America’s founders gave us a strong President. What they didn’t do, quite intentionally, was give us an all-powerful one.

The job is actually pretty simple. Execute laws, run the executive branch, defend the country, handle diplomacy, and act fast when an actual emergency calls for it.

Did you notice what’s not on the list? Making laws. The responsibility was left to Congress alone.

Sure, a president pitches ideas, pushes for a particular policy, negotiates with lawmakers, and even vetoes legislation. But once something actually becomes a law, the job is to execute it. Not ignore it, rewrite it on the fly, or swap it out with something the White House likes better.

Over the decades, we’ve slowly talked ourselves into accepting a completely different paradigm.

We’ve accepted candidates that promise to personally fix healthcare, control prices, cut spending, rebuild the economy, and single-handedly solve every other problem in our lives. And we buy into the promises anyway, knowing full well they don’t have the power to do everything they pledge; and in the process, we let the presidency run us instead of us running it.

And that’s how we got here. We have a presidency that acts more like a one-person lawmaking machine instead of a responsible manager overseeing our executive branch.

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The Most Powerful Office in the Country

President Washington saw this very trap coming on his way out the door. He warned us about “the spirit of encroachment;” that slow, quiet tendency of one branch trying to take over the functions of the others, until everything ends up under one roof.

Simply put, when one branch starts doing everybody else’s job, our republic is in trouble.

Just look around today. Every four years, candidates stand on a stage and make grand promises about things they don’t have the legal right to do on their own. And most of us don’t even call them out anymore. We’re so used to presidents setting their own rules and acting like kings that we get angry when they can’t deliver. But if we’re honest with ourselves, that’s on us. We allowed the expectations to shift.

While digging around and researching this, it’s clear a lot of us either forgot what we were taught in school or were never really taught it in the first place: the separation of powers isn’t just a trivia fact. It’s the only reason we don’t have a king or single ruler of any kind.

The President’s Actual Job

So, I’ll break it down.

Congress writes the laws. The President carries them out. The Courts ensure both sides stay inside their Constitutional lanes. And that’s it. That’s the entire system.

Now, Article II of the Constitution does provide some clear, independent powers, particularly in the areas of managing federal agencies, appointing officers, directing foreign policy, and commanding the military. But even those powers aren’t blank checks. Even those powers are checked by the Senate.

Don’t let some academic or political commentator confuse the issue with fancy jargon. They love making this sound more complicated than it is, but that truly is the system.

The president’s job is ensuring the laws are enforced honestly, competently, and consistently. And that power isn’t a political convenience tool either. The President doesn’t get to stretch, bend, or ignore a law just because he or she feels like it.

Think of the President as the CEO of our company, and us, the citizens, are the board of directors.

Strong Doesn’t Mean Unlimited

Now before anyone pushes back on the “CEO” analogy, I’ll clarify what the Founders were trying to do.

They clearly didn’t want another king. They’d lived in that world and just fought a war to be rid of one. But after living under the Articles of Confederation, where the national government was so weak it couldn’t even pay its own bills or keep order, they knew we needed a real leader. They understood that we needed an executive who could act with speed, discipline, and decisiveness when the situation called for it.

That is what Alexander Hamilton meant in Federalist No. 70 when he wrote that “energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government.”

But “energetic” doesn’t mean “unlimited.”

Think about it this way.

Suppose a massive fire breaks out in town. We’d want the fire chief to take control immediately, wouldn’t we? We don’t want him waiting three hours for a committee meeting while half the town burns down.

But that fire doesn’t suddenly give him the authority to rewrite the building code, raise taxes, seize local businesses, or declare himself mayor. He’s got authority to fight the fire because that’s his job. What he can’t do is run the whole town.

The presidency works the same way. The president needs enough power to act quickly and effectively when necessary, but that power still sits inside the Constitutional fence. “Energy” is about how the President does the job; it doesn’t erase the limits of the job itself.

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The Rise of the One-Person Lawmaker

Now, over the years, presidents have pushed that fence further and further; far past anything the Founders anticipated.

Our presidents use executive orders to force huge policy changes that Congress never passed and, in many cases, specifically refused to pass. Now, executive orders, on their face, aren’t automatically bad or unconstitutional. Presidents obviously need a way to manage the executive branch and to tell federal employees how to execute the laws Congress passes. The problem is when an order stretches an existing law so far that it starts looking like an entirely new law.

In addition to executive orders, federal agencies issue thousands of rules that have the practical force of law for ordinary Americans and businesses. And to be fair, some of those rules deal with technical details Congress specifically authorized an agency to handle. But plenty of others address major political, economic, and social questions that our elected representatives didn’t have the courage to decide themselves.

Then there are presidential emergency powers.

Temporary emergency declarations stay active for years, sometimes decades. We literally still have national emergencies connected to the Iran hostage crisis in 1979, weapons-of-mass-destruction proliferation in 1994, and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. At some point, we have to admit that any emergency lasting thirty or forty years isn’t really an emergency anymore; it’s just a loophole.

We see it with funding too. Presidents have redirected taxpayer money in ways Congress never approved. We saw it with Donald Trump’s border-wall funding, Barack Obama’s handling of portions of the Affordable Care Act, and Joe Biden’s attempts at student-loan cancellation. Different presidents. Different parties. Different policies. Same abuse of power.

Throw in signing statements, agency “guidance,” broad waivers, selective enforcement policies, creative interpretations of old statutes, and we get an entirely new system where laws are totally reshaped without a single vote being cast. Sometimes whole sections of laws are set aside under the broad umbrella of “enforcement discretion.”

Even our military operations follow this blueprint now. What starts as a quick, limited response turns into a years-long conflict without Congress ever putting its name on an official declaration.

As I’ve written in previous Restoration Papers, none of this happened overnight. It happened piece by piece, administration after administration. Each president inherited the tools left behind by the last one, used them a little more aggressively, and almost always finds a few new tools to add to the box.

And Congress? Most of the time, Congress just sits back and lets it happen.

Congress Built This Problem

Let’s be honest: Congress helped create this monster.

For decades, lawmakers have passed enormous, vague bills filled with broad phrases such as “protect the public interest,” “ensure fair competition,” or “promote public safety.” Then they hand the legislation to federal agencies and tell unelected bureaucrats to figure it out.

It’s a pretty sweet arrangement for politicians. They get to hold a press conference and claim credit for “doing something.” Later, when an agency rule drives up prices, kills local jobs, or makes life miserable for small businesses, those same lawmakers flip around, point at the President and pretend to be just as outraged as the rest of us.

It might be good politics, but it’s terrible governance.

We should always be able to answer three basic questions about any rule that governs our lives: Who made the rule? Who voted for it? Can I vote them out if I disagree?

When the answer’s an unnamed agency official working off vague language Congress passed decades ago, representative government isn’t working the way it should. The president didn’t simply steal all of this power; Congress handed it over on a silver platter because they were too afraid to make the hard decisions themselves.

And what’s worse? We let them do it.

What About Gridlock?

Now, this is usually where someone jumps in with the standard counter-argument.

“Look, Congress is broken. Nothing gets done. The world moves too fast, and we can’t just sit around doing nothing while the country faces serious problems.”

I understand the frustration and sometimes even share it.

Watching Congress argue, posture, stall, and dodge responsibility drives nearly everybody crazy. But our frustration doesn’t change the Constitution, and the fact that passing a law is difficult doesn’t mean the president gets to jump the line and do it on his/her own.

I’ll acknowledge that sometimes a proposal fails because Congress is dysfunctional. Absolutely. But sometimes it fails because the country is truly divided and there’s no genuine agreement about what to do.

When 330 million people are split down the middle on an issue, the answer isn’t to let one person decide for everyone. The answer is to do the hard work of making the case, persuading people, compromising, and building a true consensus.

Yes, that process is slow, messy, and maddening, but it’s supposed to be.

That difficulty – that slow, methodical method of passing national laws protects us from those emotional, temporary majorities or overly ambitious presidents who believe their cause is so important that it justifies steamrolling over everyone.

And let’s be honest; if you can’t get a real majority together on something, maybe that’s a sign the issue shouldn’t be at the national level in the first place. Maybe it belongs with the states, where different communities can try different solutions instead of forcing one umbrella rule over the whole country.

We have to remember that gridlock isn’t always proof the system is failing. Sometimes that gridlock is the system working perfectly.

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Defending the Boundaries

People have accused me more than once that I’m suggesting to run the country like it’s 1787 again.

I know the world has changed and I’m not trying to go back to 1787. The Founders obviously could’ve never imagined smartphones, nuclear weapons, drones, artificial intelligence, cyberwarfare, or global financial markets running 24/7.

But they did understand human nature. They understood power, ambition, and fear. And most importantly, they understood how quickly scared people will hand over their freedom to anyone promising to make them safe and fix things.

Modern problems might require faster execution, and the Constitution already gives the president considerable power to handle immediate, real-time emergencies. But reacting to a sudden crisis isn’t the same as inventing permanent regulations for entire industries, shifting billions around without approval, or rewriting immigration rules with a sharpie because Congress wouldn’t do what you wanted.

Then there’s the most dangerous excuse of all:

“The other side will abuse power when they get control, so we better use it first, use it faster, and use more of it.”

That’s another race to the bottom. Every president pushes things a little further and sets new precedents. Every party screams about the abuse when they’re out of power but magically discovers a new appreciation for it once they get the power back.

Where does that road end? Well it ends with something far worse than an elected president.

It ends with a ruler.

We have to remember that if limits only matter when the other party’s in power, they aren’t real limits. They’re simply temporary political conveniences.

What Restoration Looks Like

Putting the presidency back in it’s constitutional cage is how we restore the limited executive we were promised. It doesn’t mean wrecking it or putting the nation at risk, it just means putting it back where it belongs.

• Executive orders should direct the executive branch and explain how existing laws will be carried out. They shouldn’t impose new legal obligations on us unless Congress explicitly agrees.

• Federal agencies should work out technical details, but major political and economic issues need actual votes in Congress.

• Emergency powers should automatically expire unless Congress openly debates and extends them.

• Taxpayer money shouldn’t be spent or redirected unless specifically authorized by Congress.

• Guidance documents should be just that - guidance, and never turned into backdoor laws enforced through threats and penalties.

• Enforcement discretion should be used for individual, unusual cases or when resources are limited - not as loopholes to ignore whole sections of laws.

• Military operations shouldn’t run on autopilot for years without Congress putting its vote on the record.

None of this creates a weak presidency; just an accountable one.

A Simple Test

If you wan to check for yourself to see if a President has taken things too far, try this test:

Think of a presidential action or executive order you strongly support right now.

Now imagine that exact same power in the hands of a politician you trust the least, aimed directly at something you care deeply about.

Do you still support the power? Not the policy. The power itself. Would you be comfortable letting the other side keep it?

If the answer is no, then the answer is also very clear. If a power only feels safe when “your guy” has it, then it’s a power no president should have - ever.

Constitutional limits have to apply to everyone. Every president. Every party. Every time. Otherwise, they aren’t limits at all.

The Bottom Line

The president isn’t our ruler, our national boss, or our collective therapist.

The president is a public servant with a defined job, specific powers, a limited term, and a duty to enforce laws he or she didn’t write.

We don’t want or need a powerless presidency. We need a constitutional one. And we won’t get it until we, the voters, stop demanding that presidential candidates promise to solve every problem in our lives. We have to stop rewarding candidates for promising powers the office doesn’t have and start demanding they respect the boundaries the Constitution set.

Congress decides. The president executes.

That’s not a weak executive. That’s a free republic.

In Liberty,
Gary Mullins (Libertas)

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So this past week, Congress spent its final voting period before its regular August recess doing what they always do:

Passing massive bills that shove all kinds of unrelated policies into one take-it-or-leave-it package.

The House approved a $1.15 trillion defense bill with national election rules attached. It passed a congressional stock-trading bill with another voter-identification measure added to the end. It pushed most of the federal budget past Election Day while opening the door to another $95 billion in fast-track spending.

Then they voted to tell the president to end unauthorized military action against Iran. Meanwhile, the Senate rejected a similar effort a little more than an hour later.

After all that, House members left town for the next month.

Here is everything that happened in our name last week.

1. Biggest Story of the Week: The $1.15 Trillion Defense Bill Became an Election Bill

What Happened

The House passed H.R. 8800, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2027, by a vote of 216–212.

The vote was almost entirely along party lines. The bill received support from 209 Republicans, six Democrats, and one independent. Seven Republicans joined 205 Democrats in voting against it.

The bill authorizes approximately $1.15 trillion for national defense.

The NDAA doesn’t hand over all that money by itself. It gives Congress’s approval for military programs, troop levels, weapons purchases, construction projects, and other defense policies. Separate appropriations bills are still required before most of that money can actually be spent.

What Changed

House leaders didn’t send the defense bill to the Senate by itself.

The rule governing debate instructed the House clerk to attach the text of the SAVE America Act to the final House version after the defense bill passed.

In D.C. terms, the clerk was told to add it during “engrossment,” which is the process of preparing the official version that leaves the House and goes to the Senate.

The attached election package would create new federal rules involving proof of citizenship, voter identification, and ballots cast outside traditional polling places.

Those election rules weren’t part of the defense bill approved by the Armed Services Committee. They were added through a separate procedural rule shortly before the final House vote.

The NDAA itself includes military pay increases, weapons and equipment purchases, housing and barracks construction, support for operations involving Iran, and expanded defense cooperation with Israel and other foreign partners.

Why It Matters

The National Defense Authorization Act is considered a “must-pass” bill.

Members who vote against it can be accused of opposing military pay, troop readiness, national security, or support for servicemembers.

That makes the NDAA one of the most valuable vehicles in Washington. Leaders can attach policies that might not survive a clean vote and dare members to oppose the entire defense bill.

A member may support proof of citizenship but oppose spending $1.15 trillion.

Another may support the defense bill but believe federal election rules should be debated separately.

Neither member received that choice.

They were given one vote covering both.

Who Wins or Loses

• Likely Winners: Military personnel receiving pay and benefit increases would benefit. Defense contractors, weapons manufacturers, construction companies, and research institutions would compete for hundreds of billions of dollars in authorized programs. Supporters of national voter-identification and proof-of-citizenship rules moved those policies one step closer to the Senate without having to pass another clean election bill. House leadership also showed that it can use a must-pass defense package to carry other parts of its agenda.

• Likely Losers: Taxpayers would ultimately be responsible for the largest national-defense authorization in American history. States could lose some control over how they administer federal elections if the attached election provisions become law. Rank-and-file lawmakers lost the ability to vote separately on defense spending and election rules. The public also lost a clean record showing where each representative actually stood on each issue.

Publius Project Take

Providing for the common defense is one of the federal government’s clearest constitutional duties. I support a strong military, and I agree that our troops deserve proper pay, safe housing, working equipment, and leaders who don’t send them into combat without a clear mission.

But “supporting the troops” can’t be a magic phrase that ends every discussion about cost, strategy, or constitutional authority.

A $1.15 trillion authorization has to be examined line by line. Congress should have to explain where the increase is going, why it’s necessary, what threats it addresses, and what taxpayers should expect in return.

And obviously, election integrity matters too. I agree that only eligible American citizens should vote in our elections. Proof of citizenship and reasonable identification rules deserve a serious debate.

But they don’t belong inside the defense bill. A defense bill should defend the country. An election bill should govern elections. Combining the two allows lawmakers to support one and hide behind the other.

The standard should be simple:

One subject. One bill. One honest vote.

What to Watch for Next

Watch what the Senate does with the election provisions this week.

The Senate hasn’t yet begun debating its own $1.15 trillion defense bill. An earlier attempt to move forward received 50 votes but needed 60, and Majority Leader John Thune later withdrew his motion to proceed.

The Senate could:

• Remove the SAVE America Act entirely;

• Rewrite the election provisions;

• Reduce or increase the defense authorization;

• Add new restrictions involving Iran;

• Change foreign-assistance and military-cooperation provisions; or

• Refuse to take up the House bill at all.

The House and Senate must eventually pass the same text before the NDAA can reach the president.

That fight is far from over.

2. Quietly Moving Bills: The Congressional Stock-Trading “Ban” That Wasn’t Quite a Ban

What Happened

The House passed H.R. 7008, the Stop Insider Trading Act, by a vote of 232–198.

Every Republican supported it, along with 13 Democrats and one independent. Most Democrats opposed the final version.

The bill would prohibit members of Congress, their spouses, and dependent children from purchasing new individual stocks, options, and similar investments while the member remains in office.

It would take effect 180 days after becoming law.

What Changed

The bill would stop covered members and family members from buying new individual stocks.

It would NOT require them to sell the stocks they already own.

They could continue holding those investments and could sell them after publicly announcing the planned sale at least seven, but no more than 14, days in advance.

Violators could face a penalty of at least $2,000 or 10% of the transaction’s value, whichever is greater. They could also be required to surrender any profit earned from a prohibited investment.

The restrictions would apply to members of Congress, their spouses, and dependent children.

They would not apply to the president, vice president, cabinet members, federal judges, or senior executive-branch officials.

The House also added an unrelated section requiring photo identification in federal elections. It includes rules for both in-person voting and ballots cast by mail or another method.

Why It Matters

Members of Congress receive classified briefings, meet privately with regulators and business leaders, write tax laws, approve government contracts, and make decisions that can move entire industries.

Even when no crime occurs, buying and selling individual stocks under those circumstances creates an obvious conflict of interest.

The public can’t know whether a trade was based on ordinary research or information unavailable to everyone else.

But the bill’s title promises more than the text delivers.

It limits new purchases. It doesn’t force members to get rid of existing investments or place them into blind trusts.

And once again, House leaders tied an unrelated election proposal to a bill that was supposed to address government ethics.

Who Wins or Loses

• Likely Winners: The public would gain at least some protection against members buying individual stocks while serving in office. Members who already own large stock portfolios would also benefit because they could keep those investments and sell them later. Supporters of federal voter-identification requirements gained another vehicle for advancing their election agenda.

• Likely Losers: Members who actively purchase individual stocks would lose that ability while in office. Lawmakers seeking a clean, bipartisan ethics bill lost the opportunity to vote on the stock restrictions by themselves. Public trust may also lose if citizens conclude that Congress passed a carefully written loophole and called it a ban.

Publius Project Take

Members of Congress shouldn’t be trading individual stocks while receiving information and exercising power that ordinary investors don’t have.

That rule should also apply to senior executive officials, the president, vice president, cabinet secretaries, federal judges, and anyone else with access to market-moving government information.

H.R. 7008 is a step, but it’s not a full ban.

A real reform would require covered officials to sell their individual stocks within a reasonable period or place them into a genuine blind trust they can’t control.

Allowing members to keep everything they already own leaves the underlying conflict in place.

The voter-identification language should also be removed and debated separately.

The fact that I may support a policy doesn’t mean I support hiding it inside an unrelated bill.

Congressional ethics shouldn’t be used as political bait to carry election rules through the House.

What to Watch for Next

Watch whether the Senate takes up the bill at all.

Senators could strengthen it by requiring members to sell existing stocks or use blind trusts.

They could expand it to cover the president, vice president, senior executive officials, and federal judges.

They could also remove the voter-identification language in an effort to rebuild bipartisan support.

The biggest question is whether Congress genuinely wants to eliminate conflicts of interest or simply wants to get credit for passing something called a stock-trading ban before the midterm election.

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3. Money and Spending: Congress Put the Budget on Autopilot and Opened Another $95 Billion Door

What Happened

The House made two major spending decisions last week.

First, it passed H.R. 9770, the Continuing Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2027, by a vote of 220–205.

The bill would keep most of the federal government operating under temporary funding through December 4, 2026.

Second, the House approved H. Con. Res. 113 by a vote of 216–214.

That budget resolution starts the process for another reconciliation bill containing as much as $95 billion in new spending and election-related programs.

What Changed

The continuing resolution would carry much of the government’s current funding forward after the fiscal year ends on September 30th and push the deadline to December 4th, well after the midterm election.

It would also temporarily extend programs including SNAP, WIC, TANF, National Flood Insurance, wildfire suppression, disaster relief, and certain small-business and agricultural programs.

That means Congress could avoid final votes on most of the federal budget until voters have already gone to the polls.

At the same time, the new budget resolution gives congressional committees instructions to begin building another package containing up to:

• $60 billion for the Pentagon;

• $13 billion for intelligence and other national-security needs;

• $12 billion in agricultural assistance; and

• $10 billion for election-related programs.

The resolution doesn’t spend that money by itself. It creates the fast-track process Congress would use to write and pass the final package.

The current framework doesn’t include direct spending cuts to cover the proposed $95 billion.

Why It Matters

Congress is doing two seemingly opposite things at the same time.

It’s saying there isn’t enough agreement to finish the regular federal budget before September 30th.

But it’s also creating a special process to move another $95 billion for military operations, intelligence programs, farm assistance, and election rules.

The twelve regular spending bills are supposed to let Congress examine each department separately.

A continuing resolution largely freezes the existing system, including programs Congress might otherwise reduce, reform, or eliminate.

Reconciliation does the opposite. It allows selected priorities to move through a faster process that can avoid a Senate filibuster.

Regular government goes on autopilot.

Leadership’s preferred priorities get the fast lane.

Who Wins or Loses

• Likely Winners: Federal agencies would avoid an immediate shutdown and continue receiving money. Recipients of food assistance, disaster aid, flood insurance, and other extended programs would avoid a sudden interruption. Congressional leaders would gain more time to negotiate the final budget behind closed doors. Lawmakers would also avoid many difficult spending votes before facing voters in November. The Pentagon, intelligence agencies, agricultural interests, and states accepting election grants could benefit from the separate $95 billion package if Congress eventually passes it.

• Likely Losers: Taxpayers would continue funding programs largely at last year’s levels without a full review. Rank-and-file members would lose much of their ability to debate and amend individual department budgets. The regular appropriations process would be delayed again. Voters would lose the chance to judge many of their representatives’ final spending decisions before the election.

Publius Project Take

Keeping the government open matters. Federal workers, military families, veterans, and ordinary citizens shouldn’t be punished because Congress failed to their job, yet again.

A continuing resolution is an admission of failure; nothing else.

