The Walt Blackman Show

A Republic, If You Can Keep It.

• Walt • Season 1 • Episode 8

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SPEAKER_01:

Forged in combat, tempered in peace, unbroken by politics, unshaken by pressure. This is a man who leads when others hesitate and speaks truth when others hide. He's not here to play games, kiss rings, or win popularity contests. This is the Walt Blackman Show.

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Picture this: the year is 1787. Philadelphia's air hangs heavy with humidity and hope. Inside Independence Hall, a collection of men, some philosophers, some farmers, all audacious dreamers, argue not about party platforms or campaign donations, but about survival itself. The revolution had bought independence, but not solvency. Soldiers were unpaid, creditors were impatient, and the young republic was wobbling like a newborn cult. On the table lay parchment destined to outlive empires, the Constitution. Every ink stroke was a gamble against chaos. Madison leaned forward, Hamilton paced, and Franklin, half amused, half exhausted, whispered, A republic if you can keep it. Now, if old Ben could look at today's headlines, government shutdown imminent, he'd probably sigh, pour another glass of sherry, and ask, So you couldn't keep it funded either? That, my friends, is where our story begins. A government that has the constitutional blueprint for fiscal responsibility, yet repeatedly drives itself into the same ditch, blaming the founders for not installing guardrails. The irony is Shakespearean. Congress, endowed by Article I, Section IX, with the power of the purse, has become the political equivalent of a teenager with a credit card and no sense of interest rates. The Constitution is clear. No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law, not by executive whim, not by bureaucratic autopilot. By law, passed, debated, and signed. In other words, Congress was built to be the nation's adult supervision. Somewhere along the way, the adults left the room. Now, when the government shuts down, it doesn't really shut down, it sulks. Essential operations, national defense, social security, the lights in the Capitol keep running. What stops is everything that reminds us we're supposed to be competent. The Smithsonian closes, passports stall, small businesses wait on loans, and soldiers wonder if payday means IOUS again. In my years wearing a uniform, we called that a failure of logistics. In Congress, they call it strategic leverage. Translation: we didn't do our homework, but we're blaming the principal and demanding extra credit for our leadership skills or lack thereof. The founders gave Congress the purse because they believed financial power was moral power. Madison wrote that it was the people's weapon against tyranny. Today, it's a blunt instrument used for political hostage taking. Continuing resolutions have become the new currency of cowardice, temporary band-aids on self-inflicted wounds. It's government by procrastination. Imagine running your household like that. Honey, the mortgage is due. Relax, we'll pass a two-week continuing resolution while we negotiate the electricity bill. And yet, this dance repeats every fiscal year. The question isn't why Washington fails, it's how it manages to fail so predictably. Part of the answer lies in the slow death of the separation of powers. When Congress refuses to legislate on time, presidents step in with executive orders, reallocations, and emergency declarations. The founders called that despotism by convenience. Courts occasionally swat them down, but by then the precedent metastasizes. We've blurred the constitutional line so severely that the branches now share dysfunction like a family heirloom. You hear pundits say the Constitution is outdated. No, it's underread. I meet plenty of self-styled constitutionalists who can quote the Second Amendment with the accuracy of a sniper, but think Article I is a prequel to Article II. These are the same keyboard patriots who post memes about liberty while depending on federal subsidies to pave their driveways. God bless them. They mean well, but you can't defend a document you've never actually read. Let's talk Federalist number 58. Madison warned that the power of the purse would be the most complete and effectual weapon for the people's representatives to secure accountability. But he also warned that if factions seized control, that same weapon could become a dagger turned inward. Fast forward two centuries, Congress wields the dagger so often it's dull from overuse. Each shutdown is a ceremonial stabbing of its own credibility. What makes this tragedy comedic is that many of those causing the gridlock claim to be strict constructionists. They insist they're honoring the founders by refusing to compromise. That's like honoring George Washington by refusing to wear pants because he didn't own jeans. Compromise wasn't weakness to the founders, it was arithmetic. Without it, you don't get a constitution. You get chaos. Now, humor me for a moment of civic math. The federal budget is about$6 trillion. Roughly two-thirds is mandatory spending, Social Security, Medicare, debt interest. The remaining third, discretionary spending, is what