You seem to be suggesting (correct me if I’m wrong), a new amendment for every new government power or program. That’s not the way things work. Amending the Constitution should NOT be something done willy-nilly.
My argument is that we can’t always say, “Well, the Framers wanted this, this and this, so that’s why we can’t do that!!!” It doesn’t work that way.
And writing new federal laws which fall outside the scope of the constitution and creating entirely new federal institutions with the force of law behind them should not be something done willy-nilly either. The amendment process is hard specifically because we should be very certain of what we’re doing when we grant government new powers.
Obviously the Constitution describes how the government is set up, and it and the Bill of Rights establish limitations on Federal power.
But Article I, Section 8 contains the ‘necessary and proper’ clause:
This gives Congress implied powers that are not enumerated in the Constitution. For example, the Constitution says nothing about the U.S. Air Force. Is the USAF unconstitutional? Such things as the Department of Transportation are necessary and proper for the smooth running of the country. Should those departments be considered unconstitutional? It is my position, and the position of others, that a healthy, educated populace is necessary to the well-being of the United States. Therefore, the Department of Education and access to medical care by all citizens is ‘necessary and proper’.
Which demonstrates my point - you can come up with justifications that anything is “for the general welfare” and “necesary and proper” and hence render the rest of the constitution invalid. You’re ignoring the main point of Article 1, section 8 to cherry pick a few words out of context which you think grants the federal government unlimited authority.
So maybe we should repeal Article I? Maybe hold a Constitutional Convention?
‘Necessary and proper’ is not ‘cherry picked’. It stands alongside all of the other clauses. You’re ignoring a clause of the Constitution because you don’t agree with it. This is why we have representatives; so that they can decide what is ‘necessary and proper’. You may not like it, but that’s the way it was set up.
No, you’re missing the whole point. It says that laws can be made so that the necesary and proper use of the powers given below (the enumerated powers) can be done.
You want it to say “Congress can do anything it deems necesary and proper”, but what it says as “Congress can make laws under the following powers”
Edit: You’re ignoring the “for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution” part.
The view I take is this: the Constitution vaguely sets up the Supreme Court as its ultimate arbiter, and early court cases cemented this view. Given that the other branches went along with this trend, there’s no relevant entity out there denying that the Supreme Court is the ultimate arbiter of the Constitution.
So if you want to know what’s constitutional, look to what the Supreme Court says. There’s no other reasonable arbiter. Crafter Man is not the reasonable arbiter. I am not the reasonable arbiter. Jesus Son of God is not the reasonable arbiter, not unless the Senate approves his nomination to the bench.
And the Supreme Court says all these federal agencies are constitutional; therefore they are. You might think they’re unwise, you might think they violate the intent of the framers, you might think that Satan is laughing ominously as he watches our great country slide toward his gaping maw (haw!haw!haw!), but they’re constitutional, according to the only reasonable arbiter of such.
FWIW, the framers wrote the constitution for a primarily agrarian society, but even then they made arrangements (like the standing army) that protected the emerging merchant class of the day. They weren’t timeless gurus of gummint, they were very much men of their times, and they wrote the constitution to solve the problems they were facing then. I strongly doubt that if they lived in our information and transportation-rich society, they’d write the constitution identically. Their genius came in creating means such as amendments and SC court cases by which the constitution could remain relevant as the society it governed changed.
The necessary and proper clause has been interpreted broadly for 200 years. Link.
Yes, I know. Government decided that the constitution was nearly meaningless and it can grant any power to itself that it wants. This isn’t surprising, because this is what governments do. We didn’t do our part to prevent it, and so we end up in our current situation - where the federal government controls our lives in ways that would be repugnant to those who wrote the constitution and no real check on their power. They will continue to grow in size, power, and scope indefinitely.
This does not mean that this is in line with the intent of the constitution. What they do now is in spite of it, not in accordance with it.
