FiveThirtyEight.com
Where in the Constitution, sir, do you see it authorized that Congress can be involved with "health care," or fund "health care"? I am asking here about the Constitution, not any court rulings. Thank you.This was the content, in its entirety, of an email I received last night from John Lofton, editor of TheAmericanView.com, a friend and supporter of Constitutional Party 2004 presidential candidate Michael Peroutka, and—get this—communications director for an organization called the Institute on the Constitution. We heard a lot from last summer’s protesters and people like Mr. Lofton about the sanctity of the Constitution and constitutional principles. Granting that tea partiers and people who send me silly emails should not necessarily be taken seriously as constitutional experts, there nonetheless seems to be an unusually high level of either uninformed or knowing manipulation of the Constitution in service to pre-ordained agendas.
I’m not a constitutional scholar. (N.B.: Protestors and other critics attacking the president ought to take note that he is.) Nor do I want to get into specific constitutional controversies. My aim is to rebut a few of the most absurd fallacies that seem to have gained traction--primarily but not exclusively in conservative circles--about the nature of American constitutionalism. To wit:
First, there is the fallacy that anything not specifically prescribed by the Constitution is unconstitutional. True, the Constitution doesn’t mention health care; but neither does it mention air traffic control. Is the FAA’s safeguarding of our skies from commercial crashes therefore unconstitutional? Of course not. First, there is the matter of the “necessary and proper” clause. And second, just because the Founders clearly meant to avoid the whole business of constitutionalizing specifically policies--see point #3, below--doesn't mean they didn't want the government to have any policies. If they did, why create a legislature?
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