Lawmakers knew the fiscal year ended on September 30th. They knew there were twelve spending bills to pass. They knew the disagreements were coming. The deadline did not sneak up on anyone.

Congress also can’t claim there’s no time to finish the regular budget while finding time to create another $95 billion side package.

That’s not a shortage of time; it’s a choice about priorities.

Congress should stay in session until the appropriations bills are finished.

No extended recess. No pushing the hardest votes beyond Election Day. No giant year-end package dropped on members hours before a shutdown deadline.

Do the work. Put every member on the record. Let the public see the votes.

What to Watch for Next

Watch whether the Senate accepts the December 4th funding deadline.

The Senate could pass the House bill, amend it, shorten the extension, or replace it with a different funding plan.

Also watch the $95 billion reconciliation framework.

The House and Senate must approve the same budget resolution before the special process can move forward. Senate Republicans have already raised concerns about the cost and whether election-policy provisions qualify under reconciliation rules.

Even if the Senate agrees, committees must still write the actual legislation.

The greatest details, including the exact war funding, grant requirements, farm payments, and any spending offsets, haven’t yet been settled.

4. Coming to the House Floor This Week

Nothing. The House Left Town.

Normally, this section previews three bills scheduled for House consideration.

This week, there are none.

The official House calendar lists no legislative days between July 23 and August 31. Members may still hold brief pro forma sessions, committee work, or district events, but no regular House floor votes are scheduled.

That means the House left Washington with several major matters unfinished.

Unfinished Business No. 1: The Federal Budget

The House only passed three of the twelve full-year appropriations bills needed to fund the government.

Instead of finishing the remaining bills, it passed temporary funding through December 4th and took off for its August break.

Publius Project Take

Congress shouldn’t take a month-long break while its most basic constitutional responsibility remains unfinished.

District work is important. Members should spend time with the people they represent.

But they should finish the budget first.

Unfinished Business No. 2: The Iran War

The House voted to oppose unauthorized military action in Iran, but it hasn’t passed a formal authorization approving the conflict or a binding law ending it.

It also opened the door to tens of billions of dollars in additional military funding.

Publius Project Take

Congress can’t fund a war, authorize equipment for a war, and then pretend it has nothing to do with the war.

Members should vote clearly:

Authorize it - or end it.

Anything in between is political cowardice.

Unfinished Business No. 3: The Defense Bill

The House passed its version of the NDAA, but the Senate hasn’t advanced its own version.

The two chambers must still agree on defense spending, election provisions, foreign commitments, Iran policy, and hundreds of other differences.

Publius Project Take

A $1.15 trillion defense bill shouldn’t be settled behind closed doors by a handful of negotiators while most members are home campaigning.

The final agreement should be released publicly with enough time for citizens and lawmakers to read it.

What to Watch for Next

Watch the committees.

Even while the House floor is quiet, committee staff can continue drafting the reconciliation package, negotiating appropriations, and preparing changes to the defense bill.

Also watch whether House leaders call members back early if the Senate changes the temporary funding bill or another crisis develops.

For now, however, the people’s House has stopped voting.

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5. Civil Liberties and Constitutional Power: The House Said End the Iran War. The Senate Said No.

What Happened

The House passed H. Con. Res. 89 by a vote of 214–208.

The resolution directed the president to remove American forces from hostilities against Iran that Congress hadn’t authorized.

All voting Democrats supported it. Four Republicans joined them.

A little more than an hour later, the Senate rejected an effort to bring up a similar joint resolution.

The Senate vote was 47–49, meaning the resolution remained stuck in the Foreign Relations Committee.

What Changed

Politically, the House put a majority on record saying the Iran conflict shouldn’t continue without congressional authorization.

Legally, the vote didn’t end the war.

H. Con. Res. 89 was a concurrent resolution, which isn’t sent to the president and doesn’t have the ordinary force of law. The White House described the measure as legally unenforceable, while its supporters treated it as an assertion of Congress’s constitutional war powers.

The Senate resolution would have followed a different path as a joint resolution, but senators didn’t allow it to move out of committee.

The result is a divided Congress:

The House voted to end unauthorized hostilities.

The Senate refused to advance the same demand.

Why It Matters

The Constitution divides war powers between Congress and the president.

The president commands the armed forces and may respond to immediate threats.

Congress decides whether the country goes to war, provides the money, establishes military rules, and has the power to end funding.

That division is supposed to prevent one person from taking the country into a prolonged conflict without public debate or legislative approval.

When Congress refuses to vote, the balance breaks down.

Presidents continue military operations.

Lawmakers continue approving the money.

And everyone avoids taking full responsibility for the war itself.

Who Wins or Loses

• Likely Winners: The executive branch retains broad freedom to continue military operations because Congress failed to send the president a binding measure. House members opposing the war gained a recorded vote they can point to. Members who support the conflict without wanting to authorize it also benefited because no final authorization vote was required.

• Likely Losers: Congress’s institutional power weakened again. American servicemembers remain involved in a conflict without a clear congressional authorization defining the mission, limits, or desired end state. Taxpayers continue paying for military operations without a separate vote approving the war. The public remains unable to see whether Congress actually supports the conflict or merely lacks the courage to stop it.

Publius Project Take

They’re making this too damn complicated.

If Congress believes the war with Iran is necessary, it should pass an authorization stating:

• Why the United States is fighting;

• What military force may be used;

• Where that force may be used;

• What the mission is;

• How long the authorization lasts; and

• What conditions would end it.

If Congress doesn’t believe the war is necessary, then it should cut off the authority and funding.

What Congress can’t do is complain about presidential power while continuing to pay for the military campaign.

I do not support this war.

But even lawmakers who do support it should demand a formal vote.

War is the most serious decision a government can make. It should never run on implication, inertia, or political fear.

What to Watch for Next

Watch whether lawmakers introduce another binding joint resolution.

Also watch the defense and spending bills.

Congress may avoid passing a formal war authorization while quietly placing the money, weapons, and operational authorities needed for the conflict into larger legislation.

The real test won’t be what members say during interviews.

It will be whether they vote to authorize the war, vote to end it, or continue funding it without doing either.

6. What to Watch Next Week

1. The Senate Returns. The House Doesn’t.

The Senate returns Monday afternoon, while the House remains away.

The Senate’s first scheduled vote concerns the nomination of Walter Clayton to serve as director of national intelligence. Majority Leader Thune has withdrawn his attempt to begin the defense bill and shifted the immediate schedule toward nominations and other legislation.

2. The Defense Bill Stays Stuck

Watch for negotiations over the $1.15 trillion NDAA.

The Senate must decide whether to revive its own bill, take up the House version, or wait until members return from the August break.

The SAVE America Act rider will be one of the largest obstacles.

3. Temporary Government Funding

Watch whether the Senate begins acting on the House bill funding the government through December 4th.

Any Senate change would require another House vote, which could force members to return to Washington before August 31st.

4. The $95 Billion Reconciliation Plan

Watch whether Senate Republicans agree to the House budget resolution.

Without Senate approval, the fast-track process can’t move forward.

Even with approval, election provisions could be removed if the Senate parliamentarian (rules referee) determines they don’t have enough connection to federal spending or revenue.

5. The Congressional Stock-Trading Bill

Watch whether senators try to turn the House proposal into a genuine ban.

The biggest questions are whether existing stock holdings must be sold, whether blind trusts will be required, and whether senior officials outside Congress will be covered.

6. Iran War Funding

Watch the money.

Even if Congress doesn’t vote on a formal authorization, the cost of military operations will appear in the defense bill, the reconciliation package, emergency requests, or the final federal budget.

That is where members may quietly vote to continue the war.

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7. The Ledger’s Bottom Line

Congress spent its final week before the August break showing us exactly why so many Americans no longer trust any of them.

Election rules were attached to a $1.15 trillion defense bill; because why not, right?

More election rules were attached to a congressional stock-trading bill; because nobody’s watching anyway, right?

Most of the federal budget was pushed beyond Election Day. Can’t imagine why.

Another $95 billion spending process was opened without direct cuts to pay for it.

The House voted to oppose an unauthorized war while Congress continued preparing to fund that same war.

Then members left Washington.

Every one of these subjects deserved its own debate.

National defense deserved a defense vote.

Election integrity deserved an election vote.

Congressional stock trading deserved an ethics vote.

War deserved a war vote.

The budget deserved twelve separate spending votes.

Instead, citizens received enormous packages, unrelated riders, temporary patches, and procedural shortcuts.

That’s not just messy government.

It’s a protected political class system built to hide responsibility.

For every bill, every dollar, and every new claim of government power, citizens should keep asking:

• What does this bill actually do beyond its title?

• What unrelated policies were added to it?

• How much will it cost?

• Where does the Constitution grant the authority?

• Who will be held responsible when it fails?

Those aren’t Republican or Democrat questions.

They are the questions we, as free citizens, should ask anyone exercising power in our name.

Salus Populi Suprema Lex.

The welfare of the people shall be the supreme law.

8. Sources and Further Reading

National Defense Authorization Act

• Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, “Roll Call 278: Passage of H.R. 8800.”

• H.R. 8800, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2027.

• House Committee on Rules, “H.R. 8800—National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2027.”

• Congressional Research Service, “FY2027 NDAA: Summary of Funding Authorizations.”

• Congressional Budget Office, “H.R. 8800, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2027.”

• Reuters, “U.S. House Passes $1.15 Trillion Defense Bill Despite Iran and Israel Concerns.”

• Associated Press, “House Votes for Department of War Renaming as Part of Annual Defense Bill.”

Congressional Stock Trading

• Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, “Roll Call 280: Passage of H.R. 7008.”

• H.R. 7008, Stop Insider Trading Act, engrossed House text.

• House Committee on Administration, “House Passes Chairman Steil’s Stop Insider Trading Act.”

• House Committee on Rules, “H.R. 7008—Stop Insider Trading Act.”

• Associated Press, “House Votes to Limit Stock Trading by Members of Congress.”

Federal Spending and Reconciliation

• Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, “Roll Call 272: Passage of H.R. 9770.”

• H.R. 9770, Continuing Appropriations Act, 2027.

• House Committee on Appropriations, “House Passes H.R. 9770.”

• Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, “Roll Call 281: H. Con. Res. 113.”

• H. Con. Res. 113, Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2027.

• House Budget Committee, “House Advances Reconciliation to Support Our Troops and Secure Our Elections.”

• Associated Press, “House Republicans Adopt $95 Billion Package for the Iran War and Trump’s Priorities.”

House Schedule

• Office of the House Majority Leader, 2026 House Legislative Calendar.

• Office of the House Majority Leader, “Weekly Schedule for the Week of July 20, 2026.”

Iran and Congressional War Powers

• Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, “Roll Call 282: H. Con. Res. 89.”

• H. Con. Res. 89, Directing the Removal of U.S. Forces From Unauthorized Hostilities With Iran.

• U.S. Senate, “Roll Call Vote 207: Motion to Discharge S.J. Res. 180.”

• S.J. Res. 180, Joint Resolution Concerning Unauthorized Hostilities Against Iran.

• Associated Press, “House Again Passes a Resolution Seeking to Halt Military Action in Iran.”

• Reuters, “U.S. Senate Blocks Resolution Curbing Trump’s Iran War Powers.”

• White House, “Statement of Administration Policy on H. Con. Res. 89.”

Senate Schedule

• U.S. Senate Daily Press, “Senate Proceedings and Schedule, July 23–27, 2026.”

• U.S. Senate, “Roll Call Vote 195: Motion to Proceed to S. 4784.”

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Most of us only hear about Congress through screaming cable news segments or social media clips designed to make us mad before we’re informed. The People’s Ledger is different. It’s a quick, clear look at what lawmakers are actually debating, funding, and changing – minus the political theater.

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Congress returned to Washington last week and immediately got back to doing what it does best: combining completely unrelated issues into massive, take-it-or-leave-it packages and looking for backroom shortcuts to push them through.

A House committee advanced a $95 billion plan mixing Iran-war spending, farm aid, intelligence funding, and new election rules. The Senate quietly placed another Ukraine-aid bill on its calendar. The House passed nearly $50 billion for the State Department and foreign assistance. And House leaders scheduled a temporary spending bill that would let Congress avoid finishing the federal budget until after the midterm election.

Washington was busy last week.

Whether it was doing the people’s business - or protecting its own political interests - is another question.

Here is what happened in our name.

1. Biggest Story of the Week: The $95 Billion Fast-Track Package

What Happened

The House Budget Committee approved a new federal spending framework by a party-line vote of 20–14.

Republicans are calling it “Reconciliation 3.0.”

The plan would allow congressional committees to begin writing a package containing as much as:

• $60 billion for defense;

• $13 billion for intelligence programs;

• $12 billion for agriculture and farm assistance; and

• $10 billion for election-related programs.

The framework could reach a total of $95 billion. It now heads to the full House, where leaders hope to approve it during the coming week.

Think of this like Congress approving a credit limit – it’s not the final shopping trip, but it gives congressional committees the green light to go out and write the actual checks.

What Changed

Republican leaders want to use the budget-reconciliation process to move the package through Congress.

Reconciliation is a special procedure meant for taxes, spending, and the federal debt. Unlike most Senate legislation, a reconciliation bill can pass with a simple majority instead of needing 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.

That means the majority party may be able to pass the final package without support from the other side.

The proposed defense money would help pay for military operations involving Iran, replenish American weapons stockpiles, and cover other readiness costs.

The agriculture money would be aimed partly at farmers facing higher fuel and fertilizer prices.

The election money would provide federal grants (free money) encouraging states to adopt parts of the SAVE America Act, including photo identification at the polls, proof of citizenship when registering to vote, and greater sharing of state voter-roll information with the Department of Homeland Security.

There’s no guarantee that all of the election provisions will survive. Senate rules generally require reconciliation measures to have a real effect on the federal budget. The Senate parliamentarian (rules referee) could decide that some of the election language doesn’t qualify.

The plan also doesn’t contain direct spending cuts or other offsets covering the additional $95 billion. Supporters promise they’ll find ways to cap future regular agency spending later down the road, but right now, this new $95 billion block of cash has no actual spending cuts to pay for it.

Why It Matters

This package combines three issues that have little to do with one another:

• Paying for military operations;

• Helping farmers; and

• Changing election rules.

Each one could involve tens of billions of dollars and major questions about federal power. But instead of debating them separately, Congress, as usual, is preparing to tie them together and move them through a process designed to avoid the Senate’s normal 60-vote requirement.

That gives lawmakers political cover.

A member who supports voter identification but opposes more war spending may be forced to accept both. Another member who wants farm assistance but opposes turning state voter information over to Homeland Security may face the same choice.

The public may never receive a clean vote on any of it.

Who Wins or Loses

• Likely Winners: The Pentagon, intelligence agencies, defense contractors, farmers receiving federal assistance, and states willing to accept federal election grants would all stand to receive new money. Congressional leaders would also gain another fast-track vehicle that allows them to combine several political priorities into one package.

• Likely Losers: Taxpayers would be responsible for another $95 billion unless Congress finds actual cuts elsewhere. States that reject Washington’s preferred election rules could find themselves pressured by federal grant money. Rank-and-file lawmakers - and the citizens they represent - would lose the chance to debate and vote on each major issue separately.

Publius Project Take

The Publius Project supports proof of citizenship for voter registration and reasonable voter-identification requirements. But a good policy doesn’t get better when Congress buries it inside a spending package for war and farm subsidies.

Election integrity deserves its own bill, its own debate, and its own recorded vote.

So does military spending.

If Congress believes another $60 billion is needed for operations involving Iran, it should first debate the war itself. The Constitution gives Congress the responsibility to decide whether the country goes to war. Lawmakers shouldn’t quietly fund an ongoing conflict while continuing to avoid a direct vote authorizing it.

Farmers facing higher costs deserve an honest discussion too. But agricultural aid shouldn’t be the political glue to hold a package together that might otherwise fall apart.

Reconciliation is supposed to help Congress settle budget matters. It shouldn’t be an all-purpose escape hatch for election law, foreign policy, and politically convenient handouts.

The standard should be simple:

One subject. One bill. One honest vote.

What to Watch for Next

Watch whether House leaders can find enough Republican votes to approve the budget resolution.

Some defense hawks believe the proposed military funding is too low. Some fiscal conservatives object to adding $95 billion without direct offsets. Others may worry that the election provisions won’t survive Senate rules.

If the House approves it, the most important details will come later, when the committees write the actual bill.

That’s when citizens should look for:

• Exactly what the Iran-related money would fund;

• Whether the spending has an expiration date;

• What conditions would be attached to farm aid;

• What voter information states would have to share;

• Whether states could refuse the election grants; and

• Whether Congress includes real spending cuts to pay for any of it.

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2. Quietly Moving Bills: Another Ukraine-Aid Bill Reaches the Senate Calendar

What Happened

On Thursday, Senate leaders began the process of placing H.R. 2913, the Ukraine Support Act, directly on the Senate’s legislative calendar.

They used a fast-track rule (Rule XIV) that lets Senate leaders skip the slow committee process entirely, pulling a bill passed by the House straight to the front of the line for a potential vote.

The procedural move doesn’t guarantee a vote. But it puts the bill in position for Senate leaders to bring it up quickly if they choose.

The House passed the bill in June by a vote of 226–195 after supporters used a discharge petition to force it onto the floor over the objections of House Republican leadership. A discharge petition is simply a way for House members to force a bill to a vote even when committee leaders are trying to keep it buried.

What Changed

The bill would provide Ukraine with more than $1 billion in security and reconstruction assistance. It would also make another $8 billion available for Ukraine’s defense through loans and impose sanctions on key parts of the Russian economy.

Calling the larger portion a loan makes it different from a direct grant, but taxpayers still carry the risk if the money is never repaid. The Senate’s action means the Ukraine bill is no longer sitting only in the House. It’s now in position to become part of a larger Senate fight over Ukraine assistance, sanctions on Russia, the defense bill, or another must-pass package.

Why It Matters

Congress has already approved roughly $195 billion for the broader American response to the war in Ukraine, although not all of that money went directly to the Ukrainian government. Some was used to replace American weapons, support U.S. military operations in Europe, and fund other related programs.

This bill would create another American commitment while the war remains unresolved and Europe continues to depend heavily on Washington.

It also combines several different policies:

• Military assistance;

• Reconstruction aid;

• Defense loans; and

• Economic sanctions.

A lawmaker might support sanctions on Russia while opposing reconstruction funding. Another might support a repayable defense loan but oppose another direct grant.

Once again, Congress is tying those decisions together.

Who Wins or Loses

• Likely Winners: The Ukrainian government, American defense contractors, companies helping rebuild damaged infrastructure, and lawmakers seeking tougher economic sanctions against Russia would benefit if the bill becomes law.

• Likely Losers: American taxpayers would carry the risk of any unpaid loans or poorly monitored aid. Businesses and consumers could also face higher costs if new sanctions disrupt trade, energy markets, or international supply chains. Diplomats trying to negotiate an end to the war could lose flexibility if Congress locks additional sanctions and aid commitments into law.

Publius Project Take

Two things can be true at the same time: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was wrong and the American people have nothing to do with it. American’s shouldn’t continue to accept an open-ended financial responsibility for the war.

We’re four years into the conflict and not only should we no longer be providing funding of any kind, we should be demanding answers:

• How much more will America be expected to provide?

• How much is Europe contributing?

• Who is auditing the money?

• What are the loan terms?

• What happens if Ukraine cannot repay?

• What is the realistic end goal?

Calling billions of dollars a “loan” doesn’t protect taxpayers unless there’s a serious repayment plan, enforceable terms, and an honest assessment of whether repayment is likely.

Security aid, reconstruction money, and sanctions should also receive separate votes.

America can oppose Russian aggression without writing another blank check or making itself permanently responsible for Europe’s defense.

What to Watch for Next

Watch whether Senate Majority Leader John Thune schedules an actual vote on the Ukraine Support Act.

Also watch whether the bill is considered on its own or attached to:

• The National Defense Authorization Act;

• A revised Russia-sanctions package;

• A year-end spending bill; or

• Another emergency-funding measure.

The White House’s position will matter. Some supporters have acknowledged that the measure may struggle to receive 60 Senate votes without presidential backing.

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3. Money and Spending: The House Passes $47.32 Billion for the State Department and Foreign Aid

What Happened

The House passed H.R. 8595, the National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2027, by a vote of 217–209.

The bill would provide $47.32 billion for the State Department, embassy security, diplomacy, foreign assistance, international organizations, and overseas security programs.

The bill now moves to the Senate, which may rewrite large portions of it before any final agreement reaches the president.

What Changed

The House bill spends about $2.69 billion less than the amount enacted for the same programs in fiscal year 2026. That is a reduction of roughly 6%.

However, the bill increases State Department security-assistance funding to $9.64 billion.

That includes:

• $3.3 billion for Israel;

• $500 million for Taiwan;

• $200 million for the Philippines;

• $1.66 billion for international narcotics and law-enforcement programs; and

• $870 million for nuclear nonproliferation, anti-terrorism, and related programs.

It also provides $22.45 billion for global health, economic assistance, and humanitarian programs, along with $15.15 billion for State Department operations and related agencies.

Representative Thomas Massie offered an amendment that would’ve removed the bill’s military assistance for Israel. It failed 104–314, with 10 members voting present.

Why It Matters

A 6% cut sounds like a win for fiscal restraint until you look at where the remaining cash is going.

The bill still authorizes tens of billions of dollars for programs spread across the world. Some fund legitimate diplomatic operations. Others provide military or economic assistance to foreign governments.

Congress places nearly all of it into one bill.

That means lawmakers don’t receive a separate final vote on assistance for Israel, Taiwan, the Philippines, international financial institutions, global health programs, or humanitarian aid.

They receive one vote on the entire $47.32 billion package.

Who Wins or Loses

• Likely Winners: The State Department, foreign governments receiving American assistance, international aid organizations, defense companies supplying foreign militaries, and contractors supporting diplomatic and overseas programs would benefit. Embassy personnel and Americans needing passports or consular help may also benefit from funding directed toward security and basic diplomatic services.

• Likely Losers: American taxpayers remain responsible for billions of dollars sent overseas. Programs facing reductions - including some international organizations, global-health efforts, peacekeeping missions, and humanitarian programs - would receive less than they did last year. Lawmakers who wanted to support diplomacy while opposing specific foreign-aid payments were forced to vote on the entire package.