Congress actually votes on. So when they shut down the government, they're squabbling over a slice of the pie, then flipping the entire table. It's performance art masquerading as fiscal policy. I've sat in rooms where budgets were negotiated down to the decimal point. In Arizona, we're constitutionally required to balance hours. That means every legislator, regardless of party, must eventually face the arithmetic, not the applause meter. Washington could learn something from the desert. When the water's scarce, you don't argue about who gets the bigger mirage. But let's dig deeper because beneath the politics is a moral dimension. Each paycheck missed by a federal worker, each veteran waiting on a claim, each hospital delaying equipment purchases, they're all casualties of legislative vanity. Madison called public debt a public curse. Jefferson wanted each generation to pay its own bills. Today we borrow from grandchildren we haven't met and call it stimulus. The founders feared monarchs. We've built a debt dynasty. Picture Benjamin Franklin, quill in hand, watching C-SPAN from whatever celestial pub he's currently haunting. He leans forward, squints through the centuries, and mutters, Gentlemen, we gave you a republic and not a revolving door of continuing resolutions. You can almost see him shaking his head, wondering how a nation that split the atom and mapped the genome can't seem to balance a checkbook without holding a press conference. And then, of course, there are the perennial crusaders who scream, drain the swamp, blissfully unaware that they've merely installed luxury condos on the same marshland. The bureaucracy endures every administration like a cockroach after the nuclear blast, impervious, adaptable, and somehow unionized. The real drain plug, ironically, isn't found in a campaign slogan or a cable news chiron. It's right there in Article I. Congressional oversight, fiscal restraint, and the radical concept of accountability, but enforcing it would require actually reading beyond the headlines, a hazardous and unfamiliar duty for modern politicians whose literacy seems inversely proportional to their screen time. Here's the uncomfortable truth. Congress doesn't fear the Constitution, it fears accountability. That's why the appropriations clause might as well be printed in invisible ink. Every dollar must be drawn from the treasury by law. Simple sentence. Yet we spend trillions through omnibus bills that arrive thicker than the book of Genesis and read by about as many people. That's not lawmaking. That's legislative speed dating. Meanwhile, the executive branch loves the chaos. Each failure by Congress expands presidential latitude. Emergency powers become routine powers. Madison's checks and balances start to look like bounce checks. And let's not forget the chorus of pundits who declare each shutdown a constitutional crisis. No, it's a constitutional failure. The document hasn't failed us. We've failed to meet its intellectual requirements. The Constitution expects literacy and loyalty. It assumes readers, not retweeters. Now I realize this level of civic literacy sounds elitist to those who think political science is optional. But democracy without comprehension is like chess without strategy. You're just moving pieces until someone yells checkmate and nobody knows why. Humor me again. Imagine if the founders attended a modern budget hearing. Madison would ask for ledgers, Hamilton would demand revenue projections, Franklin would tweet sarcasm from the gallery. Then someone would bring up polling data and Franklin would whisper, gentlemen, the lightning rod still works. What we face today isn't merely a budget impasse, it's a philosophical one. The Constitution was written for a citizenry that valued reason over rage. Now outrage is currency and ignorance is brand identity. We celebrate those who speak their mind even when their minds need subtitles. The real patriots, the ones who read, think, question, rarely trend online. They're too busy holding the line between fact and fiction. And so when the next shutdown looms and pundits bicker over blame, remember this. The founders didn't design a system that runs on autopilot. They designed one that runs on duty. Congress doesn't need another continuing resolution. It needs a continuing education. When I raised my hand to uphold the Constitution, I didn't swear to a party or a platform. I swore to a principle that power must serve the people, not itself. I've seen what happens when command fails in battle, people die. When command fails in Congress, the Republic bleeds. Different field, same consequence. If Franklin were here, I'd ask him, Ben, how do we keep the republic in the 21st century? And before I could finish, he'd already be smirking that mischievous grin, and the kind that says, you people really screwed this up, didn't you? He'd take one look at Congress, one look at Twitter, and one long swig of whatever passed for 18th century bourbon and say, start by reading the instructions. Reading the instructions? These people can't even find the table of contents. They think Article One is a Netflix password. Franklin would nod, utterly unbothered, dip his quill, and mutter, gentlemen, we gave you a republic, not a reality