Pandora’s Box

The Obama administration has decided to cut the pay of some of the firms receiving government aid, such as the car companies. Some will suffer as much as a 90% pay cut.

Who gave the government a right to enforce pay cuts onto private businesses? The answer? Private companies signed their souls away when they accepted the government bailouts.

Is this constitutional?
No, absolutely not.
Can the private companies do anything about it?
Nope.
Unfortunately, receiving the government aid in the first place wasn’t constitutional either. These private companies can hardly bring up the constitution now just because the government involvement is not to not their best interest.

Having just escaped the tyranny of Great Britain, the founding fathers single intent was to limit the amount of power that the government could enforce on the people. The founders wanted most of the power to belong to the states. As an even greater measure, before the states would ratify the US constitution, they insisted on a bill of rights otherwise known as the first ten amendments.

As the tenth amendment states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” This simply means that any action the federal government performs that is not expressly allowed in the constitution is unconstitutional.

The power of interfering in private companies is never expressly “delegated,” to the federal government, in fact it is forbidden at every turn.

Unfortunately, the constitution does not seem to have much value to the powers that be. They feel free to interpret it to whichever way best advantages them. The congress seems to think that the constitution is a joke. Congress seems to believe that it is there sole job to weasel there unconstitutional, erroneous fallacies past the Supreme Court.

This is how the government usually gets entangled with a once private business. The government offers something to the private organization. Once the private entity accepts the governmental boon, the organization is no longer private; the government can interfere whenever they feel like it.

Unfortunately, these drastic pay cuts are just a drop in the bucket compared to the funds the economy needs. Perhaps if the Obama administration would quit interfering with private entities, we could watch capitalism work as it always does to get us out of a tough spot. Either that, or Obama could ease up on taking his wife out on fifty thousand dollar dates.

Whatever works.