie in the Constitution and some supremely misguided ideas that made their way into it in 1787, and found their fullest exposition in Madison’s Federalist no. 51.”

Really?

MORE DETAILS HERE:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/10/03/stop-blaming-james-madison-for-the-shutdown/

It must have been my twitter comment yesterday that did it! :eek::D

[libertyjam]

Another big point is that when Madison was around and up until 1913, the federal government was very small, less than 2% of GDP, so it was not a big deal to shut down the government in those days.

Heck these days it's only a big deal to the talking airheads on the TeeVee, most everything that has been shut down so far looks pretty good from here, and could be easily replaced in private sector and done much better.