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Showing posts with label Congress exempt from laws. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Congress exempt from laws. Show all posts

Monday, March 28, 2011

James Madison's wisdom - 213 Years Later

An e-mail blasting laws that congress makes for the people then exempts themselves for as been making the rounds,...at least the rounds of conservative readers. It states something to this effect:

Children of congress members do not have to pay back their college student loans. Staffers of Congress family members are exempt from having to pay back student loans as well.

Many citizens had no idea that members of Congress could retire with the same pay after only one term, that they specifically exempted themselves from many of the laws they have passed (such as being exempt from any fear of prosecution for sexual harassment) while ordinary citizens must live under those laws. The latest is to exempt themselves from the Healthcare Reform... in all of its forms.

What is interesting is that James Madison, 1751-1836 and 4th President of the United States, warned us about this the Federalist No. 57, 1788:

"The house of representatives can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as the great mass of society. This had always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interest, and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny.