An interesting article in Politico today gives us a taste of things to come, as Congress abdicates yet one more of its constitutional responsibilities by not proposing a federal budget this year:

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer made official Tuesday morning what most insiders have known for months: Congress won’t do a budget this year.

Instead, Democrats are pushing an alternative route that falls well short of the more rigorous annual budget resolution — a short-term resolution that will call for discretionary spending lower than in President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2011 budget. But he said Congress wouldn’t take longer-term budget action before hearing from Obama’s fiscal commission in December. Republicans have lambasted Democrats for not passing a budget resolution, saying that’s the first time it’s happened since 1976.

Both the bolded sentence above and the report that President Obama's budget director Peter Orszag will resign this summer indicate that a profound power shift is underway. The not-so-subtle message is that our economic future will not be driven by a our elected representatives.

Instead, we'll be facing self-imposed austerity measures compliments of President Obama's Deficit Reduction Commission. This commission, chaired by North Carolina's Erskine Bowles and retired Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson, has been given the mandate to make the "tough choices" necessary to prevent a Greek-like fiscal outcome in the face of exponentially growing debt, and unmanageable long-term liabilities.

The problem with this commission, however well-meaning, is that it is the endgame for a failed experiment in Hoovernomics. Not Hoover the president, but Hoover the vacuum.

You see, the past century has seen gradual but accelerating federal control and socialist central planning over every aspect of our economy. We've "regulated" our economy -- ostensibly in order to protect the "small people" -- in such a way that the the corporate interests most interested in consolidating their control over different industries have now divided up our economy, and our labors, to their overall satisfaction.

The wealth of our country has thus been sucked out of the hands of industrious, working Americans and into the elite political class who manipulate the levers of power. The "giant sucking sound" that Ross Perot first noted as jobs leaving for Mexico is even louder, and is now a black hole of debt, entitlements, and pilfered wealth that spans from D.C. to Wall Street.

Our government hasn't protected the "small people". We're being destroyed. Adjusted for inflation, the median household income has been flat for the last decade, in the face of rising costs of living. That's the Hoover at work.

Instead of electing representative to Congress with a commitment to unplug the vacuum, we've elected self-serving politicians who have only wanted to empty the bag, and distribute the fruits of others' labor to best preserve their own power.

It is time to replace the career politicians who have corrupted our political system, and to wean ourselves from the promises of a bankrupt government. The only hope for recovery from our shared disaster is a renewed commitment to honest, transparent government that serves the American individual instead of corporate interests, and once again allows American individuals to keep the fruits of their own labor and thus do well by doing good.