… and finding no mention of health care insurance conclude that the federal government has no power to pass laws on health care. Setting aside the fact that the federal government already runs the nation’s largest health care insurance operation, Medicare, there are many other necessary and useful roles that the US government fulfills which are not mentioned in the Constitution. By the same tenther logic, you can conclude that the federal government has no authority to regulate automobile, rail, or air travel safety or the safety of pharmaceuticals. But the feds have been doing that for well over a century and I think most Americans are quite happy that they do. Cars, trains, airplanes and pharmaceuticals were unknown when the Constitution was written. What do you think? Is the FAA an overreach of federal authority? Should the market decide which drugs are safe for your use?
According to the strictest of constructionists, the other things you mention ARE absolutely contrary to the Constitution, although transportation is probably the easiest to argue an interstate commerce connection. There was actually debate as to whether to say “all powers not EXPRESSLY delegated…” as the Articles did, but that was voted down. I see Article I, section 8 as the things Congress must do to the exclusion of states, but that other policy areas the states may play a role.
In fact there is a danger that our Supreme Court, full as it is of members of the Federalist Society, will take a very narrow view of the role and power of our federal government. The Court during FDR’s Administration condoned an expansion that our later day Andrew Jacksons bemoan this state of affairs as sending the Constitution into exile.
Andrew Jackson is not the person to be pointing out as he expanded federal executive powers. I believe you are referring to the Nullification Crisis of 1833. John C. Calhoun, Jackson’s vice president and a South Carolinian, tried to have the state nullify a federal tariff. Armies and miltias were raised and it seemed that it might come to a shooting war. But a compromise was reached and the matter was ended. Jackson said, “I consider, then, the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which It was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed.”
Specifically thought that the program of national improvements was unconstitutional.
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p>Oh, and yes, nullification is worse.