Publius Project Take

The federal government has a legitimate role in diplomacy.

America needs embassies. We need secure facilities, passport services, treaty negotiations, intelligence cooperation, and open lines of communication with friends and enemies.

That doesn’t mean every foreign-aid program is justified.

Sending $3.3 billion to Israel, $500 million to Taiwan, or any other large payment overseas should never be treated as routine paperwork.

Every payment should have to answer four basic questions:

• What direct American interest does it serve?

• What measurable result are taxpayers buying?

• How will Congress know whether it worked?

• When does the funding end?

“Less than last year” is better than another increase, but it’s not a constitutional argument.

And no foreign government should receive an automatic yearly check simply because that’s what Washington has always done.

What to Watch for Next

Watch what the Senate does with the House bill.

The Senate may restore programs the House cut, increase the overall spending level, or change the foreign-aid amounts.

Also watch whether this bill ever receives a clean final vote.

If the House and Senate can’t agree before September 30, the State Department funding could be folded into another continuing resolution or year-end spending package.

That would allow the biggest disagreements to be settled privately by congressional leaders instead of through open debate.

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4. Coming to the House Floor This Week

The House returns Monday and is scheduled to consider several major bills.

Three deserve especially close attention.

Bill No. 1: H.R. 8800

The $1.14 Trillion National Defense Authorization Act

The House is scheduled to consider its version of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2027. The bill would authorize approximately $1.14 trillion for national defense - about $250 billion, or 28%, more than the amount authorized for fiscal year 2026.

The NDAA doesn’t hand over all that money by itself. Separate appropriations bills are still needed. But it establishes the policies, programs, troop levels, weapons purchases, and funding limits Congress wants the Pentagon to follow.

The Senate tried to begin debating its own version last week, but the motion received only 50 of the 60 votes needed to move forward.

Publius Project Take

Providing for the common defense is one of the clearest responsibilities given to the federal government. But that doesn’t make every defense dollar necessary.

Increasing the authorization by 28% in one year should require a detailed, public explanation. Congress should show where the money is going, why each major increase is needed, and what result taxpayers should expect.

The bill should also receive separate votes on major foreign-policy provisions.

Military pay, weapons purchases, Ukraine assistance, cooperation with Israel, overseas troop levels, and restrictions on bringing forces home shouldn’t all be hidden inside one “must-pass” package.

Supporting the troops doesn’t require giving the Pentagon a blank check.

Bill No. 2: H.R. 7008

The Stop Insider Trading Act

This bill would prohibit members of Congress, their spouses, and their dependent children from purchasing individual stocks, options, and similar investments in publicly traded companies.

Members and their immediate families could still own diversified funds, qualifying trusts, and certain small-business interests.

They could also keep individual stocks they already own. However, before selling those investments, they would have to publicly announce the planned sale at least seven days - but no more than 14 days - in advance.

Violations could trigger a penalty of at least $2,000 or 10% of the transaction’s value, whichever is greater, along with the surrender of any profit made from the prohibited investment.

Publius Project Take

Members of Congress shouldn’t be buying and selling individual stocks while receiving private briefings and writing laws that can move entire industries.

And that shouldn’t be controversial. The bill is an improvement, but it doesn’t complete fix the conflict.

Members could continue holding individual stocks they already own. They would also be allowed to sell them after giving advance notice.

A stronger rule would require members to place individual investments into a genuine blind trust or sell them within a reasonable period after taking office.

Public service shouldn’t be a path to private financial advantage. Members who want to trade individual stocks are free to leave Congress and do it on their own time.

Bill No. 3: The Continuing Appropriations Act for 2027

Another Temporary Budget Patch

House leaders have scheduled a continuing resolution that would keep the government operating at roughly fiscal year 2026 funding levels through December 4, 2026.

In plain English, Congress is already admitting they won’t finish their main job before the midnight deadline on September 30. Instead, they want to put the government’s checkbook on autopilot for another two months.

The bill would generally prevent agencies from starting new programs that weren’t funded last year. It would also limit the Pentagon’s ability to begin new weapons-production projects or increase production rates under the temporary funding measure.

December 4 falls after the midterm election.

That means lawmakers could postpone many of the hardest spending decisions until after voters have already gone to the polls.

Publius Project Take

Congress is preparing to admit failure more than two months before the funding deadline.

Lawmakers know the fiscal year ends every September 30th. They know they’re supposed to pass 12 separate appropriations bills. They have known that since the day this Congress began.

A continuing resolution may prevent a shutdown, but it also rewards Congress for failing to do its job. It keeps outdated spending on autopilot, delays oversight, and allows lawmakers to avoid difficult votes before an election.

Congress should remain in session until the regular spending bills are finished. No extended recess. No taxpayer-funded campaign travel disguised as official business. And no blaming federal workers or the public for a deadline Congress knowingly missed.

What to Watch for Next

Watch whether House leadership allows meaningful amendments to the defense bill, the insider-trading bill, and the continuing resolution.

Also watch the voting coalitions.

The defense bill may lose votes from both antiwar members and lawmakers who believe $1.14 trillion still isn’t enough.

The insider-trading bill may draw broad support, but disagreements remain over whether it goes far enough.

The temporary spending bill may produce the clearest political split. Some members will argue that it prevents a shutdown. Others will argue that extending funding through December simply protects Congress from having to make unpopular decisions before the election.

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5. Civil Liberties and Constitutional Power: Financial Privacy, Gun Stores, and Federal Power

What Happened

The House passed H.R. 1181, the Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act, by a vote of 221–201.

The bill received support from 215 Republicans, five Democrats, and one independent. It was sent to the Senate on July 15 and referred to the Senate Banking Committee.

What Changed

Credit-card networks use merchant category codes to identify the general type of business where a transaction took place.

H.R. 1181 would prohibit payment networks, banks, and other covered companies from requiring or assigning a special code that identifies a business specifically as a firearms retailer.

The code itself would identify the type of store, not the specific item purchased.

In other words, it could show that someone used a card at a gun store. It wouldn’t show whether the person bought a firearm, ammunition, a cleaning kit, clothing, a gun safe, or something else.

The bill would give the attorney general authority to investigate complaints and seek a federal court order against companies that refuse to comply.

It would also override any state or local law requiring or regulating special merchant codes for firearms retailers.

Why It Matters

Lawful purchases can reveal a great deal about a person’s life.

Financial records can show where someone worships, which political groups they support, what medical services they use, where they travel, and which legal products they buy.

Creating a special code for firearms stores would make it easier for financial companies or government agencies to identify people who shop at those businesses - even when there is no evidence of a crime.

At the same time, Congress is using federal power to settle a policy fight that several states have already addressed for themselves.

That raises two separate questions:

Should private financial companies create a special tracking category for lawful gun-store purchases?

And should Washington have the power to override every state’s answer?

Who Wins or Loses

• Likely Winners: Firearms retailers, lawful gun owners, financial-privacy advocates, and customers who don’t want their legal purchases placed into a special category would benefit. Payment companies would also have one national rule instead of dealing with different state requirements.

• Likely Losers: States that adopted their own merchant-code laws would lose the ability to enforce them. Gun-control organizations seeking greater financial tracking of firearms retailers would lose one possible tool. Payment networks would face new federal restrictions and oversight from the attorney general.

Publius Project Take

Banks and credit-card companies shouldn’t be quietly building surveillance systems around legal purchases. Shopping at a gun store isn’t a crime or evidence of a crime.

A special merchant code might begin as a broad business category, but databases have a habit of being used for purposes far beyond the reason they were created.

The privacy protection makes sense. The federal override is harder to defend.

Conservatives can’t spend years arguing that Washington should respect state authority and then abandon federalism whenever Congress offers a national policy they happen to like.

A good result doesn’t automatically justify every means used to reach it.

The strongest version of this bill would protect customers from private financial surveillance while narrowing the federal government’s power to erase state law.

Civil liberties and federalism shouldn’t be treated as opposing principles.

Both exist to keep power from becoming too concentrated.

What to Watch for Next

Watch whether the Senate Banking Committee holds a hearing or changes the bill.

The biggest questions will be:

• Whether the Senate keeps the nationwide ban;

• Whether it narrows the state-law override;

• Whether the attorney general retains enforcement power;

• Whether banks receive exceptions for fraud investigations; and

• Whether supporters can find the votes needed to move the bill through the Senate.

The measure is unlikely to move quickly unless Senate leadership makes it a priority or attaches it to a larger financial-services bill.

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6. What to Watch Next Week

1. The $95 Billion Package

Watch whether the House can pass the budget resolution authorizing the new reconciliation process.

The vote will show whether Republicans can hold together lawmakers who want more defense spending, members who want spending cuts, and representatives worried about using a budget bill to change election rules.

2. The House Defense Bill

The House will try to move its $1.14 trillion NDAA after the Senate failed to begin debating its own version.

Watch which amendments receive votes and which issues leadership keeps off the floor.

3. The December Spending Patch

Watch whether the House approves temporary government funding through December 4.

The length of the extension matters because it would move final budget decisions beyond the midterm election.

4. Ukraine Aid in the Senate

Watch whether Senate leaders bring the Ukraine Support Act to the floor or use it as leverage in negotiations over sanctions, defense spending, or another larger package.

5. The Congressional Stock-Trading Vote

Watch whether the House passes the Stop Insider Trading Act and whether members try to strengthen it by requiring divestment or blind trusts.

The final vote will show how serious Congress is about policing its own conflicts of interest.

7. The Ledger’s Bottom Line

Congress came back to Washington and immediately began combining issues that should be debated separately.

• War funding was tied to farm aid and election rules.

• Ukraine security assistance was tied to reconstruction money and economic sanctions.

• Foreign aid for dozens of countries was rolled into one $47.32 billion vote.

• And congressional leaders prepared another temporary spending bill so lawmakers could avoid finishing the budget before the election.

That’s not an accident. Large packages make it easier for lawmakers to hide unpopular decisions, trade votes, and avoid being held responsible for any one policy. A member can always point to the part he supported and claim the rest was the price of getting it passed.

That may be how Washington operates, but it doesn’t have to be how a republic governs.

For every bill, every dollar, and every new claim of government power, citizens should keep asking:

• How much will it cost?

• Where does the Constitution grant the authority?

• Why is this issue tied to everything else?

• Who will be held responsible if it fails?

Those are not Republican questions or Democratic questions.

They are the questions free citizens should ask anyone exercising power in their name.

Salus Populi Suprema Lex.

The welfare of the people shall be the supreme law

8. Sources and Further Reading

The $95 Billion Reconciliation Framework

• House Budget Committee, “House Budget Committee Advances Reconciliation 3.0 to Support Our Troops and Secure Our Elections.”

• Reuters, “House Republicans Push Forward on Funding Plan for Iran War and Election Overhaul.”

Ukraine and Russia

• U.S. Senate Daily Press, “Rule XIV Proceedings for H.R. 2913, the Ukraine Support Act.”

• Associated Press, “House Passes Bill to Aid Ukraine and Impose New Sanctions on Russia.”

State Department and Foreign-Aid Spending

• Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House, “Roll Call 247: Passage of H.R. 8595.”

• House Appropriations Committee, “Fiscal Year 2027 National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Bill Summary.”

• Reuters, “House Rejects Amendment to Remove Israel Military Assistance.”

Coming to the House Floor

• Office of the House Majority Leader, “Weekly Schedule for the Week of July 20, 2026.”

• Congressional Research Service, “FY2027 NDAA: Summary of Funding Authorizations.”

• U.S. Senate, “Roll Call Vote 195: Motion to Proceed to S. 4784.”

• House Committee Report 119-479, Stop Insider Trading Act.

• H.R. 9770, Continuing Appropriations Act, 2027, proposed bill text.

Civil Liberties and Constitutional Power

• Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House, “Roll Call 240: Passage of H.R. 1181.”

• H.R. 1181, Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act, Senate-referred bill text.

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Congress was never supposed to become a lifetime career.

The basic idea was pretty simple: citizens would leave their homes, businesses, farms, classrooms, and communities for a time, serve the public, and then return home to live under the same laws they helped pass.

That’s not what we have anymore.

Today, too many members of Congress spend decades in Washington. They build donor networks, climb the party ladder, learn how to work the system, and become better at staying in office than representing the people who sent them there.

The problem isn’t just age. It isn’t even just term limits.

The real problem is permanent power.

When public service becomes a career, reelection starts shaping every decision. Fundraising replaces governing. Party leadership becomes more important than the people back home. Lobbyists build relationships that last for decades. And Washington slowly becomes its own separate world.

Meanwhile, everyday America keeps paying the bills.

We go to work. We raise families. We run businesses. We deal with rising prices, insurance companies, taxes, regulations, and the consequences of laws written by people who may not have lived a normal life in forty years.

A citizen legislature would look different.

It would include mechanics, nurses, teachers, veterans, farmers, tradesmen, and small-business owners. People who know Washington is a temporary assignment, not a permanent home.

They would serve.

They would represent.

And then they would go home.

That is the subject of the latest episode of The Defiant Citizen:

Get the Hell Out of Washington

How Temporary Service Became Permanent Power

This episode looks at how Congress became a professional political class, why incumbents are so hard to remove, how the endless campaign changed representation, and what it would take to restore the citizen legislature.

Because Congress does not belong to Congress.

It belongs to us.

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In this special four-part series for the Publius Project, I’m breaking down the FairTax Act - not like an academic essay or a dry political debate, but like two neighbors talking around a fire pit while having a cold one and listening to some good music. Whether you’re skeptical about the math or ready for a radical change, this series is about exploring what happens when we stop letting the government monitor everything we earn and start focusing on a system that respects our privacy, our hard work, and our freedom.

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The most persistent debate around the FairTax isn’t about philosophy; it’s about basic arithmetic. For a reform this massive to work, it has to achieve “revenue neutrality,” meaning it must fund the essential functions of the federal government without driving us deeper into the national deficit.

Let’s look closely at the math and the conflicting arguments surrounding it.

“Why do some people say 23% and others say 30%?”

The first point of confusion for most folks is the rate itself. Proponents usually quote 23%, while critics cite 30%. Both are technically correct, they’re just looking at it from different angles:

• The Tax-Inclusive Rate (23%): This is meant to match how we view current income tax brackets. If someone earn $100 today, the government takes roughly $23 off the top, leaving them with $77. In this view, the tax is 23% of the total chunk.

• The Tax-Exclusive Rate (30%): This is what we actually see printed on a sales receipt. If an item costs $77, a 30% sales tax adds $23, bringing our total out-of-pocket to $100.

Now, critics from groups like the Tax Policy Center argue a 30% markup might not be enough. They suggest that once you account for potential tax evasion and the massive cost of sending out the monthly prebate, the rate might need to lean closer to a 46% tax-inclusive rate, which would look like an 85% markup at the cash register.

FairTax supporters dispute these higher-rate estimates. They argue that some analyses rely on assumptions about future exemptions, carve-outs, or political compromises that are not contained in the legislation itself. Supporters contend that the proper comparison is between the current tax code as written and the FairTax proposal as written, rather than between current law and a hypothetical modified version of the FairTax. Critics respond that political realities often force major tax legislation to evolve after enactment, making such assumptions reasonable when projecting long-term outcomes.

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The Rate vs. The Spending

FairTax supporters argue that debates over the tax rate can sometimes obscure a more fundamental issue: federal spending. The FairTax does not determine how much money Washington spends; it determines how that money is collected. Under this view, a high FairTax rate is not evidence of a flawed tax mechanism so much as a reflection of the amount of revenue required to fund the existing federal government. One advantage of a visible consumption tax, supporters argue, is that it makes the true cost of government easier for citizens to see and evaluate.

“The ‘Boomtown’ Effect: Growth as a revenue source.”

FairTax supporters argue that tax policy does more than raise revenue, it influences how people work, save, invest, and spend. As a result, many FairTax projections incorporate “dynamic scoring,” which attempts to account for changes in economic behavior rather than assuming the economy remains unchanged after major tax reform.

• Increased savings: By removing the tax penalty on savings and investments, capital stock can grow significantly, driving up productivity and overall economic consumption.

• The efficiency dividend: Eliminating that $300 billion annual compliance drain (what we spend just to file taxes) injects that massive capital directly back into the productive economy.

• A broader base: By capturing the underground cash economy and foreign tourists, the tax net expands, allowing a lower overall rate to generate the same total revenue.

“What happens to Social Security and Medicare?”

A major hurdle is making sure our critical safety nets stay solvent. Under the FairTax, traditional payroll taxes are completely abolished.

To fix this, the Act explicitly carves out a specific percentage of the total sales tax revenue to be automatically deposited right into the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. And because a national sales tax would initially raise the visible price of goods, the Act requires Social Security benefits to be indexed for inflation, making sure seniors’ purchasing power is fully protected during the transition.

Is the FairTax Regressive?

Critics often argue that consumption taxes are regressive because wealthier households typically spend a smaller percentage of their income than lower-income households. By measuring taxes as a percentage of income, the tax burden appears to fall more heavily on those who spend most of what they earn.

FairTax supporters challenge the premise itself. They argue that fairness should be measured against consumption rather than income. Under this view, income that is saved, invested, or donated is fundamentally different from income used for personal consumption. A consumption-based tax system taxes what individuals take out of the economy rather than what they contribute to it. Supporters contend that this approach rewards saving, investment, and charitable giving while imposing higher taxes on luxury consumption.

Whether fairness should be measured against income or consumption ultimately depends on one’s philosophy of taxation, making this one of the central debates surrounding the FairTax proposal.

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“Let’s look at the counter-arguments honestly.”

While the vision is bold, the math faces plenty of skepticism from mainstream economists:

• The revenue gap: The Brookings Institution warns that a 23% inclusive rate could add trillions to the national deficit over ten years if those economic growth projections turn out to be overly optimistic.

• Evasion risks: High sales taxes in other countries have historically driven people toward under-the-table cash transactions. Critics argue a 30% markup creates a massive incentive for a retail black market.

• The ‘stacked’ tax problem: There’s a major question regarding state and local sales taxes. In a state like California or New York, adding a 30% federal tax on top of a 10% local sales tax means a 40% total markup at the register, a number that might be politically and economically unsustainable for retail stores.

“Is it actually feasible?”

Whether the FairTax is feasible ultimately depends on how one evaluates the trade-offs, assumptions, and economic projections surrounding the proposal. Supporters see it as a simpler, more transparent system that rewards work, saving, and investment while broadening the tax base. Critics worry about transition costs, compliance challenges, and the uncertainty of large-scale economic forecasts.

Supporters have also begun making a newer argument tied to artificial intelligence and automation. If future technologies significantly reduce the amount of income earned through traditional labor, governments that rely heavily on taxing wages and earnings could face growing revenue challenges. Because the FairTax is tied to consumption rather than income, supporters argue it may prove more resilient in an economy where value creation increasingly comes from automation, AI systems, and capital-intensive production rather than human labor. Critics counter that the scale and timing of such changes remain highly uncertain.

The FairTax isn’t a magic wand; it’s a fundamental trade-off. It trades the privacy-evaporating income tax for the absolute visibility of a sales tax. It trades the complex mess of the IRS for the simplicity of the retail counter.

Ultimately, it asks us to make a choice: Which is more dangerous to a free people, a government that knows everything you earn, or a government that knows everything you spend?

In Liberty,
Gary Mullins (Libertas)

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Most of us only hear about Congress through screaming cable news segments or social media clips designed to make us mad before we’re informed. The People’s Ledger is different. It’s a quick, clear look at what lawmakers are actually debating, funding, and changing – minus the political theater.

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Congress spent most of this week away from Washington for the holiday break. The House cast zero votes, and the Senate only held brief “pro forma” sessions – which is Washington’s way of opening the chamber doors for five minutes to satisfy a legal requirement, banging a gavel, and walking right back out.

But an empty Capitol building doesn’t mean the government stopped moving.

While lawmakers were back in their home districts, a major housing bill quietly became law without the president’s signature, the Senate prepared to advance a staggering $1.15 trillion defense package, the Justice Department locked horns with state election officials, and leadership began openly planning yet another temporary spending bill to keep the government open.

Washington may have been physically quiet, but the fight over who controls what, how much they spend, and how far federal power can reach continued without missing a beat.

Here’s what happened in our name last week.

1. The Biggest Story: The Housing Bill Becomes Law Without a Signature

What Happened

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act (H.R. 6644) officially became law without the signature of President Trump. The bill passed the Senate 85–5 and the House 358–32. It then sat on the president’s desk for ten days (excluding Sundays).

Under Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution, the president normally has three choices: sign it into law, veto it, or do nothing. When Congress is still available to receive a veto and the president takes no action within those 10 days, the bill automatically becomes law.

That’s what happened here.

What Changed

The law attempts to make housing more affordable by making it easier to build and finance more homes.

That matters because Washington has often tried to solve high housing prices by giving buyers more money. But giving people more money to compete for the same limited number of homes can push prices even higher.

This law takes a different approach. It speeds up some federal permits and environmental reviews, expands financing for modular and manufactured homes, and creates programs aimed at smaller mortgages that many banks currently avoid.

It also stops the largest institutional investors from buying more single-family homes after they reach a certain ownership limit.

Local communities will still control their own zoning rules.

The Congressional Budget Office says the law should not add to the federal deficit as written. However, some of the new programs won’t begin unless Congress provides money for them in future spending bills.

Why It Matters

This was one of the most widely supported domestic bills passed by this Congress.

At a time when Republicans and Democrats struggle to agree on almost anything, the bill passed both chambers by overwhelming margins.

It also shows how a bill can become law even when the president refuses to sign it. By allowing the ten-day deadline to pass, President Trump let the bill take effect without officially putting his name on it.

In practical terms, the law is now in place. But the president can still say he never endorsed it.

Who Wins or Loses

• Likely Winners: Modular and manufactured home builders, people looking for smaller mortgages, and communities that want more housing without giving up local zoning control.

• Likely Losers: Very large investment companies that have been buying up single-family homes. Once they reach the new ownership limit, they could face penalties of up to $1 million if they continue purchasing them.

Publius Project Take

There’s a lot to like here, but there’s also reason to be cautious.

The best part of this law is that it acknowledges a basic economic truth: the answer to a housing shortage is more housing, not subsidies, tax credits, and cheap loans sponsored by Washington. That only makes homes harder and more expensive to build.

Cutting unnecessary federal permits and making modular homes and manufactured homes easier to finance moves in the right direction.

This law also leaves zoning decisions with local communities, where they belong. People in Virginia, for example, shouldn’t have their neighborhoods planned by federal bureaucrats in D.C. who will never see or live with the results.

My concern is that this law opens the door for future new programs that will most likely require more taxpayer funding. Pilot programs have a funny way of becoming permanent government programs once an agency, staff and budget are built around it.

I’m also leery about Congress limiting how many homes a private company can own. I understand the concern of large investment firms buying up entire neighborhoods, which can hurt families trying to purchase a home, but government interference in the market is still a problem. Congress should be more concerned about federal tax rules, monetary policy, housing subsidies, or regulations creating the problems in the first place.

What to Watch For Next

Watch the fiscal year 2027 spending bills.

Congress created several new housing programs, but it didn’t provide all the money needed to get them running.

That means lawmakers will have to decide later whether these programs actually receive funding. A program can exist on paper for years without doing much if Congress never pays for it.

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2. Quietly Moving Bills: The $1.15 Trillion Defense Vehicle

What Happened

Senate Majority Leader John Thune has started the process of bringing S. 4784, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2027, to the Senate floor.

The Senate Armed Services Committee approved the bill by an 18–9 vote. Thune then filed what is known as a cloture motion on the motion to proceed.

In plain English, Senate leaders are trying to gather the 60 votes needed to end procedural delays and begin formally debating the bill.

That wouldn’t pass the NDAA. It would simply allow the Senate to start considering it.

What Changed

The NDAA is Congress’s yearly defense-policy bill.

It tells the Pentagon what programs it may operate, what weapons it may purchase, how many people may serve, and how much money Congress is willing to authorize.

One important distinction: the NDAA authorizes spending, but it doesn’t provide all the money by itself. Congress must still pass separate appropriations bills before the money can actually be spent.

Even so, the NDAA creates the blueprint.

This version authorizes approximately $1.15 trillion for national defense – roughly $249 billion more than the enacted FY2026 level.

Among its many provisions, the bill would:

• Give military personnel a 3.6% pay raise.

• Extend the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative through 2029 and authorize another $750 million.

• Make it harder for a president to reduce U.S. troop levels in Europe or South Korea without first submitting reports and certifications to Congress.

• Create a new U.S.–Israel program for joint defense research, weapons testing, technology development and industrial cooperation.

• Increase cooperation with Israel on drones and underground warfare.

• Require new assessments and reporting on drone threats near the American border.

Why It Matters

The NDAA is considered one of Washington’s “must-pass” bills.

Few lawmakers want to be accused of voting against military pay, troop readiness or national defense. That makes the NDAA a convenient place to attach policies that might struggle to pass on their own.

A senator may support a pay raise for servicemembers but oppose extending aid to Ukraine. Another may support rebuilding America’s weapons stockpiles but oppose deeper military cooperation with Israel.

Yet Congress rolls all of it into one enormous package and eventually demands a single yes-or-no vote.

That makes it much harder for citizens to know what their senators actually supported.

Who Wins or Loses

• Likely Winners: Military personnel receiving the proposed pay raise, defense contractors, weapons manufacturers, military research institutions and foreign governments receiving additional American assistance or cooperation.

• Likely Losers: Taxpayers, lawmakers seeking serious spending restraint and future presidents who may want to reduce America’s permanent military presence overseas.

Publius Project Take

Providing for the national defense is one of the federal government’s clearest constitutional responsibilities. America needs a capable military. Our service members deserve proper pay, working equipment and leaders who take readiness seriously.

But “national defense” can’t become a magic phrase that ends every argument about spending.

A ~28% jump from roughly $901 billion to $1.15 trillion in a single year should require a detailed public explanation. Congress should be able to show where every major increase is going, why it’s necessary and what result taxpayers should expect.

My larger concern is how much foreign policy is being buried inside this defense bill.

The provisions involving Ukraine, Israel, Europe and South Korea are not minor housekeeping matters. They could shape American military commitments for years and make it harder for future presidents to bring troops home or change course.

Those decisions deserve separate debates and separate recorded votes.

A senator shouldn’t be able to vote for deeper foreign entanglements and then hide behind the excuse that he was simply “supporting the troops.”

We can support our military without writing a blank check. We can defend America without making every overseas deployment untouchable. And we can work with allies without tying America’s military policy permanently to another country’s priorities.

A strong national defense should protect the United States – not turn every alliance, deployment and foreign conflict into an endless American obligation.

What to Watch for Next

First, watch whether Senate leaders can get the 60 votes needed to begin debating the bill. Then watch the amendment process.

Will senators receive separate recorded votes on the overall spending level, Ukraine assistance, the U.S.–Israel technology program and restrictions on bringing American troops home?

Or will leadership protect those provisions by keeping them buried inside a bill few senators are willing to oppose?

Finally, remember that authorization isn’t the same as funding. The NDAA may approve $1.15 trillion, but the appropriations bills will determine how much money Congress actually hands over.

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3. Money & Spending: Governing by Shutdown Threat

What Happened

The federal government’s current funding runs out on September 30.

Congress still has a couple of months to finish its work, but Senate leaders are already discussing another continuing resolution, usually called a CR.

A continuing resolution is a temporary spending bill that keeps the government open when Congress fails to pass a full budget on time.

In other words, lawmakers are already preparing a backup plan in case they don’t complete their main job.

What Changed

Congress is supposed to pass twelve separate spending bills each year.

Each bill covers a different part of the federal government, such as defense, transportation, agriculture, veterans’ programs, and the State Department.

That process is supposed to let lawmakers debate each department separately, cut waste, offer amendments, and vote on individual priorities.

Instead, the process has stalled over disagreements about domestic spending, the proposed $1.15 trillion defense budget, and a separate $87.6 billion emergency request tied largely to military operations involving Iran.

Rather than settling those arguments through twelve separate bills, congressional leaders will, once again, push everything into a temporary funding patch or one enormous year-end omnibus package.

Why It Matters

This is how Congress turns its own failure into an emergency.

Lawmakers miss the deadline. The government moves closer to a shutdown. Leadership then produces a massive spending bill and tells members they must vote for it immediately or be blamed for closing the government.

Members may receive hundreds or thousands of pages with little time to read them. They’re then given one choice: accept the entire package or vote against funding the government.

That isn’t careful budgeting. It’s government by manufactured crisis.

Who Wins or Loses

• Likely Winners: Congressional leaders and a small group of negotiators who gain enormous control over the final spending deal.

• Likely Losers: Rank-and-file lawmakers, taxpayers, and the public, who lose the ability to examine and challenge each part of the federal budget separately.

Federal agencies also benefit because temporary spending bills often continue last year’s funding without forcing Congress to decide whether every program still deserves the money.

Publius Project Take

Congress has one of the clearest jobs in the Constitution: decide how public money is spent. Yet year after year, lawmakers fail to pass the regular spending bills on time and then act as though the deadline appeared out of nowhere.

It didn’t.

They know the fiscal year ends on September 30. They know how many bills have to be passed. And they know the disagreements months in advance.

The shutdown threat is no longer an unexpected emergency. It’s become a negotiating tool.

That benefits congressional leaders because it allows a handful of people to write the final deal behind closed doors. Rank-and-file members are pressured to fall in line, and the public gets almost no meaningful chance to examine what’s being funded.

A conservative approach should demand real spending restraint.

A libertarian approach should demand transparency, limited government, and accountability.

The current process delivers none of those things.

Congress should pass each spending bill separately, put members on the record, and give the public enough time to read the legislation before a vote.

And when Congress fails to do its job, members should feel the consequences – not federal workers, military families, or ordinary citizens who depend on government services.

No budget should mean no congressional pay increase, no taxpayer-funded travel, and no early recess until the work is finished.

What to Watch For Next

Listen closely to the language coming from congressional leaders.

The warning sign will be some version of:

“There simply isn’t enough time to finish all twelve spending bills.”

When that excuse starts getting used in July or August, it means lawmakers are already preparing another temporary patch or giant year-end package.

Also watch how long the proposed continuing resolution would last.

A brief extension might give Congress time to finish its work. A measure lasting until after the election would allow lawmakers to avoid difficult spending votes until voters have already cast their ballots in this year’s mid-term elections.

That’s not a scheduling decision. It’s political protection.

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4. Coming to the House Floor This Week

The House returns Monday with a long list of bills on its schedule.

Most will receive little attention outside Washington. Here are four that deserve a closer look because they involve foreign aid, election money, financial privacy, and the balance of power between Washington and the states.

H.R. 8595 (Foreign Operations Spending): H.R. 8595 would provide $47.32 billion for the State Department, foreign aid, diplomatic operations, and other international programs during fiscal year 2027.

That is about $2.69 billion less than last year, a cut of roughly 6%.

Even with the overall reduction, the bill would provide:

• $3.3 billion in military assistance for Israel.

• $1.8 billion for countries and programs in the Indo-Pacific.

• At least $500 million in military assistance for Taiwan.

It would also continue funding for other American allies, international health programs, counternarcotics efforts, and diplomatic operations around the world.

Publius Project Take

Cutting the bill by $2.69 billion is better than increasing it. But “less than last year” doesn’t automatically make a spending bill responsible.

The federal government has a legitimate role in diplomacy. We need embassies, consular services, treaty negotiations, intelligence cooperation, and ways to communicate with both friends and enemies.

Foreign aid is a different question. Every dollar sent overseas should have to pass a simple test:

• What direct American interest does it serve?

• What result are we buying?

• How will we know whether it worked?

• When does the funding end?

Writing a $3.3 billion check to Israel or a $500 million check to Taiwan shouldn’t be treated as routine housekeeping. Each commitment should be openly debated, clearly justified, and voted on separately.

Bundling dozens of countries and programs into one massive bill allows lawmakers to support foreign aid they might otherwise oppose and then claim they were merely funding the State Department.

A smaller blank check is still a blank check.

H.R. 8720 (Campaign Finance Transparency Act): This bill would tighten the rules for online political donations made with credit and debit cards.

Political committees would have to collect the card’s security code and billing ZIP code. The name on the card would also have to match the name of the donor.

The bill would prohibit campaigns from knowingly accepting donations made with store gift cards. It would also require committees to report suspected donations made in someone else’s name.

Another major change has received less attention: the bill would remove the current $200 reporting threshold. That means political committees would have to collect and report identifying information for donors giving even very small amounts.

Publius Project Take

The basic fraud protections make sense. Political campaigns shouldn’t be accepting anonymous gift cards, cards belonging to someone else, or online donations that can’t be connected to a real donor.

If campaigns demand election integrity from voters, they should practice financial integrity themselves. But removing the $200 reporting threshold raises a legitimate privacy concern.

Someone who gives $10 or $20 to a candidate shouldn’t necessarily have his name and address placed into a searchable government database.

There’s a difference between verifying that a donation is lawful and publicly exposing every small donor.

Congress could require campaigns to verify the donor privately while keeping small contributions out of public disclosure reports.

Stop illegal money, but don’t build another government database containing the names of ordinary Americans who made small political donations.

H.R. 3535 (Stop Foreign Funds in Elections Act): Federal law already prohibits foreign nationals from donating to American political candidates and campaigns.

H.R. 3535 would expand that ban to include money spent on state and local ballot initiatives, referendums, and recall elections.

That means foreign nationals couldn’t legally donate money to influence questions such as abortion laws, marijuana legalization, tax limits, election rules, or efforts to remove an elected official from office.

Publius Project Take

This is pretty straightforward.

Foreign governments, foreign corporations, and foreign nationals have no business financing American elections.

That principle should apply whether voters are choosing a president, electing a town council member, changing a state constitution, or deciding a local referendum.

The people who live under the law should be the people who decide the law.

The bill should be enforced evenly, however. The standard cannot depend on whether the foreign money helps Republicans, Democrats, environmental groups, gun-rights organizations, unions, or corporations.

No foreign money means no foreign money.

H.R. 1181 (Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act): Credit-card networks use what are called merchant category codes to identify the general type of business where a purchase was made.

H.R. 1181 would prohibit card networks and financial companies from requiring a special code that identifies a business specifically as a firearms retailer. The code wouldn’t show whether someone purchased a gun, ammunition, a holster, clothing, or something else. It would only show that the card was used at a business classified as a firearms retailer.

The bill would give the attorney general the power to investigate violations and seek a court order against companies that refuse to comply. It would also override state and local laws dealing with firearms merchant codes.

Publius Project Take

Banks and credit-card companies shouldn’t quietly become a private surveillance system for lawful purchases. Buying something at a gun store isn’t evidence of a crime. Financial companies shouldn’t be creating special lists that could later be used to track, investigate, or discriminate against customers who have broken no law.

On that point, the bill protects both the Second Amendment and basic financial privacy. But the federalism problem can’t be ignored.

The same bill that limits private financial surveillance also gives the federal government the power to override every state law on the subject and places enforcement in the hands of the attorney general. That may produce the policy some would prefer, but constitutional principles matter most when they become inconvenient.

If conservatives argue that Washington shouldn’t override state law whenever Democrats control Congress, they shouldn’t demand federal preemption simply because Republicans currently support the result.

The privacy protection is worth supporting.

The nationwide override deserves a separate debate.

What to Watch

Watch whether lawmakers receive real opportunities to amend these bills or whether leadership controls which changes may reach the floor.

Also watch the final vote totals.

The two election bills are scheduled under a procedure normally used for measures expected to receive broad support and requiring a two-thirds vote. The State Department spending bill and the firearms merchant-code bill will be considered under rules established by House leadership.

That procedural difference matters.

It tells us which bills leadership expects to pass quickly, and which ones may produce a larger political fight.

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5. Civil Liberties & Constitutional Power: The Federalism Line

What Happened

The Justice Department sent warning letters to election officials in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.

The letters said state and local officials could face federal criminal charges if they knowingly allow people who aren’t eligible to vote to remain on voter rolls or cast ballots.

The Justice Department also gave states five days to explain how they planned to follow federal election law.

What Changed

The federal government is increasing pressure on states over how they maintain their voter-registration lists.

That pressure comes after the Justice Department sued Maryland and other states seeking access to their full voter databases. The Maryland records include sensitive personal information such as birth dates, home addresses, driver’s-license numbers, and portions of Social Security numbers.

A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit. She ruled that federal law didn’t require Maryland to hand its complete, unredacted voter file to the Justice Department.

The ruling didn’t say Maryland could ignore federal election law. It said the Justice Department hadn’t shown that the law gave it the right to obtain all that private information.

That’s an important distinction.

Why It Matters

Only eligible American citizens should vote in federal elections.

States also have a legal duty to keep their voter rolls accurate and current. Federal law establishes rules for maintaining those lists and gives the Justice Department a role in enforcing them.

But elections are still largely administered by state and local governments.

That division of power acts as a safeguard. It prevents one national office from controlling every voter list, every eligibility decision, and every part of the election system.

The federal government may enforce federal law. It may investigate actual violations. It may take states to court when it believes they are failing to meet their legal duties.

What it may not do is simply claim whatever power or private information it wants without showing where the law gives it that authority.

Who Wins or Loses

• Likely Winners: Citizens who want accurate voter rolls without surrendering their private information, and states defending their authority to administer elections within federal law.

• Likely Losers: Federal agencies attempting to collect complete state voter databases without first proving that the law gives them that power.

There could also be a broader loser: public trust.

If states ignore real problems with voter eligibility, citizens will lose confidence in the election system. If Washington uses election integrity as an excuse to gather massive amounts of private data, citizens will distrust the federal government.

Neither outcome strengthens the republic.

Publius Project Take

There shouldn’t be anything controversial about saying that noncitizens can’t vote in American elections.

They can’t, and states should take reasonable steps to identify unlawful registrations, remove ineligible names, and prosecute anyone who knowingly casts an illegal ballot.

Election integrity isn’t voter suppression. Every illegal vote weakens the lawful vote of an American citizen.

But supporting election integrity doesn’t require giving the Justice Department unlimited access to the personal information of millions of lawful voters.

A database containing names, home addresses, birth dates, driver’s-license information, and partial Social Security numbers creates serious privacy and security risks. Once that information is gathered in one place, citizens have little control over how it is used, shared, or protected.

Conservatives should be especially careful here.

They can’t spend years warning about federal databases, government surveillance, and political abuse of law-enforcement agencies – and then abandon those concerns because an administration they support claims it needs the information.

The Constitution doesn’t change depending on which party controls the Justice Department.

Washington should enforce clear federal laws against illegal voting. States should prove that they’re properly maintaining their voter rolls. But federal officials should have to identify a lawful reason, follow due process, and obtain only the information genuinely needed for the investigation.

The goal should be secure elections without creating a national voter-surveillance system.

We can protect the ballot and protect the citizen at the same time.

What to Watch For Next

Watch how states respond to the Justice Department’s letters.

Some states will cooperate. Others may argue that the warnings are vague, politically motivated, or an attempt to intimidate state election officials.

Also watch for more lawsuits over voter data.

The central question will be whether the Justice Department can point to a specific federal law authorizing each demand or whether it’s simply trying to create new power through warning letters and lawsuits.

Finally, watch what happens to the data states have already provided.

Citizens deserve to know:

• What information was turned over?

• Which federal agencies can access it?

• How will it be used?

• How long will it be kept?

• What happens when a lawful citizen is wrongly identified as ineligible?

Keeping voter rolls accurate is a legitimate government responsibility.

Building a national database of American voters without clear limits is something else entirely.

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6. What to Watch Next Week

The Trillion-Dollar Hurdle: The first question is whether Senate leaders can gather the 60 votes needed to begin debating the $1.15 trillion defense bill.

If they clear that hurdle, watch what happens next.

Will senators be allowed to vote separately on aid to Ukraine, military cooperation with Israel, overseas troop levels, and the overall price of the bill?

Or will all of those issues remain tied together in one enormous package?

Those votes will show whether senators are willing to defend each policy on its own—or whether they prefer to hide controversial decisions inside a bill labeled “national defense.”

The House Rules Mutiny: House leaders are preparing to bring several bills to the floor, including the State Department and foreign-aid spending bill.

But some Republican members have repeatedly joined Democrats in voting down the procedural rules needed to begin debate.

They are using those votes to pressure leadership into taking action on the SAVE America Act.

That means the House could once again become stuck before lawmakers even reach the bills themselves.

Watch whether leadership reaches a deal with the holdouts or whether the internal fight shuts down House business for another week.

The CR Foundation: Congress has until September 30 to fund the government.

That may sound like plenty of time, but leaders are already discussing another temporary spending bill.

Listen for phrases such as:

• “There’s not enough time to finish all twelve spending bills.”

• “A short-term extension is the only responsible option.”

• “We must keep the government open.”

Those phrases usually mean Congress is preparing to delay the real decisions and carry last year’s spending forward.

Also watch how long any temporary bill would last.

A brief extension could give lawmakers more time to finish the regular budget.

An extension lasting until after the election would allow them to avoid difficult spending votes until voters have already gone to the polls.

The Questions to Keep Asking

As these fights develop, citizens should keep asking:

• Will lawmakers receive separate votes on the biggest decisions?

• Will the public have enough time to read the bills?

• Will Congress finish its work before the deadline?

• Or will leaders wait until the last moment and demand another take-it-or-leave-it vote?

Next week will tell us whether Congress plans to debate these issues openly - or once again govern by deadline and pressure.

The Ledger’s Bottom Line

Congress called this a quiet recess week.

It wasn’t.

A major housing bill became law. The Senate moved closer to debating a $1.15 trillion defense bill. The Justice Department increased pressure on state election officials. And congressional leaders began laying the groundwork for another temporary spending deal because they may once again fail to pass the budget on time.

All of this happened while most Americans were paying attention to something else.

That is how Washington often works. The loudest political fights grab the headlines while the decisions that actually change the law, spend our money, and expand government power move quietly in the background.

Citizenship can’t mean watching campaign commercials, picking a side, and voting every two years.

Self-government requires us to pay attention between elections - especially when Congress is out of town and the cameras are pointed somewhere else.

For every bill, every dollar, and every new claim of government power, we should keep asking:

• How much will it cost?

• Where does the Constitution give the government the authority to do it?

• Who will be held responsible if it fails?

Those are not Republican questions or Democratic questions.

They are the questions free citizens should always ask of anyone exercising power in their name.

Salus Populi Suprema Lex.

The welfare of the people shall be the supreme law.

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Sources and Further Reading

Congressional Schedule and Floor Activity

• U.S. Senate Daily Press, “July 6, 2026 Pro Forma Session.”

• U.S. Senate Daily Press, “Upcoming Senate Schedule and S. 4784 Cloture Notice.”

• Office of the House Majority Leader, “Weekly Schedule for the Week of July 13, 2026.”

• U.S. House of Representatives, “Bills Scheduled for the Week of July 13, 2026.”

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act

• H.R. 6644, 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, enrolled bill text.

• Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, “The Facts: The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act.”

• Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, “Section-by-Section Summary of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act.”

• Associated Press, “Trump Allows Housing Bill to Become Law Without His Signature.”

The Fiscal Year 2027 Defense Bill

• S. 4784, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2027.

• Senate Armed Services Committee, “FY2027 NDAA Executive Summary.”

• Senate Armed Services Committee, “Committee Completes Markup of the FY2027 National Defense Authorization Act.”

• U.S. Senate Daily Press, “Cloture Filed on the Motion to Proceed to S. 4784.”

Federal Spending and the Shutdown Debate

• Congressional Research Service, The Congressional Appropriations Process: An Introduction.

• American Action Forum, “FY2027 Appropriations Progress Report.”

• Axios, “GOP Senators Dread a Pre-Election Shutdown Fight.”

• Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, “Upcoming Congressional Fiscal Policy Deadlines.”

Bills Coming to the House Floor

H.R. 8595: State Department and Foreign-Aid Spending

• H.R. 8595, National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2027.

• House Appropriations Committee, “FY2027 National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations Bill Summary.”

H.R. 8720: Campaign Finance Transparency Act

• H.R. 8720, Campaign Finance Transparency Act.

• House Administration Committee, “H.R. 8720 Committee Markup Materials.”

