[The Non-Euclidean Blog] Enumerating Powers

[NEB]

Here's a funky-looking tool that won't ever get used. Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, on behalf of himself and 17 Republican co-sponsors, had a few things to say yesterday about his newly-introduced bill S. 1319, the "Enumerated Powers Act":

We are on a course to double the debt in 4 1/2 years. We are on a course to triple the debt over the next 10 years. Think of what that means for our children and our grandchildren. That is not President Obama's fault. I am probably one of the few Republicans who will say that. It is Congress's fault, because Presidents don't get to spend money we don't let them spend. We are the ones who offer the spending bills.

How did we get here? How did we get to the point where we are borrowing money that we don't have against our children's future to spend on things we don't need? It is simple. We have forgotten what the Constitution says. We have ignored the Constitution at almost every turn....

The whole purpose behind this bill is to say when you write a bill ... you have to know in that bill where you get the authority in the Constitution to spend this money or to authorize this program.

According to S. 1319, each bill introduced in Congress would have to "contain a concise explanation of the specific constitutional authority relied upon for the enactment of each portion of that Act." So, for example, you wouldn't see assimilation of private industry by the feds unless the authorizing legislation could demonstrate that the Constitution is, in fact, a Borg cube.

I like the sentiment behind S. 1319. It's true that the most important and controversial bills from both sides of the aisle would get mired in arguments over their constitutionality, but that's one of the bill's explicit goals. Continual debate over whether or not government is even allowed to do such-and-such would enhance public awareness that, guess what, the Constitution matters. Our founding document is supposed to frustrate government's natural passion for expansion. This far, says the Constitution, and no farther.

Naturally, this bill won't even get to a floor debate. (H.R. 450, which is nearly identical, has been dying in House committee since January.) No majority party--Republican or Democrat--would ever let this get to a vote, since whoever's steering the ship doesn't want a pesky subaltern demanding section and paragraph for every command from the bridge. That's doubly true when the captain is determined to steer us into an entirely new ocean, and the devil take the consequences.

Despite its total inability to become law, S. 1319's existence is important in that it unequivocally demonstrates that Washington is unchecked and unbalanced. The first line of constitutional defense is Congress itself. When legislators fall prey to corruption, ideology, or parochialism, the next line of defense is the presidential veto. If the president signs unconstitutional legislation, the courts should be waiting with scary, unelected, appointed-for-life clubs to beat such legislation into a bloody pulp.

So when every fifth or sixth Senator is saying, "Hey, we need to regulate ourselves because no one else will," it's evident that every line of defense has been breached. The federal government has become the civic version of the Big Bang, expanding and accelerating at a frightening pace now that it's slipped the surly bonds of the Constitution.

The trouble is, a measly 18 senators aren't going to bring about the Big Crunch. That'll require a lot more lawmakers who want to relimit federal power, which will require that Americans start voting for candidates who want to shrink government, which will require that we quit expecting our politicians to save us. We've grown pathetically accustomed to a federal safety net, no matter how awful our personal choices. We're no longer able to contemplate a society which allows consequences to catch up with decisions. We are, in fact, dependent on Washington to save us from ourselves.

The problem ultimately lies with us, not the people we send to Congress. The more dependent we are on elected officials, the more power we're willing to delegate to them. And the more power we're willing to delegate, the more likely it is that our protectors will eventually relieve us of power entirely.

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P.S. For interest's sake, these are the states represented by senators sponsoring or co-sponsoring S. 1319. Both senators support the bill in red states, and one senator supports the bill in pink states.



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Posted By NEB to The Non-Euclidean Blog at 6/24/2009 03:27:00 PM