Why pick on Bush?... it goes far deeper than that
.
If we sleep while others change the scope of the Constitution... how can we then complain?
There is the Necessary and Proper Clause, for instance. This ancillary clause that says Congress can make all laws '
necessary and proper' to carry out foregoing powers. Think way, way back to the Bank of the United States. Congress charters the bank. There is no banking power (yet). But it may be related to the taxing and currency powers. That power could have been trimmed by saying that only really necessary laws are permissible. And who would decide what was necessary?
Why, the judges, of course. And that was Maryland’s argument in
McCulloch v. Maryland: that the power had to be trimmed back by emphasizing the word “
necessary.” Chief Justice Marshall said,
“But look, think of the consequences of that. That really would put the Judiciary in charge of the whole United States because the judges would define what is necessary, and now you have moved the legislative power to the judicial branch,” rightly condemning judges who write into the Constitution their own views of wise social policy on the death penalty, on abortion, or on religion.
Well, that is equally true of economic matters. The judicial role has to be modest. It has to allow the legislature to set policy because otherwise you deliver the government into the hands of people you cannot fire. And of course, the consequence of that, as we know from the upshot of McCulloch, is that you wind up with an uncomfortably large federal government.
Then of course, there is the taxing power. By abolishing the
Apportionment requirement, the Sixteenth Amendment gave the federal government the power to control one hundred percent of the economy. It can tax income. Or it can achieve its goals by tax expenditures—that is, by encouraging those things that are not taxed. It can tax and then subsidize using the dollars that it has just collected from you, or it can grant the dollars back on condition. So that combination of powers is a logical consequence of the Sixteenth Amendment, which gives the federal government control over almost anything it chooses to control.
One just has to get over it. There is nothing one can do by creative interpretation of the existing Constitution. So, what changes might work? Insist that the national government have a balanced budget. Then vote to fire those who do not act according to conscience. It's not Bush
per se ...it goes much, much deeper than that. It's us.
- Old man's thought brought to you by Granps
/end Ol'man Rant
That is why this was a "request" 
