LDS Freedom Forum

Although all members of Congress — of every party — take the same oath, it is the Republicans who talk the most about following the Constitution, obeying the Constitution, revering the Constitution, and discovering the original intent or original meaning of the Constitution.

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But in spite of all their talk about it, Republicans are not only not the party of the Constitution, they spent the last two years as part of the 112th Congress ignoring the Constitution and violating it by voting for appropriations that have no constitutional authority. I will mention just four examples. [see article]

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In retiring Rep. Ron Paul’s “New Year’s Resolution for Congress,” he implored members of Congress to “consider the strict libertarian constitutional approach to government in 2013.” In the next paragraph he said,

In just a few days, Congress will solemnly swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against ALL enemies, foreign and domestic. They should reread Article 1 Section 8 and the Bill of Rights before taking such a serious oath. Most legislation violates key provisions of the Constitution in very basic ways, and if members can’t bring themselves to say no in the face of pressure from special interests, they have broken trust with their constituents and violated their oaths. Congress does not exist to serve special interests; it exists to protect the rule of law.

Congress didn’t listen.

The first piece of legislation passed by the 113th Congress, which was supported 161-67 by the Republican majority in the House, was a bill (H.R.41) to “temporarily increase the borrowing authority of the Federal Emergency Management Agency for carrying out the National Flood Insurance Program.”

There is, of course, no constitutional authority for the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the National Flood Insurance Program. Just as there is no constitutional authority for 95 percent of the legislation passed by the Republican majority in the House during the 112th Congress.

To win the epic battle over the budget that is now looming on Capitol Hill, this is precisely the type of question that fiscal conservatives need to start asking. It is instructive that during the entire debate over the controversial 1994 Crime Bill, not a single Republican rose up on the House or Senate floor and attacked the $10 billion in social spending on the grounds, not that it was wasteful, but that most, if not all, of it is simply not the proper responsibility of the federal government. Conservatives should have been asking the question: Where is the authority under the Constitution for Congress to spend money on midnight basketball, modern-dance classes, self-esteem training, and the construction of swimming pools?

In other words, fiscal conservatives need to go beyond making the case that government wastes money--which it surely does--and start making the case that most federal spending today is illegitimate because it lies outside Congress's spending powers under the Constitution.

The idea is not radical, nor is the strategy futile. For the first 150 years of this nation's history, proponents of limited government in Congress and the White House routinely argued--with great success--a philosophical case against the creation and expansion of federal social-welfare programs.