Jim Huntzinger | On April 29, 2020

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, December 1943.

In 1933 changes by the Roosevelt Administration to the Federal Reserve “wrought in the U.S. financial system by the New Deal” would “[plunge the monetary system] into massive fraud upon the American public by claiming to rescue the nation from unsound banking.” The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, FDIC, was formed in order to “insure” “all bank depositors against losses, thereby propping up the banking system by a massive bailout guaranteed in advance.” This was fraud, as “the FDIC only has in its assets a tiny fraction (1 or 2 percent) of the deposits it claims to “insure.”” [1]

How did Congress let this insolence of the American system, laws, and citizens happen and sustain? Many in Congress were every bit as wicked as FDR.  Many in Congress wanted wealthier citizens to actually pay more in taxes than their actual annual income; for example, paying $1,708,000 in taxes on $1,000,000 of income.   Senator Happy Chandler of Kentucky stated that “all of us owe the government; we owe it for everything we have – and that is the basis of obligation – and the government can take everything we have if the government needs it,” and that the government has a “right to have all the taxes it needs for any purpose.”  Representative Wilbur Mills of Arkansas declared that Congress “must direct our tax policy toward diverting an even larger part of the funds of persons above subsistent levels into the Public Treasury.”[2]

These evil men had nothing but contempt for the fundamental right of property.  However, a few legislators foresaw the calamity of such taxation.  Congressman John Jennings of Tennessee foretold that “The time will come if we continue on down the slippery, steep road we are now on to the precipice that leads to the bottomless pit, the abyss of financial bankruptcy and ruin.”[3] Currently the United States is in over $20 trillion of debt and in upward of $100 trillion of unfunded liability; we are there just as Representative Jennings predicted.

Americans were forewarned about this very outcome. In Anti-Federalist No. 21 Centinel, Founding Father Samuel Bryan, foretells that “by putting [direct taxation] in the power of the future government to levy money at pleasure, and placing this government so independent of the people as to enable the administration to gratify every corrupt passion of the mind, to riot on your spoils, without check or control?”[4]  The same issue resides today, except that now Americans are rendered with the yoke of trillions of dollars in debt and liability.

Economist Walter Williams defines this in terms of the fundamental right to property in the most succinct and powerful manner. “It is also theft,” declares Williams, “to forcibly use one person to serve the purposes of another.” Regardless of what a legislature passes, even if following proper procedures, it is not allowed to violate our Fundamental Right to property. Williams continues, “True rights exist simultaneously among people. That means the exercise of a right by one person does not impose an obligation on another. In other words, my rights to speech and travel impose no obligation on another except those of noninterference.”[5] Any civil government is bound and obligated to noninterference of our persons and property as well. If they violate this, we are obligated to hold them to account and abolish the civil government if needed; as all of these rights are Fundamental Rights and all derive from Creator-given Property Rights.

Statists like FDR and his administration will always lie, cheat, steal, and often do even worse in order to dupe the public and gather more power. Roosevelt was the champion of such dictatorial statism in the name of “common good.” Such is the rhetoric of wickedness.

Originally published on Townhall Finance.

Jim Huntzinger

Jim Huntzinger began his career as a manufacturing engineer with Aisin Seiki (a Toyota Group company and manufacturer of automotive components) when they transplanted to North America to support Toyota. Over his career he has also researched at length the evolution of manufacturing in the United States with an emphasis on lean’s influence and development. In addition to his research on TWI, he has extensively researched the history of Ford’s Highland Park plant and its direct tie to Toyota’s business model and methods of operation.

Huntzinger is the President and Founder of Lean Frontiers and a graduate from Purdue University with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering Technology and received a M.S. in Engineering Management from the Milwaukee School of Engineering. He authored the book, Lean Cost Management: Accounting for Lean by Establishing Flow, was a contributing author to Lean Accounting: Best Practices for Sustainable Integration.