show. And somewhere in the corner, Madison would be Googling how to file for intellectual asylum. Because let's face it, our founding generation wrote a blueprint, and our current one treats it like IKEA furniture, missing half the screws, skipping all the steps, and blaming the Swedish when it collapses. So read them, demand your leaders read them, because every shutdown is not just a budget failure, it's a civics failure. And the Constitution, unlike Congress, doesn't take a recess. A republic, if you can fund it. A simple clause, a conditional phrase, one that would make any grammarian proud and any modern politician uncomfortable. Because a republic is not a self-licking ice cream cone. It doesn't sustain itself by slogans or social media algorithms. It requires intellect, stewardship, and, yes, math. Three elements are tragically short in supply on Capitol Hill. Let's be honest, Congress doesn't lack intelligence. It lacks intellectual honesty. Members can quote TikTok trends faster than they can recall Article I, Section 8, the part that literally lists what Congress is supposed to spend money on. And if you ever doubt how far we've strayed, remember that the founders debated tariffs and tonnage duties with more seriousness than today's lawmakers debate trillion-dollar deficits. Jefferson and Hamilton may have been adversaries, but at least they argued in sentences that required complete thoughts. Modern fiscal debates are more like interpretive dance routines. Plenty of motion, no discernible meaning. But let's zoom out. The shutdown at its core is not a budget issue, it's a civic morality issue, because money in government is not just currency, it's covenant. When the government collects a dollar from the people, it takes a moral oath to use that dollar for the common good, not for political theater. Every continuing resolution is an IOU stapled to the Constitution, signed not with ink but with excuses. Now, humor is a constitutional right too, so let's use it. Picture this James Madison, the father of the Constitution, the guy who literally wrote the instruction manual, walks into a modern congressional appropriations hearing. He adjusts his powdered wig, takes a dignified seat, and says, Gentlemen, how many appropriations bills have you passed this year? The chairman clears his throat and proudly announces, none, but we did rename a post office and held six hearings about each other's tweets. Madison blinks once, twice, looks around, and in that calm Virginian voice says, This is why we can't have nice republics. Then he stands up, reaches for a musket that no one remembers authorizing, and mutters, I'm drafting an amendment for common sense. Franklin's ghost would be in the gallery, sipping whiskey and whispering, Told you so. Jefferson would be scribbling, dear God, make them read on parchment, and Washington would have quietly excused himself to go fight the British again, because apparently that was easier. Meanwhile, Washington's head would still be spinning somewhere over the Capitol dome, yelling, appropriations, you're supposed to appropriate, not appropriate time for selfies. And Madison, he'd just look down from the heavens, check his notes, and sigh, a republic, if you can keep it, and apparently, if you can spell it. You see, Madison understood something timeless. Governance requires discipline. He wrote in Federalist 51 that ambition must be made to counteract ambition. What he didn't anticipate was that ambition would eventually be replaced by attention seeking. Congress doesn't counteract the executive anymore, it competes with influencers. The C-SPAN floor has become open mic night for outrage, and the Constitution has become background decor. Now, when I say that, I can already hear the chorus online. He's attacking patriots. No, I'm describing amateurs who cosplay as patriots. Real patriotism is constitutional literacy married to moral courage. What we often see today are keyboard crusaders who declare the government illegitimate every time they misunderstand a clause. The irony is they scream about tyranny while depending on government checks they condemn in the same breath. That's not tyranny, that's therapy by contradiction. A republic cannot survive on vibes and hashtags. It survives on knowledge. The founders were not influencers, they were architects. They built a structure so intricate that even its flaws teach lessons. Take the budget process. It was designed not for efficiency, but for accountability. That's why it's difficult. That's why it requires negotiation, compromise, and transparency. When Congress bypasses that process through omnibus bills thicker than law textbooks, it's not being efficient, it's being evasive. And let's talk about that word, omnibus. It's Latin for everything, which in congressional translation means everything we didn't have the courage to debate individually. It's fiscal cowardice hidden behind a foreign language. Madison would have laughed and then written a federalist paper titled On the Tragic Comedy of Irresponsibility. The Constitution, for all its brevity, contains profound financial wisdom. Article 1, Section 8, enumerates the powers of Congress to tax, to borrow, to regulate commerce, to pay debts. Notice what's missing: the power to spend without conscience. The founders gave us checks and balances not only between branches but within ourselves. The act of deliberation was designed to humble ambition, not reward it. Yet somehow, modern legislators have turned humility into a political liability. The more performative the indignation, the higher the fundraising totals. Now you can't talk about the power of the purse without addressing its modern misuse. Continuing resolutions, debt ceilings, and the political hostage rituals we call negotiations. The debt ceiling debate is the political equivalent of arguing over who gets to set the kitchen on fire first. We raise the ceiling, congratulate ourselves, and never ask why the floor keeps collapsing. Budget discipline in this town, these people couldn't balance a seesaw, let alone a ledger. And the funniest part? The same lawmakers who scream about runaway spending every time a Democrat's in the White House are the same ones who hand out tax cuts and subsidies during a Republican one like Oprah giving away cars. You get a loophole, you get a loophole, everybody gets a loophole. Fiscal virtue in Washington has the lifespan of a fruit fly, and not even a healthy one. We're talking the kind of fruit fly that's been living off spilled Red Bull in a congressional break room since 2002. They lecture the public about tightening belts while voting themselves bigger ones. They rail against deficits with the same passion they reserve for photo ops, then vanish faster than accountability after an ethics report. If hypocrisy were renewable energy, we'd have solved the energy crisis decades ago. You could hook the Capitol Dome up to a turbine of self-contradiction and power half the country by lunch. You can't yell about spending when you're the one buying votes with a credit card. At which point, Ben Franklin would lean over from the afterlife, raise a glass, and say, he's not wrong. We invented lightning, but apparently not accountability. But this isn't new. The founders predicted it. In Federalist 10, Madison warned that factions driven by passion rather than reason would tear at the fabric of the republic. He didn't foresee Twitter, but he might as well have. Today's factions aren't defined by ideology, they're defined by algorithms. People no longer think, they echo. And echo chambers, unlike deliberative chambers, don't produce budgets. Let me draw a parallel from the battlefield. In combat, discipline saves lives. You follow orders not because you agree with every word, but because cohesion matters more than ego. Congress could learn something from that. The Constitution is the chain of command. Its text is not a suggestion. When legislators abandon that discipline, they create chaos, not courage. And chaos like debt compounds interest. Sometimes I wonder what a congressional oath sounds like today. I do solemnly swear to uphold the Constitution, unless it's inconvenient, in which case I'll post about it. Oaths without comprehension are just noise. The founders didn't give us freedom to be foolish. They gave us freedom to be responsible. Now let's address the ultimate irony. The people least qualified to interpret the Constitution are often the loudest about defending it. I've seen social media threads where someone cites the constitutional right to drive without a license, or the First Amendment right to not pay taxes. My favorite was a post claiming the founders wanted no federal budget at all. If ignorance were taxable, we could balance the deficit by Tuesday. Humor aside, this ignorance is dangerous because it fuels apathy. When citizens disengage or substitute outrage for understanding, the system deteriorates. A republic demands educated participation. Jefferson wrote, if a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be. He didn't tweet that, but it should be trending daily. Government shutdowns are not constitutional crises, they are constitutional betrayals. Every missed deadline, every delayed appropriations bill is a dereliction of duty. Congress was designed to guard the treasury, not loot public patience. The power of the purse is the heartbeat of self-governance. When that heart stops, the republic goes into civic arrest. So what's the cure? Education, integrity, and consequence. The Constitution doesn't need revision. It needs readers. Congress doesn't need new slogans. It needs courage. And citizens don't need more outrage. They need literacy, because patriotism without comprehension is just noise wrapped in a flag. In Arizona, we balance our budgets because we must. It's law, not choice. We debate, we argue, we compromise, and then we get it done. Washington has forgotten that formula. Accountability isn't an enemy. It's the guardian of freedom. Fiscal restraint isn't austerity, it's morality. Let's end where we began, with Franklin's rye prophecy. When asked what form of government they'd created, he replied, a republic if you can keep it. He didn't say a party or a platform or a perpetual campaign. He said republic. That word means shared responsibility, and keeping it means funding it, not just financially, but intellectually, through understanding, vigilance, and respect for the very text that made us possible. So the next time someone waves