H.R. 3535: Stop Foreign Funds in Elections Act

• H.R. 3535, Stop Foreign Funds in Elections Act.

• Congressional Budget Office, “Cost Estimate for H.R. 3535.”

H.R. 1181: Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act

• H.R. 1181, Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act.

• House Rules Committee, “H.R. 1181 Floor Consideration Materials.”

Election Administration, Voter Data, and Federalism

• U.S. Department of Justice, “National Voter Registration Act of 1993.”

• U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, “Authority to Obtain and Share Statewide Voter-Roll Data.”

• Reuters, “Justice Department Warns State Officials About Noncitizen Voting.”

• Associated Press, “Administration Increases Pressure on State Election Officials.”

• U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, United States v. Maryland State Board of Elections.

• NBC Washington, “Federal Judge Dismisses DOJ Lawsuit Seeking Maryland Voter Data.”

• Reuters, “Appeals Court Rejects Federal Demand for Michigan Voter Rolls.”

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We have a problem.

We have a career politician problem in our republic.

Most Americans already know it, at least in a general sense. We know Washington feels stale. We know the same names seem to stay in power for decades. We know Congress no longer looks like a temporary gathering of citizens sent to represent their neighbors, solve problems, and return home.

But I’m not sure most Americans realize just how bad it is.

As of today, 76 current voting members of Congress have served 20 years or more. Of those, 32 have served 30 years or more. Eleven have served more than 40 years. And two have been in Congress for more than half a century.

That’s not public service. That’s political entrenchment.

The republic we know and love didn’t collapse all at once. It started slowly but began to rot the moment our representatives turned what was supposed to be a temporary civic duty into a lifelong, professional career.

Congress was never meant to be a career. It wasn’t designed to be a ladder for ambition or a comfy landing place for political insiders, party loyalists, and professional fundraisers. It was supposed to be a temp job. You were chosen by your community to go to Washington, D.C., represent your neighbors, and do your duty under the Constitution. Then, you packed your bags and went home to live under the exact same laws you just helped pass.

That last part was the whole point.

Reps were supposed to go home. They were supposed to look their neighbors in the eye and answer for their decisions. They were supposed to be citizens first and lawmakers second.

Instead, we’ve built a permanent, protected, political class. A class that talks constantly about “the American people” on television, but spends most of its days surrounded by consultants, lobbyists, handlers, and donors. Their entire lives revolve less around service and more around preservation – preservation of power, of position, and of the system that sustains them.

And then they ask why the average American feels completely ignored. And they act confused as to why their approval rating sits perpetually in the teens and twenties.

We feel ignored because we are ignored.

We Didn’t Elect Royalty

Congress was never meant to be a country club with elections.

James Madison made this pretty clear in in Federalist No. 57. The House was meant to be open to regular people. Wealth, pedigree, and profession weren’t supposed to be the gatekeepers. Trust, judgment, and character were supposed to matter more than connections.

But that spirit has long since faded.

Yes, the Constitution calls for members to get paid for their service, and they should be. Public service shouldn’t just be for the independently wealthy. But there’s a clear and substantial difference between paying a regular citizen to serve for a brief period and funding a permanent ruling class that never leaves office.

As discussed in Restoration Paper No. 8, The Illusion of Representation, our Congress is just an incumbency factory. Once elected, the job is to stay elected and the whole system bends over backward to make that happen. Their party protects them. Big money donors invest in them. Lobbyists cozy up to them for favors and influence, and the consultants teach them how to sound authentic while saying absolutely nothing.

The longer they stay, the more the machine rewards them. That’s not representation. That’s permanence.

The Problem Isn’t Experience. It’s Detachment.

Look, I’m not saying experience is evil.

We obviously need people who understand how a budget works, how legislation moves, and what the Constitution actually allows. But experience isn’t the same as entrenchment.

A few years of service can produce wisdom, but decades within the system produces detachment.

A representative who learns how the government works can serve the public well, but one who spends a lifetime learning how the system protects itself will come to serve that system instead.

And the issue isn’t that these people served. The issue is that their service became their identity, their career, their brand, and, in many cases, their path to wealth and influence.

When public office became a career, survival became the priority. Every single vote is now weighed against reelection probability. Every crisis is a fundraising email. Every committee hearing is a performance for the media.

The statesman has faded, but the performer remains.

That’s how we get politicians who spend thirty years or more in Washington voting for trillions in debt they’ll never have to pay back, passing thousand-page bills they don’t read, and approving regulations they’ll never personally feel – only to come back to their districts or states shouting that they’re “outsiders” fighting the system.

And finally, Americans are seeing how insulting that is.

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They Don’t Live Like Us

Representation requires more than an address.

It requires shared experience. It requires real connection to daily life in the community.

A true citizen representative understands daily life because he or she lives it. They know the cost of groceries because they buy them. They understand the burden of healthcare because they’re pay the premiums, wait on the same phone systems, and fight for appointments like everyone else. They know the weight of payroll because they’ve actually signed the front of a paycheck, not merely given speeches in front of someone who does.

We need lawmakers who remember exactly what it feels like to be governed.

Farmers. Mechanics. Veterans. Teachers. Nurses. Builders. Small business owners. Regular people with enough wisdom to know that power is dangerous, and enough humility to hand it over to someone else when their time is up.

Instead, we have a credentialed country club that governs from a distance, occasionally allowing the rest of us to choose which members get to stay.

The numbers tell part of the story. Right now, the average tenure in Washington is nearly a decade, but the true issue is the concentration of power over time. Committee chairs, influence, and institutional control accumulate over the years. The median age in the Senate is pushing 65.

Now, I’ll admit it: wisdom matters. Age alone doesn’t make someone unfit for office. But a country can’t stay healthy when its leadership is completely removed from the daily economic pressures, technology, working conditions, family burdens, and cultural reality of its people.

At some point, “experience” is just a polite word for “you’ve been there too damn long.”

These long tenures didn’t happen by accident. They’re primarily the result of two failures. First, we as citizens got too comfortable. We got lazy with our oversight. We stopped watching closely enough, stopped replacing people often enough, and allowed name recognition to be the substitute for accountability.

Second, our representatives turned the job of getting elected into the business staying elected. What was supposed to be temporary is now a permanent campaign operation - one built around fundraising, messaging, party loyalty, and political survival.

That’s how the citizen legislator disappeared and the endless campaign started.

The Endless Campaign Destroyed the Job

We can’t have a citizen legislature when the elections never stop.

Members aren’t just legislating anymore and haven’t been for a long time. Now, they’re constantly fundraising, branding, polling, messaging, posting, and gearing up for the next election cycle. So even when they’re sitting in the Capitol, most of their energy is spent trying to stay there.

So, the question is simple:

Who is truly being served?

It certainly isn’t the guy working two jobs just to keep his head above water. It’s not the parents trying to figure out how to afford groceries this week. It’s not the veteran dealing with red tape at the VA. And it’s not the local shop owner trying to comply with another mountain of federal paperwork.

The attention flows instead to those with permanent guest passes to the club: donors, lobbyists, political committees and corporate interests.

The rest of the country is reduced to photo ops, background for speeches, faces for advertisements and stories for political use – nothing more than props for their performances.

And average Americans are angry because they can see the game now.

They see politicians run on “draining the swamp,” only to jump right in and learn how to swim. They see members rail against debt after voting for it. They see reps condemn bureaucracy after funding it and they see lawmakers complain about a broken system they’re cashing in on.

The contempt members of Congress get from regular Americans is completely earned.

We know the campaigning isn’t on principle. We know it runs on money, access, exposure, and protection. We know who is pulling the strings of our puppet representatives, and it ain’t us.

It’s the party machine. The place where independence is punished and loyalty is rewarded. It’s where our reps stopped being actual representatives of us and became employees of a political corporation.

Employees of the Party Machine

Our citizen legislature died the moment party loyalty came before hometown loyalty.

A representative’s job is to answer to the people who sent them to Washington.

Period.

Not the Speaker of the House. Not the Senate leader. Not the national caucus, the cable news audience, activists on social media and certainly not the donor class.

The people.

But the party machines have turned lawmakers into their corporate shills rather than independent representatives. Leadership controls the money. Leadership controls the committee seats. Leadership controls floor access. Leadership controls public visibility. And leadership controls punishment.

In this system, the lesson is quickly learned:

Align with the machine or be removed by it.

That’s not self-governance – and it hasn’t been for a long time.

A representative who fears their party leadership more than their voters isn’t a representative – they’re a hostage with a title. A Congress that serves the system before the people isn’t an instrument of liberty.

It’s an instrument of decline in desperate need of repair.

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What Fixing It Requires

Reform won’t come easily, because those who benefit from the current system are the same ones needed to change it. That reality may require solutions outside ordinary channels, such as an Article V, Convention of States.

Still, the principles are pretty straightforward:

First, we need shorter sessions. Do the work, pass the budget, debate legislation and then get the hell out of Washington. Members should spend less time in the swamp with the flies and mosquitos of D.C. culture and far more time back in their home districts and states. I have suggested a 240-day working Congress, but only about half of that should be spent in Washington. The rest should be spent back home among the people they represent.

Second, we need term limits. We as Americans have proven we can’t be trusted with voting out permanent incumbents, so need a legal mechanism. We need serious, common-sense limits on how long one can hold federal legislative office. I suggest twelve years total for congressional members. That could be any combination of house and senate terms, but twelve years is enough for anyone.

Serve. Represent. Go home.

Lastly, we need age limits. It’s time we recognize that effective governance requires both experience and sustained capacity. I suggest an age limit ceiling of no older than 75 years of age. That doesn’t mean every person 75 or older is incapable. It simply means the republic has a right to set reasonable limits on the age and tenure of those entrusted with power.

Power doesn’t get safer with familiarity. It just gets easier to justify.

I have other suggestions that I’ll put forth in other areas, but it’s important to note that while those three reforms sound procedural in tone, they actually point to something much deeper. Shorter sessions, term limits and age limits aren’t just technical fixes. They’re reminders of a larger truth.

Elected office isn’t property. It’s not a possession and it’s not a personal inheritance. Nobody has a right to a seat in Congress. It’s a temporary trust handed to ordinary citizens by other ordinary citizens.

And when that trust is treated like a lifetime entitlement, the problem is no longer just political.

It’s moral.

A Moral Obligation

At the end of the day, our republic depends on a simple principle:

The people are sovereign and our representatives are temporary stewards.

When office holders remain indefinitely and treat elections as formalities, that principle is lost.

Temporary service preserves perspective. It reminds the officeholder that authority is borrowed, not owned. That seat belongs to the people. That title belongs to the people. And that power belongs to the people.

It is entrusted, not possessed.

And it must be returned.

The Restoration

Restoring Congress means restoring the simple idea of the citizen legislator.

We need representatives anchored to their communities, not absorbed by D.C.

We need leaders who respect the Constitution as a boundary, not an obstacle.

We need people who seek with reluctance, serve with seriousness, and depart willingly.

A healthy republic doesn’t depend on permanent rulers. It depends on responsible citizens.

What now sounds radical was once ordinary and readily accepted.

If restoring temporary public service feels like a revolution, then it’s a necessary one.

Not a revolution of upheaval, but a revolution of return – back to the first principles that those who govern must remain among the governed.

We don’t need better slogans or more polished professional politicians.

We need citizens with the courage to serve, the discipline to act, and the humility to step aside.

That’s how free people stay free.

In Liberty,
Gary Mullins (Libertas)

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Help regular citizens think seriously again about self-government, constitutional limits, civic responsibility and what it would take to restore a republic that feels increasingly managed by people who no longer answer to us.

That mission isn’t changing.

But the project is growing and I want to build it the right way.

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That means no corporate sponsors.
No political party money.
No political action committee money.
No donor-class leashes.
No chasing stupid algorithms just to stay visible.

I’m building this the natural way.

So, I’ve added paid subscription options for readers who want to support the project and help keep it independent.

Most of the core writing will remain public.

The major essays, the Restoration Papers, the upcoming King for a Year series, civic education pieces, and public facing arguments are meant to be read, shared, debated, and challenged. I don’t want the basic work of civic restoration hidden behind a wall.

Paid supporters will help fund the project and receive some extras along the way: early access to major essays, supporter discussions, Q&A threads, behind-the-scene-drafts, topic input, and eventually downloadable essay collections and special publications like the upcoming Modern Federalist: A Plain-Language Guide to the Ideas Behind the Constitution.

But this isn’t about creating a private club. It’s about keeping a public project independent.

If you stay a free subscriber, I’m grateful you’re here. Reading, sharing, commenting, and challenging these ideas still matters.

If you become a paid supporter, you’re helping build something bigger.

Either way, thank you for being part of this.

The republic was never supposed to be funded by kings, parties, corporations, or permanent political machines.

Neither is this project.

The ideas stay public. Support keeps them independent.

Thank you,

Gary

In this special four-part series for the Publius Project, I’m breaking down the FairTax Act - not like an academic essay or a dry political debate, but like two neighbors talking around a fire pit while having a cold one and listening to some good music. Whether you’re skeptical about the math or ready for a radical change, this series is about exploring what happens when we stop letting the government monitor everything we earn and start focusing on a system that respects our privacy, our hard work, and our freedom

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Our current tax code doesn’t stop at the water’s edge; it follows American products into the global market, acting like an invisible anchor on our competitiveness. While we’ve focused on our internal relationship with the state, we need to look at how the FairTax changes America’s standing in the global economy.

“Leveling the playing field at the border.”

One of the most powerful features of the FairTax is its border adjustability. It treats imports and exports with strict neutrality, a massive departure from our current setup, which critics rightly say, “exports our taxes and imports our unemployment”.

• Exports are tax-free to the world: Under the FairTax, goods made in the U.S. but sold abroad are completely exempt from the 30% sales tax. Because corporate and payroll taxes are wiped out, the hidden “embedded” tax costs inside American exports, which run as high as 22%, disappear entirely. Supporters argue this would improve the competitive position of American manufacturers by removing embedded federal tax costs from exported goods, allowing them to compete more directly on price and quality in global markets.

• Imports face the exact same rules: On the flip side, every single product coming into the U.S. from abroad faces the full 30% FairTax at the register. This ensures a television built in South Carolina, and one built in South Korea carry the exact same federal tax burden at an American cash register.

Supporters argue that this border-neutral treatment removes embedded federal tax costs from American exports while applying the same tax rules to imported goods sold in the United States. Critics note that exchange rates, capital flows, labor costs, and other global market forces would continue to influence trade balances and international competitiveness. While the FairTax changes the tax treatment of imports and exports, it does not eliminate the broader economic forces that shape global trade.

“Ending tax-induced outsourcing.”

Our current corporate tax setup actually rewards companies for moving their headquarters or factories offshore to avoid the U.S. tax net.

• Bringing profits home without penalties: Right now, trillions of American corporate dollars are parked overseas to avoid high repatriation taxes. The FairTax kills the corporate income tax entirely, allowing that money to flow back home for domestic investment, research, and payroll without a gatekeeper tax.

• Making America an investment magnet: By removing penalties on work and investment, the U.S. becomes one of the most attractive places in the world to do business. This paves the way for a massive “re-shoring” of industry, as the tax reasons for fleeing the country disappear.

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“Bypassing the global corporate tax race.”

The global tax landscape is getting increasingly messy with international agreements like the Organisation for Economic Co-operation Development’s (OECD) “Global Minimum Tax” push. While other nations are moving toward higher, synchronized corporate taxes, the FairTax takes America in the opposite direction. By opting out of the corporate income tax race entirely, we bypass these global minimums at the federal level, choosing instead to tax consumption inside our own borders.

Now, critics do warn of short-term economic turbulence. The transition from an income-tax system to a national consumption tax would likely create adjustments throughout the economy, including potential changes in consumer prices, wages, investment flows, and currency valuations. Supporters argue that the removal of embedded taxes would offset a significant portion of any price increases, while critics contend the transition could still produce temporary disruptions. The precise impact would depend on how businesses, workers, consumers, and financial markets respond to the new system.

“Taking back our economic sovereignty.”

Ultimately, border neutrality ensures our tax code stops picking winners and losers in the global market. The system stops favoring foreign goods over domestic ones, and American workers no longer have to compete against foreign subsidized goods while weighed down by an outdated 20th-century tax relic.

The FairTax is more than an internal accounting swap; it’s a geopolitical tool. It replaces managed trade and complex treaties with a simple standard: If we sell to Americans, we contribute to the American system. If we produce in America, we are free to compete with the world.

Next up, we have to tackle the most contentious question of all: The Math. Is a 30% rate actually enough to fund the government, and will the numbers truly add up?

In Liberty,
Gary Mullins (Libertas)

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Most of us only hear about Congress through screaming cable news segments or social media clips designed to make us mad before we’re informed. The People’s Ledger is different. It’s a quick, clear look at what lawmakers are actually debating, funding, and changing – minus the political theater.

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This week, the biggest story was not a bill passing. It was a bill getting stuck. House Republicans brought their own floor schedule to a standstill after a group of members refused to move forward on the annual defense bill unless the SAVE America Act was directly attached. That fight stalled the defense budget, delayed other key legislation, and sent the House home early for the July 4 holiday recess. Here is what happened in our name.

1. Biggest Bill of the Week: The Defense Bill Gets Blocked Over the SAVE Act

What Happened

The biggest item on the schedule was supposed to be the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2027. The NDAA is one of the few must-pass pieces of legislation Congress handles every year. It sets defense policy, authorizes military programs, shapes weapons procurement, and lays out the spending priorities for the Pentagon.

Instead of moving forward, the bill got completely jammed.

A faction of House Republicans blocked the initial procedural vote needed to even begin debate on the floor. They did this to demand that the SAVE America Act - a major election and voter eligibility bill - be packaged directly with the defense bill. The procedural vote failed 224–198, forcing House leadership to cancel the remaining votes and send lawmakers home early for the recess.

What Changed

Last week, the NDAA looked like it was headed toward a standard floor debate. This week, it became a hostage in a completely separate legislative battle.

The SAVE America Act would require documented proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, mandate photo ID at the polls, and require states to share unredacted voting rolls with the Department of Homeland Security to validate citizenship.

• Supporters argue this is a common-sense measure to ensure absolute election integrity.

• Critics argue noncitizen voting is already illegal under federal law, and adding strict documentary proof-of-citizenship requirements could disenfranchise eligible citizens who lack immediate access to birth certificates or passports (such as military personnel overseas or individuals whose names changed through marriage).

But the underlying process problem here isn’t the policy itself - it’s the strategy. A massive defense bill got tied up over an unrelated election bill.

Why It Matters

You can completely support voter ID laws and still recognize the procedural breakdown here. The NDAA is supposed to be an analysis of defense policy, troop pay raises, and military readiness. The SAVE Act is about election administration.

When Congress ties completely unrelated fights together, regular citizens lose the ability to judge each issue on its own merits. Members are no longer voting simply on defense or election law; they’re voting on a package of political leverage.

This makes true accountability impossible. It also means critical, foundational bills stall out not because the legislation itself lacks support, but because lawmakers are using it as leverage for something else.

Who Benefits or Loses

• Winners: Hardline supporters of the SAVE Act gained immense leverage by demonstrating they have the numbers to freeze the House floor and force leadership to deal with their demands.

• Losers: House leadership lost total control of the floor. Service members, defense planners, and contractors are left waiting while a standard defense budget sits in limbo over an unrelated policy rider.

What to Watch Next

Watch whether House leadership attempts a different procedural trick - like a reconciliation package - to advance the SAVE Act when lawmakers return on July 13. The Senate has already blocked the SAVE Act once this summer, meaning any defense bill loaded down with these provisions faces a brick wall in the upper chamber.

2. Quietly Moving Bills: Kids Online Safety, Pandemic Fraud, and Grid Security

Not every bill makes national headlines. Several smaller measures moved through the House this week that still carry significant real-world impact.

Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS) Act

The House passed this bill by a bipartisan vote of 267–117. The legislation requires online platforms to implement stricter safeguards for minors, including tools to limit addictive algorithmic features and policies aimed at protecting children from online sexual exploitation.

• Why it matters: The core debate is no longer whether to protect kids online, but how far the federal government should go in regulating private tech platforms. The Senate has previously favored a stronger “duty of care” standard.

• The friction point: Privacy advocates warn that strict age-verification systems could inadvertently lead to tech companies collecting more personal data on adults and minors alike to verify identities.

Recover COVID Unemployment Fraud in Banks Act

This bill passed the House with wide support. It targets pandemic-era unemployment funds that were flagged as suspicious, frozen by financial institutions, or left sitting in accounts due to suspected fraud, forcing banks to return those funds to state and federal systems.

• Why it matters: Estimates of COVID-era fraud are massive, running into the tens of billions of dollars. While recovering stolen taxpayer money is entirely reasonable, the challenge is ensuring the recovery process doesn’t create a slow-moving bureaucracy that freezes legitimate claimants out of their funds.

Grid and Energy Security Bills

The House passed a batch of energy-security measures, including the SECURE Grid Act and the Rural and Municipal Utility Cybersecurity Act. These bills are designed to provide technical support and cybersecurity resources to smaller, municipal, and rural utility providers.

• Why it matters: Power grid security is entirely practical. If a regional grid goes down due to a cyberattack or physical threat, everything from water treatment to hospital operations halts instantly. Smaller rural utilities often lack the massive cybersecurity budgets of major corporations, making federal technical coordination vital.

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3. Money and Spending: The $87.6 Billion War & Farm Supplemental

What Happened

The White House’s $87.6 billion emergency supplemental funding request remained a massive financial story hanging over a stalled Congress this week.

The request breaks down into distinct buckets:

• $67.1 billion for the ongoing conflict with Iran (including $21 billion to replenish depleted munitions stockpiles, $2.4 billion for drones, and $12.1 billion for classified programs).

• $11.1 billion in temporary economic assistance for American farmers facing crop losses and storm damage.

• $1.4 billion for global health funding to contain the Ebola outbreak in Central Africa.

• Various domestic provisions, including infrastructure funding for New York’s Penn Station and Washington D.C.

Why It Matters

This is where foreign policy becomes an explicit financial receipt. War isn’t just a series of speeches; it’s fuel, munitions, drones, repairs, and massive national debt. Because Congress finalized its standard baseline appropriations months ago, the administration is using an “emergency supplemental” path, which historically receives rapid approval with minimal scrutiny.

