The fundamental issue that divides “conservatives” from “liberals” in the United States is size of the federal government. The pure conservative believes that it should be the size of an apple, and the pure liberal believes it should be the size of the moon.
Section 8 of our Constitution lists the powers of Congress. The full list is here, and it is abbreviated below:
- Collect taxes
- Borrow money
- Regulate international commerce
- Manage naturalization
- Coin money
- Punish counterfeiting
- Establish post offices and post roads
- Protect products of scientists and artists
- Establish courts inferior to the Supreme Court
- Enforce law on the high seas
- Declare and manage war
- Raise and support armies
- Provide and maintain a navy
- Make rules for governing armed forces
- Call forth the militia to protect the nation
- Organize and manage a militia
- Pass special legislation for government owned property
- Make laws as necessary to accomplish the above
To avoid confusion about this issue, the 10th Amendment to the constitution was ratified December 15, 1791: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
I think of only one area in which federal intrusion in business of the states has been reasonable, helpful, justified, and successful without being specifically allowed in the Constitution, and that is infrastructure, highways, bridges, and national parks. At least such infrastructure can be considered a logical expansion of number seven above, establishment of post offices and post roads.
So, given those clear limits on the powers of the Federal Government, how has it managed to delve deeply and expensively into these five areas:
- Education
- Healthcare
- Environment
- Personal finances
- Personal opinions
The simple answer is that the Federal Government has, through bribery with borrowed money, generous funding with powerful strings attached, gained control over many things that should have been left to the states or to the people. If only that unethical method of power expansion had been specifically forbidden by the constitution.
