Tag Archives | Enumerated Powers

Many and Vague

By on July 8, 2010 in Constitution, Delegated Powers

Here’s a letter to USA Today by Don Boudreaux:

Sandra Day O’Connor and George Nethercutt are correct that too many Americans lack sufficient understanding and appreciation of U.S. history and of the meaning of this nation’s founding documents (“Celebrate America by learning about her,” July 3).  In no group of Americans does this ignorance run more deeply and malignantly than it does for those in Congress and in the White House.

Aimed at ensuring that there would be no misunderstanding, the Tenth amendment makes clear what James Madison wrote in Federalist #45 about the U.S. Constitution: “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government, are few and defined.”  Those few powers are enumerated and defined in Article I, Section 8.  Read the 429 words of this part of the Constitution and you’ll find no authority there (or anywhere else in the Constitution) for Uncle Sam to enforce minimum wages; to command Americans to purchase health insurance; to dictate the hiring practices of private firms; to operate a universal ‘pension’ program; to oversee or fund education; to subsidize farmers – indeed, no authority to do so much of what Washington does today as a matter of routine.

Yet every elected official in America swears an oath to uphold the Constitution.  Clearly, these oaths are muttered insincerely or in inexcusable ignorance (or both).

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux

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DC is Busy

By on May 19, 2010 in Big Government, Delegated Powers

But not on anything you would expect from a government adhering to the Constitution. Healthcare, financial markets, petroleum exploration and extraction, economic activity, immigration, national ID cards, cap and trade, smoking, transfats & salt, CAFE; gun control, taxes, price controls on labor, electricity, and banking. The list goes on.

No matter how well intentioned, there are two things to point out about this. The first is that none of it fits in the 17 enumerated powers of Congress. The second is that even if it were, there is no way that body of men and women could ever hope to efficiently run all those areas of our lives. The breadth of control required dooms it from the start. They could not possible know everything to know about the extremely large, complex, and fast moving America we live in today. Every attempt to do so only gives us a legacy of bloated bureaucracies that are expensive to maintain, and expensive for us to comply with and respond to.

Don’t expect an overnight change. Things are this way because of elected officials that we elected. The power to inhibit liberty has reached a critical mass, and the only way to turn the tide is to move the power somewhere else, and disperse it.

That’s where the 10th amendment comes in. In language as clear today as it was in the 18th century, the 10th amendment ensures that states are under no obligation to bend to the whim of the central government. When states across the nation begin to push back, as we are now seeing with the Health Care law with nullification, power is naturally devolved away from where it has pooled. No one group or individual can have a lot of power when every group has some.

What’s the action plan? Talk to STATE elected officials, watch their voting record, ask them of their plans for nullification of federal laws. Hold them to their word, and remember. Remember what they said and what they did when they come up for reelection. Find the candidate who most closely matches your values, not the political party that most closely (or least distant) matches them.

This will put them on edge. When they feel safe in their official capacity, they vote with their party or their ego. When they feel the heat from back home, and have a healthy fear for their job their priorities will be our priorities.

Our priority must be liberty. Without it, there can be nothing else.

cross-posted from the South Carolina Tenth Amendment Center

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An Open Letter To The Oregon Legislature

By on April 26, 2010 in Constitution, State Sovereignty

I have been blogging on this website for several months now, and it appears most of the legislature of the great state of Oregon simply ignores their duty to police the Federal Government’s enumerated powers and ensure they do not grow beyond their authorized scope (as set forth in the U.S. Constitution). Unlimited government is an absolute tyranny- and maybe not today or tomorrow, but someday in the future it will become so.
If the Federal Government is not willing to live within their enumerated powers on health care, what makes anyone think that they will respect the limits on unreasonable search and seizure? Oh wait- the war on drugs already illegally eliminated that right! How about the freedom of religion? Oh yeah, Obamacare and a host of other federal programs already give preferential treatment to different religions! Equal protection under the law? Surely they would not dare treat citizens differently in the eyes of the law, right? Recently, the President’s authority to assassinate citizens was in the news. Once the Federal Government (for conveniences sake) ignores the law it becomes a small step to go one further, and slowly we arrive where we are today. The Founders predicted this when they set up the government as a federation instead of a national authority. The states (which have general governmental authority) were given the tools to check the Federal Government by nullifying laws which exceeded the enumerated powers granted to the Federal Government. This makes the state governments the “enforcement authority” of the Constitution.

For too long the states have slept while the Federal Government played fast and loose with the law, to such a point where the state governments are no longer possessing of the necessary courage to limit the Federal Government, nor the will. As the Federal Government ratchets up the taxes and regulations on the private sector, they give block grants to the states (hush money)- this in turn shields state legislators from having to make unpopular (but responsible) decisions. The argument is bandied around that the state government simply doesn’t have the resources to do all that is needed so the block grants are necessary, but this argument falls flat on its face when one considers where this money comes from (the very citizens that would be funding the state government). So I will write a letter to the state legislature, and make my case directly to them.

It is my sincere hope that other Oregonians will follow suit and contact their legislators to push for nullification, and that the state of Oregon will resume it’s role (with the other states) as the policeman of the republic. Here is the letter I’ve written, thank you in advance for taking the time to read this:

CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST

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A Living Document Discussion

By on April 10, 2010 in Constitution, Delegated Powers

a very level headed argument on why the actual powers listed in the constitution are all the federal government actually has.

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Unconstitutional on its Face

By on April 2, 2010 in Delegated Powers, Health Care

Considering all of the legal ambiguity over national healthcare, not only is such a legal challenge necessary, it was fully expected by even Congress’s most ardent supporters of national healthcare because they knew they were wading into unchartered constitutional waters from the moment they pressed the yes button. Congress may be able to tax and spend, but never before has the federal government been able to mandate that you, U.S. citizen, have to purchase a particular private good or service just because the federal government says so.

