Day 70

I believe that yesterday marked Day 70 of the Obama Administration so let's review where things stand. In his brief time in office Obama has:

• Proposed a mortgage bailout
• Signed a massive stimulus package that wasn't even read by Congress
• Fired the CEO of GM
• Declared what types of cars that automakers can produce
• Proposed more government involvement in health care
• Proposed more government involvement in education
• Proposed more government involvement in energy
• Asked for the authority to take over any financial institution he wants to
  

This is just off the top of my head. And to pay for it all he is going to have trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, which in Obama-speak counts as saving and investment.

I'm not going to argue with the merits of these various initiatives, which I have already done extensively on this blog. I just want the reader to try to reconcile this with what is in the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution grants a very narrow set of powers to Congress and the Executive branch. This was on purpose. The founding fathers had just fought a war against what they perceived to be an unjust and tyrannical regime in England and were afraid of recreating the same thing here at home. To emphasize the limited nature of the federal government the 10th amendment was included that says in its entirety:

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.

In other words, if the Constitution doesn't explicitly give the power to the federal government then it is assumed that the powers reside with the states or the people. This is not a new point but it is one that bears repeating.

The people who founded this country would be truly shocked by the leviathan that has arisen in Washington, the exact opposite of what was intended.

More thoughts on the current state of affairs here.