CONSTITUTIONAL MINUTE #43

You have been reading for awhile now. Let’s see how much has soaked in. Below is wording on actual proposed amendments. Test yourself. Answers follow each “amendment”, but try before looking.

1. We are told the purpose of this amendment is to “limit federal spending”. What’s wrong with it?

“Congress shall adopt a preliminary fiscal year budget no later than the first Monday in May for the following fiscal year, and submit said budget to the President for consideration.”

Answer: Our Constitution limits federal spending to the subjects they may address (“enumerated powers”), not a budget. 

The founders did not provide a budget because the “enumerated powers” were the budget!

If you go through the Constitution and highlight the powers delegated to Congress or the President, you will have a complete list of the objects (subjects) on which Congress may lawfully spend money. 

That is how our Framers controlled federal spending. 

It is the enumerated powers which limit spending – not the amount of revenue the federal government generates or the size of the GDP. Do you see?

Well then, a person who wanted to “limit federal spending” would demand that Congress begin to downsize the federal government and restrict spending to the enumerated powers, right?

But the author (Levin) doesn’t do this. Section 1 of his amendment legalizes all the spending which is now unconstitutional as outside the enumerated powers. 

Source of amendment: The Liberty Amendments by Mark Levin (Pg. 73, 74)