The provision is on its face unconstitutional, and it will take significant legal obfuscation to show otherwise because the simple fact is that nowhere in the Constitution is the federal Congress given such power, and the 9th and 10th Amendments clarify that the federal government may exercise only those powers granted to it by the states and the people. This is partly why car insurance laws come from the states and not the federal government, and why similar healthcare programs in Massachusetts did not violate federal law. The United States is not a “cookie-cutter country”, and it is ironic that some have criticized Cox’s lawsuit for blunting the potential number of “pilot projects” the federal government intends to test in the states when it is the federal government’s very own one size fits all approach that has trampled on those very efforts. The best way for the federal government to recognize that we do not live in a homogenous country (that is showing signs of stress under efforts to harmonize laws that lay outside of Congressional power) is to follow the tenets of federalism and let states operate in these areas on their own.

Some would advocate that in the interests of the ‘general welfare’ or ‘commerce’ that the Constitution can be interpreted as allowing this individual mandate. This is erroneous, as the general welfare clause is actually a limiting statement that does not give Congress any additional powers. And if the commerce clause can be interpreted so broadly as to allow Congress to mandate the purchase of health insurance against your will, it could also be used to mandate that you buy life insurance, a computer, or a burial plot. Such rationalization would lead to justification for the mandatory purchase of virtually anything. Congress may be able to regulate economic activity that occurs across state lines, but it cannot mandate that people must participate in such transactions.

The Supremacy Clause has also been cited as a reason to justify an individual mandate, but also misses the point. While a state cannot overturn a federal law that is clearly constitutional, this clause in no way means that any law passed by Congress is somehow automatically deemed constitutional and above reproach to the point it can not be challenged. If that was the case no federal law could ever be overturned, with such defacto thinking harkening back to Richard Nixon asserting that anything the President of the United States does is legal simply because it is the President who is doing it. We have checks and balances for a reason.

There are many valid policy issues that surround the national health care debate, but as Cox’s lawsuit shows, the U.S. Constitution is not merely an inconvenient document that can be pushed aside when it doesn’t mesh with one’s particular legislative agenda. In the case of national healthcare that relies on the unprecedented use of individual mandates, such court cases will be needed to avoid ambiguity over the legality of the governmental fines and punishments that will be imposed on those who refuse to buy health insurance. We will now see if the courts will have the courage to hear such a case, as no doubt there will be many interests waiting in the wings to see what other private goods and services the federal government can make you buy.

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The Powers Not Delegated

By on April 2, 2010 in Delegated Powers, Nullification
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Tenth Amendment vs Healthcare

By on March 15, 2010 in Constitution, Delegated Powers

While attending a recent “Town Hall” meeting with my congressional representative I was offered the opportunity to ask the following question: Where in the Constitution does it authorize the federal government to regulate HEALTHCARE? The answer that I received, which is also the correct one…IT DOES NOT.

Perhaps if people nationwide would ask their respective congressional representatives this same question it would eliminate any future discussion. And for those that disagree the next step is for their constituents to join the new IRS as in INCUMBENT REPLACEMENT SYSTEM, and refuse to vote for anyone that does not honor their oath to serve and protect the Constitution.

Quite simple! You either honor it or We the People vote you out!

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Selective Reading Of The Constitution

By on March 3, 2010 in Constitution, Delegated Powers

One favored method of dismissing the sovereignty of state governments is to quote the Supremacy Clause, saying that since the Constitution is the supreme law of the land that state laws are necessarily subordinate to federal law. The only problem with this reading is that they fail to read the entire Supremacy Clause.

To remedy this I will paste the Supremacy Clause into this post here. “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.“

According to my reading of this clause, only the laws which are made in pursuance of the Constitution are supreme, therefore, unconstitutional laws (which nullification laws are enacted to repeal) are not supreme- and in my view are illegal to pass at all.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE

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Scott Brown’s Scorecard: 0 for 1.

By on February 23, 2010 in Constitution, Delegated Powers

Off to an unconstitutional start. Not surprising, but I wonder how commonplace this is going to be for the new “maverick” in the Senate.

A modest job-creation bill advanced in the U.S. Senate on Monday as the chamber’s newest Republican bucked his party and sided with Democrats on a $15 billion package of tax cuts and highway spending.

Republican Scott Brown joined four other Republicans, 55 Democrats and two independents to overcome a procedural hurdle that sets up a final vote later this week.

The question is this – Mr Brown, where in the Constitution does the federal government get the authority to legislate “job creation” – even modestly?

Hint. It doesn’t.

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An Open Letter To Nancy Pelosi

By on February 5, 2010 in Constitution, Delegated Powers

Representative Pelosi,

I heard you on the news laugh at a reporter when he asked the question “Where in the constitution does the congress have the authority to control healthcare in America.” So I thought I should ask you: “What are the powers granted under the Constitution as you read it?” Better yet, (because I don’t have all day) maybe it would be easier for you to list the powers that are not given to the Congress under the U.S. Constitution? The way I read it there are only a few specific powers given to the Federal Government by the Constitution

Your policies, and the policies of congresses, administrations, and supreme courts of the last 80 years are an affront to the existence of freedom and liberty in America. The lawful exercise of authority vested in you is no laughing matter and I expect you to treat it with the utmost of seriousness. Exceeding that authority is unlawful, not that that seems to bother you. So Nancy, what are the things in your opinion that are out of the reach of your legislative authority?

CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE

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