Furthermore, this is a classic example of Washington packaging.

Insiders routinely pair highly controversial war expenditures with incredibly popular domestic aid - like disaster relief for local farmers or disease prevention.

This forces lawmakers into an all-or-nothing choice: vote “yes” on billions in unauthorized war funding, or vote “no” and get accused of abandoning American farmers. It drives up the bottom-line deficit while driving down honest debate.

What to Watch Next

Watch whether fiscal conservatives or war-powers advocates in the Senate successfully force a split in the bill, separating the domestic agricultural relief from the multi-billion-dollar military funding for the conflict with Iran.

4. Civil Liberties & Constitutional Issues: The FISA Cliff

While the SAVE Act acted as the primary wrench in the legislative gears this week, it’s also overlapping with the ongoing, unresolved debate surrounding FISA Section 702.

The statutory legal authority for Section 702 - the federal government’s warrantless surveillance program targeting foreign targets overseas - has technically lapsed. However, because the government secured secretive, back-dated court certifications from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court earlier this spring, the surveillance activity is legally allowed to continue rolling into 2027.

Why It Matters

The standard headline narrative says the deadline is passed and the program is dark. The reality is far more subtle. The executive branch has bought itself an extension, meaning the pressure on Congress to enact sweeping reforms has cooled behind closed doors. The core constitutional question remains entirely unanswered: Will lawmakers eventually force federal agencies to obtain a judicial warrant before searching the database for the communications of American citizens, or will the surveillance state continue operating under minor, administrative adjustments?

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5. The Weekly Ledger: What Passed, Failed, and Stalled

House of Representatives

• Passed: The Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS) Act (Bipartisan vote).

• Passed: The Recover COVID Unemployment Fraud in Banks Act.

• Passed: A slate of grid and cybersecurity coordination bills (SECURE Grid Act, Energy Emergency Leadership Act).

• Failed: Moving the rule to begin debate on the FY2027 defense budget (NDAA) due to the internal Republican block.

• Action: Sent lawmakers home early for the July 4 holiday recess.

Senate

• Action: Conducted brief pro forma sessions with zero major legislative business.

• Status: Out of session until July 13.

6. What to Watch Next Week

When lawmakers return to Washington on July 13, look for the following pressure points:

1. The NDAA Unfreeze: Whether House leadership can offer enough concessions to hardline members to bring the defense budget back to the floor.

2. The Executive Ink: Whether the White House signs the pending bipartisan housing overhaul bill or allows it to pass quietly without a formal signature.

3. The War Authorization Debate: Whether any faction in the Senate demands a formal war-powers briefing before writing the $87.6 billion check for operations in Iran.

Washington moves exceptionally fast, and the most permanent changes often happen when the public is looking somewhere else. That is why tracking the ledger matters. Our job remains exactly the same: follow the text, follow the cash, and understand exactly what is changing in our name.

Sources and Further Reading:

• Time Magazine: House Starts Recess Early After GOP Memb

• ers Rebel over SAVE Act

• The Conference Board: White House Formally Requests $87.6B Supplemental for Iran War Costs and Farmers

• Cato Institute: Breakdown of Non-Emergency Additions to Supplemental Spending Requests

• House Committee on Energy and Commerce: Full Roll Call on KIDS Act and Grid Security Legislation

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Federalism sounds boring.

It sounds like one of those dusty civics words people use when they want normal Americans to stop listening.

But federalism isn’t boring.

It shapes almost everything around us.

Our schools.
Our roads.
Our police departments.
Our property taxes.
Our zoning laws.
Our health policies.
Our emergency rules.

Most of the decisions that affect our daily lives shouldn’t begin in Washington, D.C. They should be made much closer to home, where citizens can actually see them, question them, challenge them, and correct them.

That is the heart of federalism.

It’s the vertical separation of power.

Separation of powers divides authority inside Washington. Federalism divides authority between Washington, the states, local communities, and the people.

And right now, that balance is badly broken.

That is why every presidential election feels like the end of the world. When Washington controls too much, whoever controls Washington controls too much of everyone else’s life. Politics stops feeling like disagreement and starts feeling like survival.

That’s not healthy.

That’s not self-government.

And that’s not the republic the Founders designed.

In this episode of The Defiant Citizen, I’m not rereading Restoration Paper No. 12. I’m taking the idea of federalism into the real world.

Because the question isn’t always, “Is this a good idea?”

The better question is:

Who has the authority to decide?

That’s the question politicians hate.

And it’s the question citizens need to start asking again.

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And if it resonates, share it. The more people understand how power is supposed to function, the harder it becomes to quietly reshape it.

And remember:

A republic only survives when its citizens refuse to become subjects.

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Chairman, Ranking Member, Members of Congress and fellow Americans:

I am here today simply as an American citizen.

I’m not a lobbyist.
I’m not a donor.
And I’m not a political operative.

I’m not here looking for access, favors, appointments, contracts, or permission.

I am here as one of the people you work for.

And that is a fundamental truth this institution desperately needs to remember.

I’m here to make one thing very clear:

You don’t sit above us.

You don’t rule us.

You don’t own the government.

You don’t own the Constitution.

And you certainly don’t own the sovereign wealth of this nation or our children’s future.

You are temporary stewards of delegated power. And that power does not originate in this building. It does not flow from your party leadership, nor does it belong to donors, lobbyists, consultants, bureaucrats, or cable news studios that feed off this city.

It originates with us.

The American people.

And the American people are done being treated like props in your performance.

We are done with the hearings where the viral clip matters more than the truth.

We are done with the fake outrage, the rehearsed speeches, the dramatic pauses, the cynical finger-pointing, and the moral lectures from people who vote one way in front of the cameras and negotiate another way behind closed doors.

Too many of you have confused attention with accountability.

You grandstand when the microphones are live and then hide when the hard votes are called.

You condemn the national debt while consistently voting for more of it.

You condemn executive overreach when the opposing party controls the White House, then excuse it when your party takes control.

You demand transparency from your opponents, then bury your own work in thousand-page bills, procedural tricks, classified briefings, and backroom deals.

You campaign as constitutional warriors and govern as members of a protected political class.

That is not representation.

That is theater.

And the American people are tired of paying for the production.

So let me be blunt.

I look around this room, and I don’t see the statesmen this republic was promised.

I don’t see public servants humbled by the immense weight of their duty.

I don’t see men and women trembling under the responsibility of spending other people’s money, sending other people’s children to war, and writing laws that ordinary citizens must live under.

Instead, I see a protected political class.

I see profiteers of polarization.

I see thieves in tailored suits.

I see vultures circling the next crisis, the next tragedy, the next war, the next border failure, the next school shooting, or the next economic panic — not to solve it, but to strip it for fundraising copy, campaign ads, cable news hits, and social media clips.

Perhaps some of you are decent people.

Maybe some of you came here for the right reasons.

Perhaps some of you still remember what public service was supposed to mean.

But if you do, you are the exception.

Not the rule.

Because the institutional rule in this town is self-preservation.

Party first.

Donor first.

Camera first.

And country eventually, maybe, if the polling aligns and leadership permits it.

That is why Americans are pissed.

We’re not confused.

We’re not misinformed.

We’re not radicalized.

We are finally paying attention.

And we see the performance.

We see the fake fights.

We see the staged outrage.

We see the way this body feeds off every crisis while pretending to solve it.

You don’t heal the wound.

You campaign next to it.

You don’t stop the bleeding.

You monetize the blood.

And then you have the temerity to look into the camera and call it leadership.

But I’ll be honest.

The anger is bigger than individual members of Congress.

Americans are fed up with the duopoly in this town.

We’re done with the insulting system where two political parties campaign like mortal enemies, govern like business partners, and then demand the rest of us pretend we have an actual meaningful choice.

For decades now, you have conditioned Americans to vote from a place of fear.

Vote for us because the other side is catastrophic.

Hold your nose.

Be realistic.

Choose the lesser of two evils.

That shit is over.

When nearly half of this country identifies as independent, it is not a sign of apathy.

It’s not confusion.

It’s not some temporary mood swing.

It’s a warning.

It’s the sound of millions of Americans walking away from your bullshit.

We’ve had enough of choosing between two factions that constantly scream at each other in front of the cameras while quietly, in back rooms, protecting the same debt machine, the same surveillance apparatus, the same lobbyist economy, and the same tired Washington, D.C. power structure.

You call it leadership.

We call it collusion with better branding.

Your old threats are losing their power.

Your old fear campaigns are wearing thin.

And the argument that citizens have to choose between two horrible options is collapsing under its own weight.

People have stopped asking which option is less destructive.

They’re starting to ask why these are the only options in the first place.

Now, I’m sure some of you have already tuned me out.

And that’s fine.

By all means, keep doing so.

Because every one of you should understand something very clearly:

Your incumbency isn’t a birthright.

That seat doesn’t belong to you.

Your party label isn’t a shield anymore.

Your fundraising advantage isn’t a mandate.

And your committee title doesn’t mean shit to us anymore.

Your political careers have expiration dates.

And for a growing number of Americans, that date can’t come soon enough.

That’s not a threat.

It’s a formal notice.

Our republic doesn’t belong to you.

It belongs to us.

The people who grant you the privilege of serving.

And guess what?

We’re waking up.

You wanted America to be “woke”?

Congratulations.

You got it.

We’re tracking the spending.

We’re recording your votes.

We’re watching the procedural cowardice.

We see who only finds courage when the cameras are turned on.

We see who treats the suffering of ordinary Americans as backdrops for campaign material.

And we remember.

We remember the promises and the betrayals.

We remember the emergency spending packages rushed through for foreign interests while we’re told there aren’t enough resources for us.

We remember the surveillance powers expanded in the name of safety.

We remember the wars fought without a declaration.

We remember the thousands of pages of legislation passed before they were ever read.

And we’re done playing along.

Your job isn’t to trend on social media.

Your job isn’t to build a personal brand.

Your job isn’t to audition for a cable news contract.

Your job isn’t to serve party leadership.

Your job is to represent your districts, your states, and your country.

Your job is to represent the people, defend the Constitution, control spending, restrain federal power, and answer to us — the citizens who sent you here.

That’s the constitutional arrangement you agreed to.

We don’t answer to you.

You answer to us.

So here is what we expect:

Read the bills.

Show up for the votes.

Stop hiding behind your party’s leadership.

Stop outsourcing your duties to unelected agencies, the courts, and bureaucrats.

Stop using procedural tricks to hide your cowardice.

Stop treating public service as a career ladder to personal wealth, lobbying, or media influence.

Stop using every crisis as a campaign backdrop.

And stop assuming Americans will indefinitely crawl back into a two-party cage because you’ve scared us into believing there is no other option.

We’re done holding our noses.

You’ve been warned.

Not with chaos.

Not with mobs.

Not with violence.

But with memory, organization, pressure, votes, and the sovereign authority of a free people who are thoroughly unimpressed by your titles and your performance.

You’re not lords.

You’re not dukes.

You’re not earls.

You’re not royalty of any kind.

And Congress isn’t a castle.

It’s a chamber of representation.

So start representing.

Start serving.

Start restraining power.

Start defending the framework you swore an oath to protect.

And remember every single damn day that American citizens are not beneath you.

You are beneath the law.

You are beneath the Constitution.

And you are beneath the sovereign authority of the American people.

So start acting like it.

In Liberty,
Gary Mullins (Libertas)

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In this special four-part series for the Publius Project, I’m breaking down the FairTax Act - not like an academic essay or a dry political debate, but like two neighbors talking around a fire pit while having a cold one and listening to some good music. Whether you’re skeptical about the math or ready for a radical change, this series is about exploring what happens when we stop letting the government monitor everything we earn and start focusing on a system that respects our privacy, our hard work, and our freedom.

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The Great Decoupling

For over a hundred years, our tax system has relied on a central enforcement body to watch the private earnings of every single American. That’s the Internal Revenue Service. Its massive size isn’t an accident; it’s the inevitable shadow cast by an income tax. Change the system, and the agency either has to fundamentally transform or disappear entirely.

“Why is the IRS so massive in the first place?”

The current tax code demands that the government verify how much we made, where we made it, and how we spent it. To do that, they have to have:

• Intrusive oversight: Tracking every wage, investment, and side-hustle we possess.

• Constant guessing games: Needing an army of nearly 80,000 employees just to manage a 70,000-page code.

• Guilty until proven innocent: Running an adversarial system of audits and penalties that treats everyday citizens like persons of interest.

The IRS exists because an income tax literally cannot function without a high-resolution window right into our private financial life.

“Shutting down the enforcement machine.”

Under the FairTax Act, the core mission of the IRS simply evaporates. If income isn’t taxed, there’s no reason for 150 million Americans to file annual reports, and no reason for a federal agency to audit them.

The bill explicitly calls for dismantling the IRS after a transition period. And to make sure we don’t end up with a worst-of-both-worlds “hybrid” system, where Congress collects a sales tax and keeps an income tax, the Act has a built-in safety switch: if the 16th Amendment isn’t fully repealed within seven years, the FairTax automatically terminates.

“What happens to the tax industry?”

A simpler tax system would dramatically reduce the need for many of the compliance services that exist today. Tax preparation firms, compliance departments, and portions of the federal enforcement bureaucracy would likely shrink as millions of Americans no longer need to file annual income tax returns.

Supporters argue, however, that the underlying skills of accountants, auditors, financial professionals, and compliance specialists remain highly valuable throughout the economy. Rather than spending time navigating a complex tax code, many of these professionals could shift toward financial planning, business consulting, accounting, management, and other productive activities.

The broader question is whether a free society benefits when a significant share of its professional talent is devoted to tax compliance rather than creating value elsewhere in the economy. Supporters of the FairTax see this shift as a reallocation of human capital rather than a permanent loss of expertise.

“How do we actually collect the money?”

Instead of managing a massive federal bureaucracy, administration shifts to a localized, state-led model.

Most states already have the infrastructure to collect sales taxes. The FairTax simply tasks the states with collecting the federal portion and sending it to Washington, outsourcing the job back to the local level. To cover the paperwork costs, the federal government pays the states a 0.25% administrative fee. Retail businesses also get a 0.25% credit for acting as the primary collection points.

The massive footprint of the IRS is replaced by two tiny bureaus within the Treasury Department, the Excise Tax Bureau and the Sales Tax Bureau, just to keep an eye on the macro-level flow of funds.

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“Sounds great, but what’s the catch?”

No reform this massive comes without friction, and critics raise real concerns that we have to answer honestly:

• The senior double-tax worry: Retirees who spent decades paying income taxes often worry they would be taxed a second time when spending their savings under the FairTax. Supporters respond in several ways. First, retirement income from Social Security benefits, dividends, interest, and capital gains would no longer be subject to federal income taxation. Second, FairTax advocates argue that many current taxes embedded in consumer prices would disappear, reducing the actual increase in retail prices. Third, the monthly prebate and inflation adjustments to Social Security benefits are intended to shield lower-income seniors from the transition. Critics remain skeptical that these offsets fully compensate retirees, making this one of the most debated aspects of the proposal.

• The black market risk: Critics warn that a visible 30% sales tax could encourage under-the-table transactions and tax avoidance. Supporters respond that many countries already operate with substantial consumption taxes and that modern retail systems are increasingly digital and automated. They also argue that large retailers are generally easier to audit than millions of individual taxpayers reporting wages, side income, and gig-economy earnings. While no tax system eliminates evasion entirely, supporters contend that the relevant question is not whether avoidance would exist, but whether it would be more severe than under the current income-tax system.

• The business burden: While it frees 150 million citizens from filing taxes, it shifts compliance onto businesses. Retailers become the primary tax collectors, requiring smooth coordination between state and federal agencies, but since this is already being done a the local and state level, the transition should be relatively easy.

“The ultimate shift in American culture.”

The biggest impact of the FairTax isn’t administrative; it’s a cultural shift toward privacy. For the first time in a century, the government won’t require a list of our income sources or investments. Under a sales tax, the government sees the transaction, not the person. It cares what was bought, not who bought it.

The future of the IRS isn’t really about the agency itself; it’s about how much power we give the state to monitor our daily lives. By changing the system, we decouple financial privacy from civic duty. The FairTax is a clear declaration that our labor belongs to us – and the government’s reach ends where our personal choices begin.

In Liberty,
Gary Mullins (Libertas)

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Most of us only hear about Congress through screaming cable news segments or social media clips designed to make us mad before we’re informed. The People’s Ledger is different. It’s a quick, clear look at what lawmakers are actually debating, funding, and changing – minus the political theater.

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This week, a massive bipartisan housing bill cleared both chambers of Congress, while a major separation-of-powers showdown over war authority exposed a deep fracture in Washington. Meanwhile, the White House dropped a massive new spending request on taxpayers, and the battle over our digital privacy got tangled up in election year politics. Here is what happened in our name.

1. Biggest Story: The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act Clears Congress

The Headline

In a rare moment of overwhelming bipartisan consensus, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act officially cleared both chambers of Congress. The Senate passed the final version 85–5, and the House followed suit with a massive 358–32 majority.

But as the week closed, the bill hit a sudden roadblock. President Trump delayed signing it into law, using it as political leverage to demand that the Senate advance the separate SAVE America Act; a hot-button voting bill requiring proof of citizenship to register for federal elections.

The Real Impact

If it survives this final standoff, this will be the most significant housing overhaul in a generation. At its core, the bill targets deep-pocketed corporate landlords by generally banning companies that own 350 or more single-family homes from buying up residential real estate.

To pass the bill, negotiators carved out exceptions allowing Wall Street firms to still buy houses under “build-to-rent” or “rehab-to-rent” models. The catch? They must flip those homes back to everyday families within seven years, giving current tenants a 30-day “first look” option to buy.

The Everyday Takeaway

• Who Wins: First-time homebuyers who are tired of being outbid by Wall Street hedge funds making all-cash offers above asking price.

• The Tradeoff: Simply banning corporate buyers doesn’t magically lower interest rates or build new neighborhoods. If housing inventory stays tight locally, choking off corporate buyers could inadvertently shrink the rental market, driving monthly rents up even higher for families who aren’t ready for a mortgage.

2. Quietly Moving Bills: Financial Spying, AI Clones, and Child Protection

The “Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act”

The House Rules Committee advanced a bill to completely ban credit card networks and banks from using specialized “merchant tracking codes” to flag purchases made at firearms retailers.

• The Plain English: Supporters argue you shouldn’t end up on a corporate or federal watch list simply because you bought a hunting rifle or walked into a gun shop. Opponents claim these tracking codes help banks flag suspicious purchasing patterns before crimes occur.

• The Big Picture: This sets a massive financial privacy precedent. If Congress can block tracking codes for firearms, the same legal logic could eventually protect your privacy surrounding political donations, religious purchases, or private medical choices.

The NO FAKES Act (AI Deepfakes)

Following its committee approval, the NO FAKES Act picked up serious steam on Capitol Hill this week. The bill establishes a federal property right over your own voice, face, and likeness.

• The Plain English: AI can now clone your voice or face with frightening accuracy. This bill gives everyone - from famous musicians to everyday citizens - the power to sue anyone who creates an unapproved digital copy of them.

• The Battle: Watchdog groups are fighting over the exact exemptions to guarantee that this law isn’t weaponized to kill legitimate online parody, news documentaries, or political speech.

The Child Online Safety Override

House and Senate lawmakers are locked in a behind-the-scenes fight over national child safety laws, with critics warning that Big Tech is manipulating the process.

• The Trap: Tech giants desperately want Washington to pass a single, weak federal rulebook because it would automatically wipe out (”preempt”) the much tougher, more aggressive child safety and privacy laws already passed by individual states.

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3. Money & Spending: The $87.6 Billion Whiplash

The Headline

The White House sent Congress a massive “supplemental” funding request, asking taxpayers for an extra $87.6 billion.

The Ledger Breakdown

The vast majority - roughly $67 billion - is earmarked directly for the ongoing conflict with Iran to fund military operations, drone networks, classified programs, and munitions replenishment. To ensure the bill passes, Washington insiders attached popular domestic items to the package, including agricultural aid for struggling farmers and funding for infrastructure projects like New York’s Penn Station.

The Everyday Takeaway

The timing here is pure political whiplash. Just as lawmakers are publicly complaining that the executive branch is running an unauthorized conflict, the administration is turning around and asking those same lawmakers to write a multi-billion-dollar check to pay for it.

4. Constitutional Issues: The War Powers Standoff

The Headline

In a historic separation-of-powers showdown, the Senate voted 50–48 to approve a House-passed war-powers resolution ordering the President to halt unauthorized military actions against Iran. It was a clear, bipartisan statement that Congress owns the constitutional power to declare war.

Then, less than 24 hours later, after heavy pressure from the White House, the Senate completely reversed course, blocking a secondary, binding war-powers measure in a 47–50–1 vote.

The Everyday Takeaway

This whiplash proves how broken the system is. Lawmakers love to complain about executive overreach to appease their voters back home, but when it comes time to actually draw a hard line and take accountability for national defense, they fold under pressure.

Meanwhile, FISA Section 702 remains a total stalemate. The warrantless spying program has technically “expired,” but because of long-term legal loopholes, the federal government’s digital surveillance apparatus is authorized to keep running into 2027. Now, by tying surveillance reform directly to the SAVE America voting bill, Washington has made a difficult issue nearly impossible to solve.

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5. The Week’s Final Tally: What Passed

The House

• Passed the Housing Overhaul: Co-signed the compromise text of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act.

• Advanced Privacy Rules: Cleared the path for upcoming floor votes on the Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act and several massive federal spending packages.

The Senate

• Approved the Housing Bill (85–5): Sent the corporate landlord crackdown to the President’s desk.

• The War Powers Split: Passed the initial warning shot on Iran (50–48), then immediately blocked the binding enforcement follow-up (47–50–1).

• Recess: Adjourned for the Independence Day holiday, leaving D.C. empty until July.

6. What to Watch Next

1. The Presidential Pen: Watch if the President signs the bipartisan housing bill or holds it hostage to force a vote on proof-of-citizenship voting laws.

2. The $87 Billion Battle: Watch whether fiscal conservatives force a vote to split the controversial Iran war funding from the popular domestic farming aid.