What part of “Article One of the United States Constitution” do you not understand??? They ARE using the guidelines written in the Constitution, dumbass.
The large majority of federal laws, institutions, and spending cannot be found under a specifically enumerated power in the constitution. Since the intent of the constitution is to limit the scope of federal power of the federal constitution (this is emphasized and reiterated in the 10th amendment), they are not following article one.
I mean - when was the last time a law came up for debate and anyone even brought up the idea “actually, this exceeds federal power under article 1 section 8?” - that person would be laughed at. We’re so past the point of actually obeying the constitution that it’s comical.
Sure, we still pick bits and pieces of the constitution that are popular like “that law violates the first amendment” or the way we elect people, but the vast majority of the constitution is ignored by both the populace and the legislatures.
Obviously the government can’t, and hasn’t, granted every power it wants to itself thanks to the Supreme Court - unless you consider them part of the conspiracy. The Framers set them up with lifetime appointments so they would be independent.
Do you really think that an Amendment legalizing Social Security couldn’t be passed today if it were found to be unconstitutional? After all, an amendment legalizing the income tax was. Fortunately the Framers wrote the Constitution broadly enough to not require a lot of amendments. Would you prefer the case of the state constitutions, many of which are filled with hundreds or thousands of mutually contradictory amendments.
The Constitution clearly was intended to initiate a far more powerful central government than existed under the Articles of Confederation, which didn’t work. Given this change the Founders were politically limited to going slowly. That’s one reason why you can’t claim the Founders would be aghast at the current situation. The second, as already mentioned, was that their intent was to deal with a mostly agrarian isolated and not very powerful nation. Unless you have a medium stashed away somewhere, you have no justification in claiming you’d know the opinion of the Framers on current issues.
They might be Socialists for all we know.
I’ll be happy to listen to what you think about a song, or a movie, or even a law. Given that you appear to have no justification for this opinion besides not liking a strong central government, and have given no reasons to go against two centuries of Supreme Court opinions, you opinion isn’t worth shit.
Now please call us socialists so we can use you as an example for the OP.
Oh boy. This is gonna get interesting.
You’re trying to dismiss me by implying I’m asserting a conspiracy. I am not. It’s the nature of government to grow.
As the supreme court is part of the government, it does not make sense to say “the government hasn’t granted every power to itself - the supreme court did!”
I will note that the power of judicial review was essentially given to the supreme court by… the supreme court. They decided they had the power to do this. Not a prime example for your case.
Probably, since so many people depend on it now it’s politically infeasable to be rid of it. But would we have been stuck with the system if a constitutional amendment was needed back when it was created to grant the federal government the powers required to run it?
I’m not well versed in the variety of requirements for amendment for state constitutions. I would absolutely like to see the federal constitution have more amendments if it also meant that the constitutionality of a law was a serious consideration in writing and voting for it.
And it’s orders of magnitude more powerful than it was intended at the time. You can’t say “the constitution was written to give the government more power in the first place, therefore it can be used to justify any level of power we want”.
Their writings make their intents clear. I can’t speak authoritatively, but their primary goal to me seems to be the acknowledgement that the nature of government is that of a necesary evil. It only works in one direction - it gets more powerful and more controlling over a populace until such a point that it’s overthrown. Hence, their attempt to solve this problem was to have a central government that was extremely limited in its powers, with greater leeway allowed to state and local governments.
Since then, we’ve decided to throw aside the constitution when evaluating new laws, agencies, powers, etc. except when it rubs up against some pet part of the constitution that we still do like (first, second, or fourth amendments for example). It seems logical to extrapolate that they wouldn’t approve of us essentially ignoring it while growing our government massively. This is what they were concerned about, and what they were trying to prevent by writing the constitution in the first place.
We’ll stop saying “SOCIALISM!!!11!!! Oh No!” when the idiots stop referring to everything they disagree with as socialism.
I wouldn’t hold your breath.