Friday, February 10, 2006

The Federal Budget is Just a Bunch of Oreo Cookies


This little video clip makes so much sense to me that it is either a stroke of genius or a gross over-simplification. Click here to see for yourself.

10 comments:

John said...

A few flaws in the analysis: while the Constitution requires the establishment of a military, it forbids the funding of education and health care.

And, although our enemies are spending little money on defense, a very cheap nuclear bomb and destroy a very expensive American city.

All that stuff about our forces in Iraq being overstretched? The video writer would have us stretch them even further.

Anonymous said...

John,
I am not seeing in the Constitution where it is written to forbid the funding of education and health care. Perhaps I am overlooking it. I found the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment which discusses that funding within a school to support a religious theology or mission is expressly prohibited (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/Constitution/amendment01/02.html)

Please support your statement here, because if what you say is true, that is a big concern.

Shelly :)!

John said...

Sure, Shelly. Here it is.

Andy B. said...

Oh, John - you dirty rotten Libertarian, you!

Anonymous said...

John,

I may be a little slow, but that didn't tell me anything. I looked up the 10th Amendment, and the best summary I found was this:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment10/01.html#2

That still doesn't tell me anything. Is it that you are saying that those topics are "states' rights?" Or are tbey nothing to the Constitution? Help me out.

Shelly :)!

John said...

Okay, Shelly. Well, the Tenth Amendment states "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 this Amendment, we see the direction of power in the US federal system. The states delegate certain powers to the national government. These are detailed in Article I as well as a smattering of Amendments.

As this Tenth Amendment says, all powers not delegated to the national government are reserved to the states and the people.

The implication of this amendment is that the federal government is Constitutionally prohibited from doing anything other that those powers delegated to it by said constitution.

Now, since the Constitution does not delegate areas such as health care and education to the national government, the national government is prohibited from engaging in them by the Tenth Amendment.

EyeRytStuf said...

Well, as long as they're legislating that 100% of the kids will score 100% on standardized tests 100% of the time, they can feel free to fun education 100%, constitution or not.

EyeRytStuf said...

Okay, FUND, not FUN. It's late. I'm tired. Good night.

Dr. Tony said...

In the preamble to the Constitution are words to the effect that this government will seek to provide for the common welfare of the people. It is the same paragraph that allows for the military and just about everything else.

John said...

Tony, the preamble is a statement of intention, not authority:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Emphasis added. The founders believed that limited government created all of these things. If they had intended this passage to be a statement of authority, there would have been no purpose to Article I or Amendment X.