Returning to the Constitution: What does it Mean?
A major theme of the November election--and the new Congress--has been, at least symbolically, a return to Constitutional principles. In a provoking column today over at Pajama's Media, Peter Berkowitz asks what a return to the Constitution would entail. Would it entail limiting the federal government as the tea party hopes?
To Berkowitz, a conservative, the story is a tad bit more complicated than that. Just consider the Constitution's own history:
Amidst justified conservative determination today to aggressively reassert the central constitutional imperative to limit government, it should be recalled that the Constitution was also born out of the pressing need to create a larger, stronger, and more centralized government. The decision in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 to abandon repair of the Articles of Confederation and instead replace them with a new constitution stemmed from the need to establish a national government capable of levying and collecting necessary taxes, regulating commercial life to promote economic prosperity, and providing for the national defense in a dangerous world.
You can read the rest of Berkowitz' column here, which elegantly strolls through a variety of issues, but for now, I'd like to ask this question:
For the tea party, is there an inherent tension in seeking to return to Constitutional principles, while also hoping to limit the federal government? Berkowitz himself, who agrees with tea partiers that we need a return to Constitutional principles, says this about the welfare state:
Of course Congress’s first priority must be bringing spending under control and putting people back to work. But renovating our overextended and fraying social safety net is inseparable from the long-term task of placing our economy on a sound footing. Those who doubt that such is the proper work of conservatives should revisit The Road to Serfdom, Hayek’s classic defense of individual freedom and limited government. In it, the great theorist of liberty does not argue for the abolition of the welfare state, indeed he recognizes the legitimacy of government assisting those who can’t provide for themselves. Instead, he focuses his criticism on the progressive aspiration to undertake extensive central planning of the economy.
So can constitutional conservatives, like those of the tea party, come to terms with a strong and dynamic federal government? Can proponents of limited government also recognize the legitimacy of the welfare state?
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May '10
Re: Returning to the Constitution: What does it Mean?
Aside from natural disasters, what basic standards of welfare cannot be addressed at the local level by local preferences and/or by private institutions?
Yes, the Constitution was intended to be a beginning, not an end. But our government has been creating agencies, creating programs and expanding its powers since its foundation and at a breakneck pace over the past century. We can certainly afford to focus exclusively on cuts and eliminations for a while.
How often does a new technology require public infrastructure and/or regulation? Government should not be engaged in constant positive activity.
Jan '11
Re: Returning to the Constitution: What does it Mean?
What matters in constitutional restraint is that the government is not inventing its own authority to do whatever it wants. The original model for American government was the proverbial three landowners who hire someone to drain the common swamp. Having performed the task, the drainer does not have authority to address all of their common problems, even those problems that the landowners themselves do not perceive.
That having been said, the citizens are also free to agree on anything we want. Sure, we concede that keeping the task list small and simple is a generally good idea, but there's nothing constitutionally forbidden. If we Americans consent to creating a national swimming pool, what matters (constitutionally) is that we agreed to it. What offended the citizens about the last Congress is their blatant power grab without the consent of the public.
Creating a national safety net is an attractive idea, even if its execution is a "what could go wrong?" joke. Reforming healthcare was a good idea (and still is). Taking over healthcare and declaring medical treatment to be a civil right was not.
May '10
Re: Returning to the Constitution: What does it Mean?
There's the trick. Can "limited" federal government have a proactive role in a welfare state? I would say given the epic failure of the ever more "unlimited" federal government approach of the last century, the answer is no.
It's time for welfare to become a local and state issue and not be delegated to a bureaucracy in Washington.
Edited on Jan 7, 2011 at 7:52amRe: Returning to the Constitution: What does it Mean?
Does relegating the duties of the welfare state to the state and local level make us a more "Constitutional" country? Perhaps. A more conservative one? I don't think so. It certainly does not advance the cause of limited government, especially as many states are in fiscal crisis right now.
Nov '10
Re: Returning to the Constitution: What does it Mean?
My first reaction to the article was pretty much the same as that of the first commenter on PJM - overblown and unprincipled. Berkowitz sounds like he's struggling hard to become the Jon Favreau (the speechwriter, not the actor) of the right.
As to your questions - define strong and dynamic. They are positive sounding words but meaningless without a context, and quite open to abuse. Welfare state? Here I would assume that the Founders were very well aware of the dangers of the welfare state, since they were well versed in Roman history. They could have attempted to set up a welfare state, at least in the urban centers, and chose not to.
I think they understood that we need governments, but that government once created will try to expand into every possible crevice. So they created a system that facilitates resistance to excessive central governance via the states, and the natural inclination of free people to independence. That tension is the essential dynamic of American liberty. It's simply time for citizens to start reasserting their side of the bargain.
Edited on Jan 7, 2011 at 8:26amMay '10
Re: Returning to the Constitution: What does it Mean?
The fact that Hayek refused to reject the welfare state wholesale is one of the reasons why some libertarians have criticized Hayek's text. There's no essential difference between welfare statism and central planning. Both involve state duress against economic actors looking to satisfy their ends via production and voluntary exchanges.
Re: Returning to the Constitution: What does it Mean?
Emily: making governmental power more local is always more conservative. State legislators acting as poor stewards is another issue. I dare say if the feds did not so dominate the states and so sabotage the economy, state gubmints would have a much easier time balancing their budgets, which is not to say that they would, of course.
Jul '10
Re: Returning to the Constitution: What does it Mean?
Our unlimited federal government has proven itself incompetent to manage welfare programs and incapable of disciplining itself in any meaningful way on most issues most of the time. The very different economic realities from state to state, notwithstanding limited federal government objections, made the notion of a federal level welfare system that could transfer inputs from prospering states to troubled states (on the assumption that all are operating in good faith, of course) could moderate the panics and whatnot of the American 19th and early 20th Century, and avoid them infecting the nation as a whole.
Private employment insurance schemes have been discussed, and if we assume appropriate incentives, premiums that are adjusted for the individual based on, say, a five-year employment record and income level and payouts that might decline on a predictable schedule as the months proceed, as an incentive to find employment.
If the insurance companies are national in character, the same balancing game sought in the federal system can be maintained. Undoubtedly the states will meddle with the terms as with other forms of insurance. In the event of a legitimate crisis, state governments could play backstop to stave of a collapse until equilibrium returns.
Jul '10
Re: Returning to the Constitution: What does it Mean?
We deal with the federal government first because it is spinning off crises like a demented tornado plague. Forcing the problem back to the states requires the states to find prudent solutions fitting to the political and cultural and demographic tilt of the state (which vary quite a lot, and not on a bi-lateral left/right axis). Then the states compete because nobody tells Americans where they are going to live, and as we see today Texas fills up, California and New York empty out, and people find themselves better governed because there is a market of states in which to live.
State solutions might be public or private. That is properly left to each state. Those of us that prefer private and market-based solutions are under the onus to sell them, and promote leaders that will, also.
Edited on Jan 7, 2011 at 11:02amJul '10
Re: Returning to the Constitution: What does it Mean?
First things first, Everything Else NOT FIRST.
I have a test that will tell me if this congress is for real, or just another version of Phonys.
National Endowment for the Arts;
1) This is not a part of the Social Safety Net!
2) It serves NO Constitutional Purpose
If it is still funded in 2012 then they (the Republicans) don't mean business.
CPB/NPR;
1) This is not a part of the Social Safety Net!
2) It serves NO Constitutional Purpose
If it is still funded in 2012 then they don't mean business.
The sum totals of these programs is minor in terms of dollars. The sum total of eliminating federal funding of these programs is MAJOR in terms of does the Republican Party have a backbone, and do they really mean to start adhering to the Constitution.
Jul '10
Re: Returning to the Constitution: What does it Mean?
"Can proponents of limited government also recognize the legitimacy of the welfare state?"
NO. There is no "legitimacy" of the welfare state as We know it today.
"...[P]romote the general welfare..." could be understood as curtailing laws that would obstruct Capitalism.
The 13th Amendment states that no one has the Right to the fruits of another's labor.
May '10
Re: Returning to the Constitution: What does it Mean?
From the days of the Founders, the goal was not minimized central government, it was a balance and tension between federal and states' rights so that neither entity could grow too powerful. There are many cases where states are as abusive or more so as/than the feds. Look at tort law and jurisdiction shopping, California air quality laws, state hunting license discrimination, and the like- that's why the doctrine of the Dormant Commerce Clause came to be.
There is a difference between a "welfare state" and the basic social safety net. If you have problems with the latter, you need to go back to read speeches of Ronald Reagan. Milton Friedman's most famous public policy proposal- more famous than school vouchers- was the "negative income tax", which was federal, and pre-empted state schemes on grounds of efficiency and prevention of overlapping benefits (both federal and state).
The TEA Party needs a practical foundation- it cannot survive based on pure "NO!" or by preaching the Ayn Rand solution to every problem. Just as pragmatists lose ideological integrity by "getting along", libertarian utopians lose credibility by not recognizing the art of the possible.
Jul '10
Re: Returning to the Constitution: What does it Mean?
Duane, the balance has been so badly broken between the federal government and the states that the fundamentals of the current arrangement need to be creatively reconsidered. The proposal to amend the Constitution to provide the states, collectively, with a direct veto of federal laws is just one policy suggestion in this area. The 111st thought nothing of piling unfunded mandates on the states to help hide the real expense of their bizarre and egregious ObamaCare emission. The Tea Party is not dominant at this point, just a growing swing element with some leverage. We have maybe a year to develop an initial body of consensus Tea Party positions that address the structural challenges, including federal/state balance.
The Founders loudly expected their arrangements to come undone within a couple of generations, and Adams and Jefferson, at the end, saw it as coming apart. The art of the possible has given us casual corruption and crony capitalism. The art of the possible today is the serfdom promised by ObamaCare and an out of control regulatory bureaucracy, it is the desertification of California farmlands to appease environmentalists, [fill in usual rant here].
Utopia? The art of the possible leads to Distopia.