What Wickard Has Wrought

In preparing our Amicus Brief against Obamacare, we wanted to start from the backdrop of what unfettered Congressional authority has done to our country. There were several unconstitutional expansions of Congressional limits before 1942, but the Wickard v. Filburn Supreme Court decision was truly the moment that opened the flood gates. It has simply taken 70 years for the American people to understand what really happened in 1942. The light bulb went on for many Americans with the passing of Obamacare.

Since Obamacare was enacted two years ago, we’ve been beating the same Wickard drum over and over so that people will understand both how we got here and how to fix it. Wickard v. Filburn removed all Constitutional limits on Congress. Reversing Wickard will put them back. That is what our Obamacare Class Action is all about – showing the Supreme Court that the only logical and Constitutional solution is to rewrite the interpretation of the Commerce Clause that was grossly misinterpreted in the 1942 ruling.

So, in order to make our case, we’ve been doing some research into the growth of the Federal Government since Wickard. The results of our research, so far, are even more shocking than I expected. We used government numbers to avoid our sources being dismissed. We checked and rechecked our calculations. We also wanted to show changes from the inception of our country (many economists only go back a few years, maybe a decade, so that the massive increases aren’t noticed). The following charts show some of the impact of the Wickard ruling.

This first chart shows the number of Federal Regulations according to the number of pages needed to print it all. Data is directly from the Federal Register.

Also from data from the Federal Register, the following chart shows the total number of Federal Agencies by year of creation. As several agencies associated with Obamacare are not yet listed on their site, this number will increase greatly if Obamacare is not overturned.

In the chart below you’ll see that in 1940, the Federal government spent $72 per American. Today it spends $11,194 per American. Before 1942, local and state governments controlled most issues. After 1942, the Federal government began to get involved in nearly every issue.

Of course, the more involved the Fed is in regulating activities, the more complicated the tax code becomes. In fact, the tax code is one of the primary methods through which the Fed controls local entities and is a primary source of power for Congress.

With limited income (we can only be taxed so much before the revenue begins to decrease) the Federal government had to turn to debt in order to finance its expanded agenda. Accordingly, the debt limit has increased exponentially over the past 70 years.

It follows naturally that an increase in the credit limit will be met with an increase in total debt. As of 2010, each man, woman and child in the United States carried a debt of $43,819. Today that number is estimated to be $53,723. That is $10,000 in 2 years!

By now you should feel sick. That is how we felt when these numbers came into focus during our research. Reversing Wickard may seem like a drastic step for the Supreme Court to take, but at this point every American must see that how we operate today doesn’t work. It is also not how we were ever intended to work. This is why the Constitution was written to limit the Federal government. Our Founders knew this would happen if the limits didn’t hold.

We must return pre-Wickard limits on Congress. Imagine the instant economic recovery we would enjoy if we did.

Please help us spread the word about how important our lawsuit against Obamacare is. If we win we can literally stop the exponential increase in government spending, debt and growth. This is do or die time. Please continue to encourage your friends and family to join us.

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