3. The Credit Card Showdown: Watch if the push to block gun-store tracking codes triggers a wider fight over federal oversight of your private bank accounts.

Sources and Further Reading

• U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes, H.R. 6644 & S.Res 412 (June 22-24, 2026)

• House Clerk Official Records, Combined Bipartisan Housing Summary (H.R. 6644)

• White House Office of Management and Budget: Emergency Supplemental Funding Directive (Iran Ops)

• House Rules Committee Legislative Docket: Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act (H.R. 8021)

• Congressional Research Service: Section 702 Continuity Analysis & Intelligence Court Rulings

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To My Fellow Americans,

My last paper highlighted the importance of the separation of powers in our government, but power isn’t instantly made safe simply because it’s divided into branches.

That’s only one part of the design. The American power system isn’t only divided horizontally, between Congress, the President, and the courts. It’s also divided vertically, between the national government, the states, local communities, and ultimately, us, the citizens.

That vertical division is what’s known as federalism and it’s one of the most misunderstood parts of our American constitutional structure. Most of the time, it’s treated as a dusty procedural concept, a lawyer’s argument, or a relic from before the modern world became too complex for local decision-making.

But federalism wasn’t a technicality, it’s the architecture of liberty. It was the Founders’ way of answering one of the most important questions in political life: Who should have the authority to decide?

Because not every problem belongs in Washington and not every disagreement requires a national rule. Not every policy question should be settled by distant representatives who neither live among the people affected nor answer directly to them. Federalism was designed to keep as much governing power as possible as close to the people as possible; while giving the national government just enough authority to handle truly national concerns.

That’s an important distinction because when every issue becomes a federal issue, every election becomes a fight for control over everyone else’s life.

A Republic of Divided Authority

Our Constitution created a federal government of limited, specific powers; which means the federal government wasn’t given a blank check to do whatever it wants regardless of if it’s deemed useful, popular, compassionate, or necessary. It was given a specific, limited to-do list for specific purposes.

Those powers include things like national defense, foreign affairs, immigration and naturalization, coining money, and resolving disputes that cross state lines. These were identified as national responsibilities because they couldn’t be handled effectively by the thirteen separate states acting alone. As a single nation we need a single foreign policy, a single treaty power, a single system for national defense, and a single rule for interstate commerce. And it needs one constitutional framework binding the union together.

But beyond those delegated powers, the states kept broad authority over ordinary American life. That included most criminal law, education, public safety, land use, local infrastructure, health and welfare policy, and countless other areas where the rules of daily life are shaped.

This wasn’t accidental. The Founders didn’t believe liberty was protected by making every decision national. They knew liberty was protected by keeping power divided, limited, and accountable. The federal government would handle the truly national matters, the states would handle the ordinary powers of civil government, and local communities would handle what could be and should be handled locally.

That’s the structure they built. Not one government ruling over administrative districts, but a true republic, where power is divided so that no single level of government can easily dominate the whole.

Federalism Is Not Just “States’ Rights”

One reason federalism is often misunderstood is because it gets reduced to the phrase “states’ rights.” But that phrase is incomplete because states don’t have rights in the same moral sense that people do. Individuals have natural rights; governments have powers.

To be clear, federalism isn’t about treating state governments as sacred. State and local governments can abuse power, be corrupt, or violate liberty just like any other government. History proves that time and again. Federalism isn’t a blank check for states to do whatever they want either. The Constitution remains supreme, and the federal government has a legitimate role in protecting constitutional rights when states violate them.

But acknowledging that doesn’t mean every policy question must be centralized in Washington. The answer to state abuse is not unlimited federal power; the answer is constitutional government at every level.

Federalism protects liberty not because states are always virtuous, but because divided authority makes power harder to consolidate. It prevents one national majority from imposing a single uniform answer on every community in the country.

Divided power is always safer than concentrated power.

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Why Local Authority Matters

A government closer to the people is almost always easier to watch, easier to question, and easier to correct.

Now… let’s be honest. Most people will never meet the President, testify before Congress, or influence a federal agency. But we can certainly attend a school board meeting, speak at a town council meeting, call a county supervisor, confront a mayor, and see the results of local decisions up close with our own eyes.

And that proximity matters. The farther power moves away from the people, the harder it is to control. That distance creates insulation. That insulation creates arrogance. And that arrogance creates a ruling class of people who don’t really feel the consequences of their decisions.

The needs of a rural county in Virginia like mine aren’t identical to the needs of New York City, San Francisco, Miami, or a farming town in Iowa. The culture, the cost of living, the geography, and the local expectations are all different. National uniformity may sound clean on paper, but in practice, it means forcing one answer onto millions of people whose lives don’t fit the template.

Federalism allows variation, experimentation, and learning. It allows one state to try one approach and another state to try something else. It allows failure to remain limited instead of becoming a national disaster.

That’s not chaos, that’s self-government in a large republic.

The Danger of Making Everything Federal

When the federal government becomes the default solution to every problem, the constitutional structure collapses.

Congress stops acting like a legislature of limited powers and starts acting like a national management board. Presidents stop enforcing law and start directing domestic life by executive order. Federal agencies begin shaping major questions of economic and social policy, and the courts are left to settle questions that should’ve been resolved through representative government.

And we the people? We just become spectators.

The more power moves to one place, the more every national election feels existential. Does that sound familiar?

And why is that?

Because if Washington controls everything, the reality is that whoever controls Washington controls everything. That’s pretty much where we are now and it’s turned our politics into permanent war. It’s taught us citizens that the only way to protect ourselves is to seize national power before the other side does.

Federalism lowers the stakes and cools emotions by limiting the reach of national power. When decisions are made locally, Americans don’t have to win every federal election to preserve their way of life.

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Golden Handcuffs: The Erosion of Federalism

As I’ve written in previous Restoration Papers, federalism hasn’t disappeared all at once; it’s been worn down gradually through expansive interpretations of power, federal mandates, and administrative agencies.

The methods have often been subtle too, so we barely notice. Washington doesn’t always directly command the states. Instead, it uses “golden handcuffs,” offering federal money with strict strings attached. States become dependent on this funding, adjust their policies to comply with federal priorities, and gradually transform from independent states into customers of the national government.

When states depend on Washington for permission and cash, accountability disappears. State officials blame federal requirements, federal officials blame state implementation, and the citizen is left staring at a system where everyone has power, but no one seems to be responsible.

Federalism was supposed to make authority visible. If a decision belongs to the federal government, the state, or the local community, citizens should know exactly who to hold accountable.

What Federalism Is Not

Federalism is not an argument against national unity. The United States is one nation, and the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. States cannot nullify constitutional rights, conduct their own foreign policy, coin their own money, or ignore valid federal law.

The whole point of the Constitution was to create a stronger union than the Articles of Confederation provided. The country needs a national government capable of acting where national action is necessary. But necessary is not the same as unlimited.

A federal republic requires a deliberate balance. It requires enough national power to preserve the country, protect rights, defend the border, and maintain constitutional order. But it also requires enough state and local authority to preserve self-government, reflect regional differences, and prevent national power from swallowing the whole.

Restoring federalism doesn’t mean pretending America can return to the eighteenth century. The economy is integrated, and problems cross state lines faster than ever. But a complex society can’t be successfully managed from one central bureaucracy. The attempt only produces delay, confusion, and resentment.

Restoring federalism simply means recovering the habit of asking the constitutional question before the policy question. Not just: Is this a good idea? But: Who has the authority to do this? Not just: Can Washington force a result? But: Is this actually a national responsibility?

Good intentions don’t make power safe. Structure does.

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The Citizen’s Role

Federalism demands more from us as citizens.

It’s incredibly easy to obsess over national politics. Washington is loud, entertaining, and perfectly tailored for 24-hour media combat. It gives people the instant emotional satisfaction of choosing a side in a grand, distant war.

Local government, by contrast, isn’t glamourous. It’s zoning meetings, school board budgets, county sheriff races, and utility decisions that rarely trend online. But this is where real life is governed. If citizens abandon those local institutions, we shouldn’t be surprised when power migrates upward.

A people that only watches Washington will eventually be ruled by Washington. A people that wants liberty must reclaim responsibility at every level.

Conclusion: The Test of Self-Government

Federalism is the vertical separation of power. Separation of powers divides authority within Washington; federalism divides authority between Washington and the rest of the country. Together, they form the architecture of constitutional liberty.

When that architecture is respected, power is limited and citizens remain close to the decisions that shape their lives. When it’s ignored, power flows upward, accountability disappears, and the national government becomes an arena for permanent political warfare.

Federalism is ultimately a test of whether we still believe in self-government. If every problem must be solved in Washington, then the citizen becomes small, the states become mere administrative branch offices, and liberty becomes nothing more than federal permission.

The American system was built on a simple truth: liberty survives only when power is divided, limited, and close enough for the people to see it, challenge it, and correct it.

Your Move: A Call to Action

Restoring this balance doesn’t require a constitutional convention, although I’m a proponent of one, it requires a deliberate shift in our attention.

• Turn your eyes downward. This week, look up the date of your next city council, county commission, or school board meeting. Find out who represents your district at your state capitol.

• Ask the structural question. The next time a politician promises a grand solution to a societal problem, stop asking “Is this a good idea?” and start asking “Which level of government, if any, actually has the authority to do this?”

We must stop treating national politics as entertainment and start treating local governance as our primary civic duty. If we want a government that is truly accountable, we have to stop electing permanent rulers to manage us from afar.

In the next paper, I’ll confront the primary distortion that allows power to pool in Washington: the rise of the career politician, and why we must restore the vital American tradition of the temporary citizen legislature.

In Liberty,
Gary Mullins (Libertas)

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In this special four-part series for the Publius Project, I’m breaking down the FairTax Act - not like an academic essay or a dry political debate, but like two neighbors talking around a fire pit while having a cold one and listening to some good music. Whether you’re skeptical about the math or ready for a radical change, this series is about exploring what happens when we stop letting the government monitor everything we earn and start focusing on a system that respects our privacy, our hard work, and our freedom.

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There are few places where we feel the heavy hand of government more consistently than right in our own paychecks. Before we even get a single dollar to save, invest, or feed our family, it’s already been chopped up by a gauntlet of federal deductions: income taxes, Social Security, and Medicare.

But the squeeze doesn’t stop there. Because businesses have to pay their own heavy taxes, they pass those costs down to us. That means every single dollar that actually survives our paycheck gets taxed a second time through “embedded” costs hidden inside the price of everything we buy. What started out as a basic way to fund essential services has turned into a 70,000-page nightmare of compliance, enforcement, and government overreach. It’s a giant guessing game designed to hide what government actually costs us.

The FairTax Act is more than just tweaking a few tax brackets; it’s a complete reset. By shifting federal taxes off our paycheck and putting them into the cash register instead, it changes the game. We stop being a monitored wage-earner and start being a voluntary consumer.

“The system is so broken, nobody really controls it anymore.”

The modern tax code is a monster that keeps us in a constant defensive posture. Think about how it works now:

• They take it before we see it: Our hard-earned wages are seized through withholding before we can even touch them.

• The looming shadow: We’re forced to file reports every year under the constant threat of audits, penalties, and legal action if we make a mistake.

• Paying for permission: Entire industries exist solely to help regular folks navigate confusing, ever-changing, and contradictory rules.

The cost of this paperwork is insane. The IRS admits Americans spend over 6 billion hours a year just trying to comply with tax rules. That drains more than $300 billion out of our economy every single year just for preparation and recordkeeping.

“Right now, a lot of folks don’t have any skin in the game.”

Beyond the endless paperwork, the current system has created a massive disconnect in our country. Instead of everyone pulling together and contributing a fair share to keep the republic running, the tax burden is incredibly lopsided:

• The shrinking base: A substantial portion of American households owe little or no federal individual income tax after deductions, credits, and exemptions. However, most still contribute through payroll taxes, excise taxes, and various state and local taxes. The result is a system where the costs of government are often fragmented and difficult for citizens to see clearly. Rather than understanding a single, transparent tax burden, Americans encounter a complex mix of direct taxes, indirect taxes, and transfer payments that obscures who pays what and how government is ultimately funded.

• Extreme concentration: Federal income tax collections are highly concentrated among top earners. The top 1% pay roughly 45.8% of federal income taxes, while the bottom 50% contribute only a fraction of total income tax revenue. However, economists continue to debate how much of that burden ultimately remains with the taxpayer versus being passed along through higher prices, reduced investment, or lower wages. Regardless of where the final burden falls, the current system attempts to collect revenue through a complex web of rates, deductions, and compliance requirements that few people fully understand.

• The invisible tax: Even when citizens pay little or no federal income tax directly, they still bear numerous taxes embedded throughout the economy. Payroll taxes, corporate taxes, excise taxes, regulatory compliance costs, and other government-imposed expenses are often incorporated into the price of goods and services. As a result, Americans may pay for government every day without clearly seeing how much they are contributing. The true cost of government becomes difficult to identify because much of the burden is hidden within the prices consumers pay rather than appearing on a single transparent bill.

This setup turns citizens, workers, and business owners into navigators of a sprawling tax bureaucracy. Individuals spend countless hours complying with tax rules, while businesses often make decisions based not on what creates the most value, but on what produces the most favorable tax outcome. The result is more than paperwork. It’s a misallocation of time, capital, and talent. Resources that could be directed toward innovation, investment, and economic growth are instead devoted to navigating an increasingly complex tax code.

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So, what exactly is the FairTax?”

The FairTax Act (H.R. 25) would be the biggest structural shift to our economy since the income tax was put in place over a century ago. It isn’t an extra tax tacked onto what we already pay; it completely wipes out the old system and replaces it.

Here is what it does:

• Trashes the IRS and income taxes: It completely repeals all federal personal, corporate, and self-employment income taxes.

• Kills payroll taxes: Social Security and Medicare taxes (FICA), which hit low- and middle-income workers the hardest, are completely gone.

• Stops penalizing growth: No more taxes on our savings, capital gains, or investments. Our wealth grows completely tax-free until we choose to spend it.

• One transparent sales tax: All those messy, layered taxes are replaced by a single sales tax collected only when we buy a brand-new item or consume a service at retail.

“Two quick rules you need to know.”

To understand how this works on a Saturday morning shopping trip, keep two things in mind:

1. The “New Goods” Rule: The FairTax only applies to new stuff. If you buy a used car, a second-hand appliance, or an existing home, you pay zero federal tax on it. The tax was already paid by the first owner when it was brand new.

2. The Rate (23% vs. 30%): Politicians love to play word games with numbers, so you’ll hear two different rates tossed around. Proponents call it a 23% rate because that lets you compare it directly to an income tax bracket (where tax is part of your total earnings). But at the cash register, it looks like a 30% markup on the base price. For example, if you buy a $77 item, a $23 tax is added, making the total $100.

“The ‘Prebate’ – ensuring nobody gets taxed on survival.”

The biggest worry people have about a sales tax is that it might hurt folks living paycheck-to-paycheck. The FairTax solves this with a monthly check called the “Prebate” sent to every legal household in America.

Think of it as the government pre-paying our basic taxes for us. Every month, we get a check equal to the FairTax amount we’d spend on basic necessities like food, clothing, and shelter up to the federal poverty line.

This means we pay an effective 0% federal tax on everything we buy up to the poverty line. If the poverty level for a family of four is around $30,000, that family gets a monthly check covering the tax on that first $30,000 of spending. They only pay a single penny of net tax to Uncle Sam when they spend their 30,001st dollar.

By sending this money out at the beginning of the month, families aren’t stuck waiting for a year-end tax refund just to afford groceries. It naturally creates a fair system: folks who spend the least pay the lowest effective rate, while big spenders buying luxury goods pay the most.

“What it actually looks like for you and me.”

Let’s look at how this changes everyday life for different families:

• The $70,000 Middle-Class Earner: Today, this family sees a substantial portion of its earnings diverted through federal income taxes, payroll taxes, and other taxes embedded throughout the economy. Their take-home pay is significantly less than their gross earnings, and they still encounter hidden taxes in the prices of everyday goods and services. Under the FairTax, their paycheck would arrive free of federal income and payroll tax withholding. In addition, they would receive a monthly prebate designed to offset taxes on spending up to the poverty level. If they choose to save or invest a portion of their income, those funds remain untaxed until they are eventually used for personal consumption.

• The $250,000 High Earner: Currently, this family faces a complex mix of tax rates, deductions, credits, withholding rules, and tax-planning decisions. Under the FairTax, they receive the same prebate as every other household and are taxed according to their level of personal consumption. If they purchase luxury goods, expensive homes, yachts, or other new consumer products, they pay substantially more tax. If they choose to save, invest, expand a business, or make charitable contributions, those resources remain outside the tax base until they are ultimately spent on consumption.

• The Low-Income Worker: Right now, many lower-income Americans pay little or no federal income tax, but they still contribute through payroll taxes and numerous hidden taxes embedded throughout the economy. Under the FairTax, those taxes become visible at the point of purchase. Because the prebate offsets taxes on spending up to the poverty level, a household’s effective tax burden on necessities remains low while the cost of government becomes far more transparent. Rather than being hidden in paychecks, prices, and production costs, taxation becomes visible whenever a consumer chooses to make a purchase.

The key difference is not simply who pays taxes, but when and how taxes are paid. Under the current system, much of the tax burden is hidden within paychecks, business costs, and consumer prices. Under the FairTax, taxation becomes directly tied to personal consumption decisions, making the cost of government more visible to every citizen.

“Making the cost of government completely visible.”

Transparency is the backbone of this entire idea. Right now, the true cost of government is buried behind automatic withholdings and hidden corporate taxes passed down to us. The FairTax puts it all out in the open:

• Receipts don’t lie: By law, every single retail receipt would show exactly how much federal sales tax we paid. No hidden layers, no masking the total.

• Killing the hidden tax: Right now, products carry “embedded” costs from corporate income taxes, payroll taxes, compliance expenses, and other tax-related burdens that are built into the production process. FairTax supporters estimate these hidden costs add roughly 20% to 25% to the price of many goods and services, though critics dispute the exact figure.

• Real accountability: When we see the cost of government printed on every single receipt, we can finally hold politicians accountable. It forces an honest conversation about what government programs actually cost us.

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“Taking the penalties off hard work.”

The current system basically punishes the things we need for a healthy economy: earning, saving, and investing. The FairTax gets out of the way:

• No tax on work: Because income and payroll taxes vanish, we keep 100% of our gross pay. We aren’t penalized with higher tax brackets just for working harder and earning more.

• No tax on growth: Our savings and investments grow tax-free. Capital gains, dividends, and interest are left alone until we spend that money on brand-new retail goods. This is designed to supercharge our national savings rate and reward long-term investing.

Beyond the immediate tax savings, supporters argue that the FairTax changes the incentives built into the economy. Under the current system, additional work, savings, and investment can trigger additional layers of taxation. The FairTax removes those penalties by taxing consumption rather than production. The theory is simple: when people are allowed to keep more of what they earn, save, and invest, they have a stronger incentive to build wealth, start businesses, expand existing enterprises, and plan for the future. Supporters view this not only as an economic benefit, but as a system that better rewards personal responsibility, delayed gratification, and long-term investment.

“One rule for everyone – no exceptions.”

A 70,000-page code is a breeding ground for loopholes and special interest favors. The FairTax replaces that mess with a single, uniform standard:

• Equal treatment: The tax applies exactly the same way to all new goods and services. No special deductions for certain industries or well-connected individuals.

• Closing the loophole gap: In our current system, the wealthy can hire army-grade accountants to shrink their income tax liability. Under the FairTax, if we spend a fortune on luxury items, we pay a fortune in taxes – and we can’t “write it off”.

• The used goods exemption: Because the FairTax applies only to new retail goods and services, used cars, existing homes, and second-hand products are not subject to an additional federal sales tax. Supporters argue this avoids taxing the same item multiple times as it changes hands. Market prices for used goods would still adjust based on supply and demand, but the tax itself would apply only at the initial retail sale.

“Widening the net from earners to consumers.”

One of the biggest shifts here isn’t just how we collect taxes, but who is pitching in. Right now, our tax base is incredibly narrow and fragile. The FairTax spreads the weight across the entire economy by taxing consumption.

By moving the tax to the retail counter, we automatically capture revenue from groups that currently get a free pass from Uncle Sam:

• The underground economy: Income earned outside the formal reporting system can be difficult to capture under an income tax. Supporters argue that a consumption-based system captures more economic activity because taxes are collected when money is spent on legitimate retail goods and services rather than when income is earned.

• Living off accumulated wealth: Individuals whose income comes primarily from savings, investments, inheritances, dividends, or capital gains may face relatively little federal income tax under the current system. Under the FairTax, investment growth itself is not taxed. Instead, taxation occurs when those resources are ultimately used for personal consumption. Supporters argue this better aligns tax liability with lifestyle and spending choices rather than investment activity.

• Tourists and visitors: Every year, millions of foreign tourists visit America, use our roads, and enjoy our infrastructure, but they don’t pay a dime in federal income tax. Under this plan, every souvenir, hotel stay, and restaurant meal purchased by a tourist helps fund our government.

By taxing consumption rather than income, the FairTax expands the number of taxable transactions occurring within the economy. Supporters argue this creates a broader, more visible tax base that captures spending by wage earners, investors, tourists, and participants in the underground economy alike, while reducing reliance on complex income reporting and enforcement systems.

“At the end of the day, it’s about freedom.”

In our current system, the government has to monitor our income, our family status, and our private spending habits just to figure out what we owe. It requires an incredibly intrusive level of oversight and a massive bureaucracy to enforce it.

The FairTax changes that relationship completely. The government no longer needs to know how much money we make or how we made it. They only care about what we choose to buy at the counter. It restores a level of financial privacy and personal autonomy that Americans haven’t seen in over a hundred years.

Supporters also argue that the FairTax may be better suited to a modern economy. As freelance work, digital businesses, gig platforms, and AI-enabled entrepreneurship continue to expand, tracking individual income becomes increasingly complex. At the same time, a growing share of consumer purchases flows through large retailers and digital payment systems that already maintain detailed transaction records. From this perspective, taxing consumption rather than income could reduce enforcement costs while requiring less direct oversight of individual financial lives.

