Looking for Smaller Government? A Strict Constitutionalist Is the Answer

We Republicans absolutely love to hear politicians promise that they will aggressively guard our checkbooks like an NHL goalie and, not surprisingly, politicians love to please the majority of their constituency. This current batch of presidential hopefuls is no different. During the recent May 3^rd debate, one round of questions even featured candidates stating which tax they most want to eliminate. However, the Bush administration, along with a Republican-held House and Senate for all but the last few months – all of whom have done a great deal to encourage the drastically increasing national debt during the last six years – really makes me stop and wonder. How can I differentiate between the true conservatives and the Republicans who are just repeating “smaller government” as a meaningless mantra to win over the base? The best answer I've found is to seek out candidates who respect the Constitution.

The Constitution is an amazingly well thought-out and concise document that lays the foundation for Washington. Though all elected officials swear an oath to “defend and uphold the Constitution,” many show little indication of even having read it! The strongest example is the Tenth Amendment – part of the original Bill of Rights – which states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved for the States respectively, or to the people.” In plain English, this document explicitly states that small government and states rights are the laws of the land.

The Tenth Amendment was upheld for most of our short history. When the federal government wanted a new power, it would amend the Constitution (which, among other things, requires that 75% of states sign off) as required by that very same Constitution. The power to directly tax income was put into the 16^th Amendment, the power to ban alcohol was put into the 18^th Amendment, and the subsequent repeal of the 18^th was put into the 21^st. However, in the nascent years of FDR's “New Deal,” alphabet agencies and economic regulations were allowed by the Supreme Court (while under extreme pressure from the executive branch), and the 10^th had gone forgotten and ignored. Over one presidency, large government became the standard and states were rendered impotent without even getting a chance to have a say in the matter.

Now, allow me to play devil's advocate. Imagine for a moment that we should ignore the Constitution for the purposes of the “greater good.”  After all, strict constitutionalists are just too rigid and too radical. Even operating on such pretenses, America's chief accountant – the head of the Government Accountability Office – has the rebuttal. He, the person whose job it is to work with the federal budget on a very intimate level, says regarding Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, “None of these programs is sustainable in its present form. They will all require reforms... if there is one thing that could bankrupt America, it’s health care costs.” Ultimately, whether it's the private individual paying off credit cards with other credit cards or the government spending more than it has and printing more money to make up the shortfall, the end result is the same: bankruptcy.

To me, it seems that the real radicals are the ones who fundamentally changed the country without going through the proper steps. A mentality of “the ends justifies the means” is usually dangerous, and even more so when a government toys with it. The hurdles created by the Constitution for the federal government – if followed – would have made it far more unlikely that spending would have gotten anywhere near as out of control as it is now. The Founding Fathers were very skeptical about power and feared its ability to corrupt. As it stands today, I'm afraid they've been proven right.

Ignoring the Constitution is what has brought to where we are now, and further marginalization of it won't fix anything.  Any candidate that I will vote for in the primary will realize that his own personal opinions on how he should run the country are subordinate to the whole of the Constitution rather than just the parts he likes.  Given the way Congress has been legislating, a president who lives up to his oath will prove him self as a conservative by making liberal use of his veto pen. At best, taxes and spending are reduced while power shifts away from one epicenter. At worst, things will stay as they are now... which is far more than I can say for a politician who will to dig us even deeper into the madness of our national spending-spree.

• Click here for a full transcript of the Constitution, here for the Bill of Rights, and here for the Amendments ratified thereafter.