“It’s an air kiss they’re blowing to the tea party.”
~Congressman Barney Frank
Roger Pilon
The Wall Street Journal
1/4/2011
If the new Congress to be sworn in on Wednesday is the tea party’s cardinal achievement so far, its most symbolic achievement will come on Thursday, when the first order of business in the House will be a reading, aloud, of the Constitution. That event alone will not bring us any closer to limited government. But it will help get a debate going that for too long has been dormant.
Already, House Democrats are lining up to ridicule a closely related rule that the Republican majority has said it will adopt, requiring members to cite the specific constitutional authority for any bill they introduce. “It’s an air kiss they’re blowing to the tea party,” says Barney Frank, outgoing chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. elves to have the first word, often citing their oath of office.
…The bedrock presumption of our polity, they understood, was individual liberty. The Constitution gave the federal government the authority to pursue certain limited ends, like national security and ensuring free interstate commerce, but otherwise left us free to pursue our ends either through the states or as private individuals. It did not authorize the federal government to provide us with the vast array of goods and services that today reduce so many of us to government dependents.
Thus the first question the new Congress should ask of any proposed law is: Does the Constitution authorize us to pursue this end? If not, that ends the matter. If yes, the second question is: Are the means we employ “necessary and proper,” as constrained by the principles of federalism and the rights retained by the people that are implied by a government of enumerated powers? In essence, the Constitution is no more complicated than that. It was written to be understood by ordinary citizens…
Read the entire article at The Wall Street Journal.
H/T sisu
