When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it. --Frederic Bastiat

Last week the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its national "under-employment" (or U-6) rate for October: it was 17.5%, a big jump from 17% in September and a major leap from the 10.6% figure of September 2008.

Unemployment keeps climbing, even though President and Congress spent more than $787 billion dollars in taxpayer funds for a stimulus package.

Since that time, neither the President nor Congress have spent an iota of effort analyzing the impact of the stimulus program.

And they've not taken a moment to consider alternatives that might help alleviate the economic pain felt by so many Americans.

The President and Congress continue to ignore the economy while they pursue their ideological agenda of truly massive government.

Anyone who has lost a job, can't find a job, is nervous about losing their job, or simply lives in an area decimated by job loss should be livid over a President and Congress that spend all of their time plotting a takeover of health care.

Even though the economy is the top concern for almost every American, the oligarchy in Washington is fixated on nationalizing health care and exacting carbon taxes on every sector of the economy.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) broke committee rules and slammed an energy-rationing bill through the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee last week without a single Republican present.

The bill would curtail America's ability to exploit its own natural resources to harvest energy and boost economic activity. Thus, despite the economic crisis, the government is turning its back on $1.7 trillion in tax revenue and tens of thousands of real jobs (i.e., non-government payroll).

Democrats are only concerned with their big-government agenda -- nationalizing the health care industry, carbon taxes and amnesty for illegal aliens -- and not worried a bit about American jobs. Each of their programs raises taxes and fees on job creators, which further harms the economy.

Both the health care and cap-and-trade bills translate to huge tax hikes for most Americans.

Frighteningly, even the 17.5% under-employment figure understates things. During the Clinton administration, the BLS began removing those 'too discouraged' to look for a job for more than a year. John Williams of Shadow Government Stats thinks the true unemployment rate would be 22.1 percent if everyone were included.

Meanwhile, Congress fiddles while the economy burns. As I said more than six months ago, this willful abandonment of Americans in economic distress is intentional.

As Rahm Emanuel told the New York Times after the 2008 election, "Rule 1 -- never allow a crisis to go to waste."

The President and Congress simply ignore high unemployment while plotting their next moves to bankrupt the country. They are violating the Constitution. They meet and maneuver and vote -- not in the tradition of this nation -- but of totalitarian regimes.

They vote late Saturday night, when the public isn't watching. Meeting behind closed doors -- one party and one party only. Changing the locks on the committee room doors to exclude the opposition party and prevent debate. Everything is done in secret until they drop a massive, 2,000-page bill on an unsuspecting public.

And that doesn't even include the regulations to implement the bill, which will be ten times longer! And it affects your life, your livelihood, your family. And you -- don't -- have -- access to it, or them.

Only the oligarchs, who laugh off high unemployment, get a say in how you will live. And they don't give a damn about anything but accruing more power and growing the size of government.