No tax system is perfect, but they all reflect a society’s values. The current code relies on complexity, extensive reporting requirements, and a wide range of incentives designed to influence economic behavior. It creates distinct classes of taxpayers while letting others off the hook, breaking our sense of shared civic responsibility. The FairTax chooses transparency, simplicity, and personal choice.

It really comes down to a fundamental question: Do we want a government that monitors everything we earn, or a government that only cares about what we choose to spend? In a free society, how we answer that will define the next century of American life.

“Moving from theory to reality.”

A shift this big naturally brings up a gauntlet of tough questions:

• How do we protect seniors who already paid income taxes on their savings and now have to pay a consumption tax when they spend it?

• Can our retail economy handle a 30% visible markup at the register without triggering a massive black market?

• What happens to the multi-billion-dollar tax prep industry and the thousands of federal agents currently doing enforcement?

• And how do we stop Congress from taking our sales tax today and bringing back the income tax tomorrow?

Next week, we’re going to move from the “Why” to the “How,” diving into the logistics, the critics’ arguments, and why repealing the 16th Amendment is non-negotiable.

In Liberty,
Gary Mullins (Libertas)

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Most of us only hear about Congress through screaming cable news segments or social media clips designed to make us mad before we’re informed. The People’s Ledger is different. It’s a quick, clear look at what lawmakers are actually debating, funding, and changing – minus the political theater.

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This week, housing took center stage as a massive bipartisan overhaul cleared a major Senate hurdle. Meanwhile, fights intensified over digital privacy, AI deepfakes, court transparency, and the defense budget. Here is what happened in your name.

1. Biggest Bill of the Week: The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act

What Happened

The Senate advanced the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act (H.R. 6644) with an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 89–10. This isn’t law yet, but it represents a major breakthrough. Because the House passed its own version of a housing package earlier this year, negotiators from both chambers have spent months blending the two into this single compromise bill. A final Senate vote is expected next week.

What Changed

The headline feature is a direct crackdown on corporate landlords. The bill defines a “large institutional investor” as any for-profit company controlling 350 or more single-family homes, and it generally blocks them from buying up more single-family houses.

To get the deal done, lawmakers added key exceptions. Wall Street firms can still buy homes if they are explicitly building new communities from scratch (”build-to-rent”) or fixing up completely dilapidated properties (”rehab-to-rent”). However, there’s a catch: corporations using these exceptions must sell those houses to everyday families within seven years, giving current renters a 30-day “first look” option to buy the home before anyone else.

Why It Matters & Who Wins

American families are completely priced out of the housing market by high interest rates, while renters are being squeezed by low inventory.

• The Upside: If you’re trying to buy a starter home, this bill clears out deep-pocketed corporate competitors who routinely outbid families with all-cash offers.

• The Tradeoff: Simply banning corporate buyers doesn’t magically build new neighborhoods. If supply stays low, restricting investors could actually reduce the number of available rental homes, driving rents even higher for families who aren’t ready to buy.

2. Quietly Moving Bills: Court Cameras, AI Deepfakes, and Child Safety

Cameras in Federal Courts

The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced bipartisan legislation that would finally allow cameras inside the U.S. Supreme Court and lower federal courtrooms.

• The Plain English: Right now, you have to rely on journalists’ sketches, written transcripts, or partisan commentary to know what happens inside the nation’s highest court.

• The Debate: Supporters say the public has a right to see major constitutional cases with their own eyes. Opponents worry that broadcasts will turn serious legal proceedings into grandstanding political theater for the evening news.

AI Deepfakes (The NO FAKES Act)

The same committee unanimously advanced the NO FAKES Act, creating a brand-new federal intellectual property right over your own body and voice.

• The Plain English: Artificial intelligence can now replicate your voice, face, and movements with terrifying accuracy. This bill gives performative artists and everyday citizens the explicit legal right to sue anyone who creates an unauthorized digital copy of them.

• The Friction: Free-speech advocates are pushing for tight exceptions to ensure the law isn’t used to sue creators over obvious parodies, political commentary, or biographical documentaries.

Child Online Safety vs. State Rights

Big Tech companies are aggressively lobbying Congress to pass a single, uniform federal rulebook for child online safety and AI chatbots.

• The Plain English: Parents are deeply worried about algorithms targeting kids, but tech giants don’t want to navigate 50 different state laws.

• The Catch: If Congress passes a weak federal standard, it could automatically wipe out tougher, more aggressive child protection laws already passed by individual states.

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3. Money & Spending: The $900 Billion+ Defense Blueprint

What Happened

The Senate Armed Services Committee advanced its draft of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2027, laying out a massive $900 billion+ military policy roadmap.

The Context

Last year, the defense landscape shifted when the military budget officially renamed the Pentagon’s governing body to its historic title: the Department of War. This year’s bill locks in the funding under that banner, including $750 million in security assistance for Ukraine, deep investments in advanced drone systems, and cyber warfare readiness.

The Everyday Takeaway

Foreign policy sounds abstract until you look at the ledger. This bill showcases exactly how much taxpayer money Congress is willing to spend to maintain global commitments. Fiscal conservatives are frustrated by the lack of spending cuts to balance the massive price tag, while defense hawks argue the cash is vital to counter growing threats from foreign adversaries.

4. Civil Liberties: The FISA 702 Loophole

What Happened

The fierce congressional deadlock over FISA Section 702, the law allowing intelligence agencies to intercept foreign communications overseas, continues. Because privacy advocates are demanding that federal agents get a traditional warrant before searching data that sweeps up every day Americans, a short-term extension failed to pass.

The Catch

While the strict legal deadline technically lapsed, the surveillance hasn’t stopped. The government uses long-term legal certifications previously approved by the intelligence court, meaning the physical data collection is completely authorized to keep running into 2027. The “expiration” is a political crisis, not an operational blackout.

The Everyday Takeaway

This remains the ultimate balancing act: How much privacy are you willing to trade for national security? Intelligence agencies insist the tool is vital to stopping cyberattacks and terror threats, while civil liberties advocates argue that searching an American citizen’s digital footprint without a judge’s warrant fundamentally violates the Fourth Amendment.

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5. The Week’s Final Tally: What Passed

The House

• Quiet Floor Week: No sweeping national bills dominated the floor, as lawmakers focused heavily on committee revisions and reconciling the upcoming housing package with the Senate.

The Senate

• Passed the Housing Overhaul: Sent the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act back down the legislative pipeline with an 89–10 majority.

• Passed the MAP for Broadband Funding Act: A bipartisan accountability bill forcing federal agencies to audit and clean up the FCC’s internet maps, ensuring billions in rural broadband grants actually go to unserved communities instead of being wasted on duplicative projects.

• Passed a Constitutional Reaffirmation: A symbolic bill formally declaring the Declaration of Independence as fundamental organic law of the United States.

6. What to Watch Next Week

1. The Final Housing Vote: Watch to see if the House smoothly accepts the Senate’s corporate landlord compromise or triggers another standoff.

2. The Iran War Powers Resolution: Expect a high-stakes Senate debate on limiting the executive branch’s authority to engage in military actions without explicit congressional approval, facing a hard deadline of June 25.

3. The Court Camera Push: Watch if leadership gives the courtroom transparency bills actual floor time, or if they get quietly shelved.

Sources and Further Reading

• U.S. Senate Roll Call Vote Records, H.R. 6644 (March/June 2026 updates)

• Senate Banking & Commerce Committee Legislative Summaries (S. 2585 / H.R. 6644)

• Senate Judiciary Committee Executive Business Records (NO FAKES Act Markup, June 18, 2026)

• White House Office of Management and Budget, Public Law No. 119-60 Statues (DoW Transition)

• Brennan Center for Justice / National Security Agency Operations Briefings on Section 702 Certifications

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Most people think freedom disappears all at once.

It doesn’t.

It erodes - quietly, gradually - when power stops being challenged.

In 1933, a single crisis in Germany triggered a chain reaction. Emergency powers were granted. Civil liberties were suspended. Political opposition was silenced. And within a matter of weeks, the structure of a free society collapsed into centralized control.

Not because people suddenly became evil.

But because power stopped being divided.

That’s the thread running through this week’s episode of The Defiant Citizen.

The Founders of the United States didn’t separate power because it sounded nice in theory. They did it because they understood something deeply uncomfortable about human nature:

Power concentrates.
Power expands.
And power, left unchecked, eventually gets abused.

So, they built a system designed to fight itself.

Three branches.
Competing interests.
Built-in friction.

Not as a flaw - but as a safeguard.

Today, that structure is under strain.

Congress passes fewer laws, yet the federal rulebook keeps growing. Executive power continues to expand. Administrative agencies now write, enforce, and interpret rules that carry the force of law.

The lines are blurring.

And when those lines blur, the question isn’t whether you agree with a specific policy.

The question is whether the system itself is still doing what it was designed to do:

Keep power from settling in one place.

This episode breaks that down - clearly, directly, and without the usual noise.

If you’ve ever wondered why the system feels off… this will help you see it.

Listen Here

And if it resonates, share it. The more people understand how power is supposed to function, the harder it becomes to quietly reshape it.

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Most of us only hear about Congress through screaming cable news segments or social media clips designed to make us mad before we’re informed. The People’s Ledger is different. It’s a quick, clear look at what lawmakers are actually debating, funding, and changing – minus the political theater.

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This was a massive week in Washington. Congress passed one of the largest immigration enforcement funding bills in a generation. At the same time, the government’s controversial mass surveillance powers officially collapsed after lawmakers failed to extend them. Meanwhile, next year’s defense budget is starting to take shape, and a handful of fraud-prevention bills quietly cleared the House.

1. The Biggest Deal of the Week: The “Secure America Act” is Signed into Law

The biggest story by far is that the Secure America Act has officially cleared Congress and been signed into law by President Trump. This is a massive funding package that pumps roughly $70 billion into border control and immigration enforcement through 2029.

To bypass the usual 60-vote requirement in the Senate, lawmakers used a fast-track budget process called “reconciliation.” This allowed the majority party to pass the bill with a simple majority vote, with zero votes from the minority party.

Here is exactly where that $70 billion is going:

• $38.53 billion for ICE personnel, detaining immigrants, transportation, and deportation operations.

• $22.57 billion for Border Patrol (CBP) agents and boots on the ground.

• $3.45 billion for high-tech border surveillance and anti-fentanyl tech.

• $5 billion for general Department of Homeland Security funds.

What changed behind closed doors: Earlier versions of this bill were stalled for months by massive arguments over a controversial “justice fund” and various political side-deals that critics said lacked oversight. Those side-deals generated a ton of headlines, but by the time the final stack of paperwork hit the president’s desk, those sections were completely stripped out. What’s left is a highly focused, massive cash injection for border enforcement.

Why it matters to you: Whether you want a locked-down border or you think the system needs a complete overhaul, this isn’t just a symbolic political statement. It is a massive, long-term expansion of the federal government’s enforcement footprint. It buys more detention beds, hires thousands of new agents, and funds deportation flights for years to come.

Who wins and who loses: Federal immigration agencies get a blank check to aggressively expand their operations. On the flip side, taxpayers are entirely footing the bill, and civil liberties groups are raising major alarms about oversight and conditions inside the expanded detention centers.

What to watch next: Now that the cash has been approved, the political fight shifts from funding to oversight. Watch for massive committee battles over how DHS is using this new money and whether federal agencies are overstepping their bounds.

2. Moving Under the Radar: Banning “Ghost Students” and Corporate Landlords

While the news media focused entirely on the border, the House quietly passed a package of bills aimed at cracking down on scammers ripping off the federal checkbook.

The Crackdown on Fake Student Aid Applications

The House passed a bill called the No Aid for Ghost Students Act in a 249–172 vote. The bill targets a massive fraud ring – particularly rampant in community colleges – where scammers use stolen or entirely fake identities to enroll in online classes, collect federal financial aid checks, and then vanish into thin air. In California alone, colleges have lost $30 million to this scheme since 2024.

Why it matters: This fraud costs taxpayers millions every year and clogs up classes meant for real students.

The catch: The bill forces the Department of Education to build an identity-screening system for FAFSA applications. If a student is flagged as a high risk, they have to take a picture with a live camera check and upload a government ID before getting a dime. Critics of the bill argue that if the automated system makes a mistake, legitimate, low-income students could face massive bureaucratic delays trying to pay for housing or books.

General Government Fraud & Housing Updates

• The Federal Fraud Bills: The House also passed a bundle of bills giving federal agencies broader authority to screen and verify government payments before handing out cash. The goal is to stop improper payments, but the challenge is ensuring the screening doesn’t slow down legitimate checks for regular people.

• The Housing Market War: The bipartisan push to fix the housing market is still alive. Lawmakers are still fighting behind the scenes over the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. The main battleground is a rule that aims to ban massive Wall Street investment firms from buying up single-family homes and forces them to sell off their current rental properties within seven years.

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3. The Money Trail: The $900 Billion Defense Budget Takes Shape

The Senate Armed Services Committee just voted 26–1 to advance its version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This is the massive blueprint that dictates how America funds its military.

• The numbers: The Senate’s version sets a topline of $900.6 billion for national defense.

• What’s catching headlines vs. what’s real: A lot of news outlets are losing their minds over a proposal in the committee to officially rename the “Department of Defense” back to its original historical name: the “Department of War.” While that makes for great internet arguments, the real meat of the bill is where the actual money is going – billions of dollars locked into buying advanced weapons systems, boosting military readiness, upgrading drone tech, and funding overseas security commitments like the Baltic Security Initiative.

• What to watch next: The House and the Senate have very different ideas on military social policies and spending priorities. Watch for a massive showdown later this year when both chambers try to smash their versions into one final bill.

4. Your Rights: Government Spying Powers Officially Expire

In a stunning turn of events, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) officially expired on Friday, June 12th.

For months, Washington kept kicking the ball down the road with short-term extensions. But this week, a combination of partisan gridlock and a massive stand by privacy advocates caused the renewal efforts to collapse entirely.

• The backstory: Section 702 allows U.S. intelligence agencies to intercept the digital communications of foreigners overseas without a warrant. The problem is that it accidentally scoops up the emails, texts, and search histories of millions of everyday Americans in the process. Watchdogs revealed that the FBI routinely uses a loophole to search through this data for American citizens without a warrant – looking up everyone from political donors to protesters.

• The current standoff: A massive group of lawmakers on both the far-left and far-right refused to extend the program unless a strict rule was added: If a federal agency wants to search an American’s data, they must get a warrant from a judge. The intelligence community fought aggressively against this requirement, and because neither side blinked, the clock ran out.

• Why it matters to you: This is a temporary victory for the Fourth Amendment. For the moment, the federal government’s primary shortcut for warrantless digital spying has been unplugged.

• What to watch next: Don’t expect the national security state to walk away quietly. Expect emergency, closed-door negotiations next week as leadership tries to engineer a backroad fix to turn the program back on.

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5. The Cheat Sheet: What Moved This Week

In the House:

• Passed the Secure America Act, sending $70 billion to border enforcement.

• Passed the No Aid for Ghost Students Act to stop financial aid identity theft.

• Voted down a short-term, no-strings-attached extension of government spying powers.

In the Senate:

• Sent the Secure America Act to the president’s desk.

• Advanced a $900.6 billion defense funding blueprint out of committee.

• Failed to gather the votes needed to keep the FISA spy program alive.

6. What to Watch Next Week

Keep your eyes on three major stories as Washington heads into mid-June:

1. The FISA Fallouts: Watch for emergency bills trying to resurrect the government’s spying authority.

2. The Border Cash Flow: Watch how quickly ICE and CBP begin moving that $70 billion into new operations.

3. The Next Budget Battles: Lawmakers are turning their attention to the standard annual spending bills for 2027, and the fights will be brutal.

Most of the biggest changes in Washington happen quietly in backrooms, written into the fine print of amendments long before a final vote ever makes the evening news. That’s why paying attention to the process matters. Our job here is simple: follow the bills, follow your money, and make sure we know exactly what they’re changing in our name.

Sources and Further Reading

Legislative summaries are compiled from congressional records, bill text, committee reports, floor proceedings, and reporting from multiple news organizations across the political spectrum. Whenever possible, readers are encouraged to review the underlying legislation and official congressional documents directly.

Immigration Funding Package

• Republican Study Committee (RSC): Official House passage announcement of S. 2, the Secure America Act, and the utilization of budget reconciliation rules.

• Axios / Punchbowl News: Ongoing coverage of the $70 billion homeland security appropriations standoff and the elimination of oversight side-deals.

FISA / Section 702 Surveillance

• Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF): Detailed tracking of the June 12, 2026, official expiration of Section 702 mass surveillance authorities and the gridlock over backdoor search warrant requirements.

• The Washington Post / WIRED: Reporting on how the nomination of Bill Pulte as Director of National Intelligence (DNI) triggered a complete collapse in bipartisan Senate and House renewal negotiations.

Fraud Prevention & Student Aid

• Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives: Official roll call and vote records for H.R. 7892, the No Aid for Ghost Students Act, showing the final 249–172 legislative tally.

• U.S. Department of Education / Representative Tom Emmer Press Office: Administrative documentation regarding the rising identity theft fraud in community college networks and automated FAFSA identity-screening pilots.

Housing Policy

• Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC): Deep-dive analysis and issue briefs covering the House’s 396–13 amended passage of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act.

• National Association of REALTORS® (NAR): Legislative updates on the ongoing bicameral “ping-pong” negotiations over institutional investor restrictions and the seven-year rental divestiture debate.

Defense Spending & The NDAA

• Senate Armed Services Committee: Official committee markup, voting tallies, and funding authorizations for the $900.6 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) blueprint.

• Defense News / Politico Pro: Reporting on the committee proposal to rename the Department of Defense back to the historical “Department of War” and line-item allocations for weapons procurement.

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To My Fellow Americans,

Most of us today judge government by asking some simple, practical questions: Is it effective? Can it solve problems quickly? Can it respond efficiently? Can it get things done?

But the founders? Well, they asked a different question. Before asking what government could accomplish, they wanted to know what government could become. They spent decades living under kings, parliaments, and distant bureaucracies and they learned a hard truth that still holds today: power rarely stays where it begins.

It grows, it expands, and it always wants more.

Our Constitution wasn’t written by men who believed power would stay limited on its own. They assumed just the opposite. As James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 51: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

The Founders knew human nature doesn’t change when someone wins an election or takes an oath. Ambition, self-interest, pride, and the desire for control are permanent features of political life. They weren’t looking for perfect leaders. They were building a system that could survive imperfect ones.

That’s why they divided power.

One Government, Three Powers

When we think of the Constitution, we think of three branches: Legislative, Executive, and Judicial. We’re taught what they do, but rarely was it discussed why they exist.

The division wasn’t arbitrary. The legislature writes the laws, the executive enforces them and the courts interpret what those laws mean. Those functions were separated because combining them creates a dangerous concentration of authority. The French philosopher Montesquieu warned the founders: “There can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or body of magistrates.”

If one group can make rules, enforce rules, and decide what those rules mean, citizens lose any real protection from government. The Founders had seen this play out throughout history: Kings issued decrees. Courts served rulers. Legislatures became rubber stamps.

The Constitution was built to prevent those outcomes by ensuring no single institution could control all of government’s power.

Ambition Counteracting Ambition

Our Founders weren’t perfect men, they were flawed like everyone, but they knew that dividing power on paper wasn’t enough. They expected every branch to try to expand its influence so, instead of trying to eliminate that tendency, they used it. Madison famously noted in Federalist No. 51: “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”

This is one of the most important ideas in our entire constitutional system. The branches were designed to compete.

• Congress passes legislation.

• The President can veto it.

• Congress can override the veto.

• The Senate confirms appointments.

• The courts can strike down unconstitutional actions.

• Congress can impeach federal officials.

Each branch has tools to resist encroachments by the others. This arrangement frustrates modern observers because government looks slow, decisions take time, and disagreements create stalemates; yet this was largely intentional.

The Constitution was not designed to maximize efficiency. It was designed to prevent domination.

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Why Gridlock Is a Feature, Not a Bug

While many Americans often call political deadlock proof the system is broken, but I suspect the Founders would likely disagree. They believed major changes should require broad agreement so passing laws was intentionally made difficult. A bill must pass the House and Senate, survive presidential review, and withstand constitutional scrutiny

That process was not an accident – it was a safeguard.

The Founders worried that temporary passions could become permanent laws. They feared moments of public anger, fear, or enthusiasm leading to government actions that future generations would regret. In Federalist No. 62, Madison argued: “It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.”

The constitutional system was designed to slow decisions down – so a bad idea today doesn’t become permanent law tomorrow. The question was never how quickly government could act.

The question was whether government should act at all.

The Modern Drift Toward Consolidated Power

The Founders understood that power naturally accumulates and assumed that tendency wouldn’t disappear after ratification. If anything, it has accelerated. Today, Congress delegates authority to executive agencies, Presidents rely on on executive orders, and federal bureaucracies routinely create regulations carrying the force of law. Often, these agencies write the rules, enforce them, and judge disputes regarding those same rules.

The Founders would likely look on today’s arrangement with tremendous scorn because it mirrors the very concentration of power they sought to avoid. They created barriers against it and when those barriers weaken, the risk isn’t just inefficiency or political disagreement.

The risk is the gradual erosion of self-government itself.

As noted in previous papers, this reflects a broader trend toward the administrative state, the rise of the expert class, and the transformation of governance into management.

Preserving Freedom

At its core, the separation of powers isn’t about organization charts; it’s about liberty. The system assumes that mistakes will happen and bad leaders will emerge. The answer isn’t “better people” – it’s structural restraint. Liberty doesn’t depend on finding the right saints to lead us; it depends on limiting what any person can do once they hold the reins of power.

The friction we feel today – the slow-moving legislation and endless debates – is the safeguard standing between us and an unchecked, concentrated authority.

The Founders didn’t just divide power horizontally through checks and balances; they also divided it vertically through federalism. Power was divided once to restrain government and divided again to protect the people.

That is where the next Restoration Paper takes us. The Architecture of Federalism.

In Liberty,
Gary Mullins (Libertas)

Sources

• The United States Constitution

• The Federalist Papers No. 51 (James Madison)

• The Federalist Papers No. 62 (James Madison)

• Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws (1748)

• The Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay