The progressive socialist left continues to prove that they did not get the memo from the 2024 presidential election cycle. Their mindless rants against the people who rejected their ideological agenda continue, but the preemptive strike against the incoming Trump administration is disconcerting. All of a sudden, leftists are concerned about effective and efficient government. Actually, they are more concerned about the loss of centralized government power and the elimination and reduction of the bureaucratic administrative state.
When we talk about constitutional governance, it means a federal government, as the Constitution refers to as “the United States,” that operates within its prescribed, enumerated powers. The Constitution is a limiting document on the powers of the federal government. And the 10th Amendment is very clear as to what happens with those powers not specifically designated to the federal government.
It is time that Washington, DC abides by the Constitution and returns to its (18) enumerated roles, duties, responsibilities, and powers found in Article I, Section 8. I was born in 1961, and the debt of the United States was $463B; you can data search this for your birth year. The current debt of the United States, 63 years later, is over $33T, yes, trillion. A simple question: what has been the return on the investment of borrowing this massive amount of money? Government basically exists to protect our life, liberty, and property. The preamble of the United States Constitution uses the active verb “provide” when it comes to the common defense. The more passive word “promote” is used when it comes to our general welfare. However, successive governing regimes (and this is bipartisan) have deemed it more important to “provide” for general welfare, and the result has been an exploding leviathan called the federal government.
Right now, the left is freaking out about the potential for the Department of Education to be eliminated. They fail to understand that the Constitution does not grant the federal government any enumerated powers in the area of education; that is a state and local issue. And, the Department of Education was created just during the Carter administration. Once, there was a Department called HEW (Health, Education, and Welfare). The teachers’ unions went to Carter and demanded to have their own federal government agency, ala, the Department of Education. Initially, the DoE budget was around $18B but now it has exploded to over $80B…but what has happened to the standards of education in America? We were once the gold standard for the world. Now, we rank around 26th among developed nations.
Another federal government agency created during the Carter administration was the Department of Energy—as a result of the Saudi oil embargo. The mission of the DoE was to make America energy independent…that did not happen until the Trump administration and had nothing to do with the DoE. It was about the energy policies of the first Trump administration that had this Nation producing, consuming, and becoming a net exporter of its energy resources.
So, why do we need these two agencies, the Department of Education and the Department of Energy?
We can no longer afford to see the government as a jobs-creating entity. Matter of fact, the sector that has had the most job growth under the Biden-Harris administration has been the public sector—government. And we are at a point where government spending of over 25% of our GDP—not a recipe for success—and our debt to GDP ratio is over 110%.
So, why not institute a policy of constitutional governance?
I have always found it interesting that the government can dictate all types of economic policies and even shut down the private sector. But, the government takes an approach that it cannot be touched, when the private sector (citizens) are the ones funding the government.
Consider the recent revelation that, once again, the Defense Department failed an audit, seven years running. What happens in the private sector when a company fails an audit? And we are not talking about chump change; we are talking about over $850B that is unaccounted for.
Yes, it is time for a committee on constitutional governance, its effectiveness, efficiency, and necessity. We are on a fiscal road to perdition, and only the stuck on stupid useful idiots of the Marxist left would not want to have this type of endeavor successfully undertaken. We can no longer afford to have a system where when something happens, we create a new government agency…and I am still pondering this Space Force thing.
Steadfast and Loyal.
This column was published at Allen West’s Substack
The views expressed in CCNS member articles are not necessarily the views or positions of the entire CCNS. They are the views of the authors, who are members of the CCNS.