a pocket constitution while shouting about tyranny, ask them gently, have you read Article I, Section 9? Because if they haven't, they're not defending the Republic. They're decorating it. And if the founders could see us now, maybe they'd gather again, not in Philadelphia, but in the halls of Congress. Madison wrote that ambition must be made to counteract ambition. What he didn't foresee was ambition replacing ambition. Members competing not to legislate better, but to perform louder. The C-SPAN floor has become open mic night for outrage, and the Constitution is the background decor. And yet, despite all this, the framework still works. That's the miracle. The system is resilient. The parchment holds. What's failing isn't the Constitution. It's Congress's willingness to operate within it. Let's test that for a moment. Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7. No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law. If Congress passes another continuing resolution without debating appropriations line by line, is that consequence of law or consequence of laziness? If you're a member of Congress listening right now, here's your reality check. Article one doesn't give you an escape clause. The appropriations clause isn't optional. You can't Instagram your oath. You can't tweet your way through duty. When I raised my hand and swore to uphold the Constitution, I didn't swear to a party, a personality, or a platform. I swore to a principle that power must serve the people, not itself. In uniform, when command fails, people die. In Congress, when command fails, the republic bleeds. Different battlefields, same consequence. And yet hope isn't lost because the Constitution, like the Republic it built, was designed to survive mediocrity. It can outlast incompetence. What it can't outlast is apathy. Franklin warned, a republic, if you can keep it. Keeping it doesn't mean shouting louder or fundraising faster. It means reading the text, respecting the limits, and remembering why Article I exists in the first place. If you're listening to this and you've never read the Constitution cover to cover, start tonight, it's 4,543 words. That's shorter than most political speeches and infinitely more honest. Because here's the truth a republic doesn't die from outside attack, it decays from internal neglect. So do the men and women in Congress stop performing and start legislating, pass the 12 appropriations bills, respect the origination clause, obey the appropriations clause, publish the receipts and expenditures from time to time as the Constitution commands. You don't need another continuing resolution, you need continuing education to the citizens. Demand better. Don't settle for slogans. Don't confuse volume with virtue. The founders didn't bleed for partisanship. They bled for principle. The Constitution doesn't need defenders who shout. It needs readers who understand. Because at the end of the day, the Republic isn't maintained by politicians, it's maintained by the people, the informed, engaged, disciplined people who refuse to outsource their responsibility to the loudest voice in the room. And if Congress won't do its job, then it's up to us to remind them firmly, factually, and constitutionally, that power in this republic flows upward from the governed, not downward from the grandstanding. So, yes, Madison's warning still stands, Franklin's prophecy still echoes, Jefferson's conscience still speaks, and Article I still reigns if we choose to enforce it, because the Constitution isn't failing us, we're failing to live up to it. But failure in a free nation is never final unless we stop learning it. So let's learn. Let's read, let's keep the republic, and this time, let's fund it. Before I close out today's episode, let me tell you where you can find the Walt Blackman Show. You can listen to me on every major podcast platform: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, YouTube, Podcast Addict, and Player FM. Or if you want to go straight to the source, visit my main channel at the Walt Blackman Show.buzzsprout.com. That's where you'll find all my latest episodes, archives, and updates on what's coming next. Follow the show, hit that subscribe button, and share it with your friends, family, and anyone who still believes that facts, faith, and the Constitution matter. Leave a review, let me know what you think, and help me keep building a platform where truth isn't filtered, freedom isn't optional, and courage still has a voice. I'm Walt Blackman, and this is the Walt Blackman Show. Until next time, keep the faith, keep your integrity, and keep the republic.

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Disclosure. This program was produced with the assistance of technology authorized under the Americans with Disabilities Act 42 USC Section 12101, supporting combat veterans with service-connected injuries. Walt Blackman sustained a traumatic brain injury from an improvised explosive device while serving in combat. The use of adaptive technology enables him to continue his mission with clarity, duty, and honor. His message remains grounded in integrity, service, and his oath to the Constitution of the United States.

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