Another important balance is the one between the Federal government, and the governments of the several states. The issue of states rights was very important to the author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson. He argued for the amendments we know as ‘The Bill of Rights.’ The ‘Tenth Amendment’ strikes a crucial balance between State and Federal power.

Amendment 10 – Powers of the States and People. Ratified 12/15/1791.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited
by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The powers of the Federal government were limited by design see ‘Section 8 Powers of Congress.’ The Federal government is the glue that joins the states into a nation. The Federal government settles disputes between states, provides a unified defense, foreign and trade policy. According to the Constitution the Federal government should only handle things that must go into and between the state and national borders. War, immigration, postal system, currency and banking. The states are prohibited from making laws in these areas, according to the Constitution. All other powers are reserved to the States or to the people, the Federal government is prohibited in these areas.

Over the years the balance has been slowly chipped away by all three levels of the Federal government and acquiescence of the State governments. Congress wrote laws infringing on the powers of the states the Executive signed them and the Supreme Court allowed the laws whenever challenged and the states went along with it most of the time as well.

This is a well known problem, many candidates for national office, representatives, senators and presidents, have run on platforms of reducing the size of the federal government. Unfortunately when they get into congress they do as all politicians do, they try to gain more power, in congress the only thing they can do is spend money and write laws. Once they get into office they use the office to get re-elected by passing laws for supporters and spending money in there home districts or states. When presidents get into office they also go back on their word and sign whatever law congress sends. They either go along with their political party or opinion polls of people who are only told what government wants to give them not what they will take from them to pay for it.

We cannot expect them to change themselves, they can never be convinced to give the power back to the states as the constitution originally intended. There is only one constitutional way to take that power back with or without the approval of the Federal government.

Article. V. – Amendment

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary,
shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution What this means, is if enough of the state governments decide to amend the Constitution, they can do so without the approval of the Federal government. The U.S. Congress does not have a vote, the president is not needed to sign it into law, it is the Supreme Law of the land when: ‘ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof.’

If enough people lobby their state government, their state senators, state representatives and support representatives, who will propose and vote for resolutions for a convention to propose amendments, this can be accomplished.

I think the amendment should do what the tenth amendment was originally intended to do. Something like this, -Amendment 28 (Proposed 12/29/2007) The powers not specifically delegated to the Federal government of the United States by the Constitution, nor specifically prohibited by it to the States must be relinquished to the governments of the several states within five years of ratification of this amendment. The Federal government may only supersede if a direct and substantial relationship to an enumerated power exists. Disputes to be settled by the U.S. Supreme Court which may be overruled by vote in the three fourths of the state legislatures.- (needs work but you get the point)

If we can gather the support of the special interest groups at the local and state levels, convince them that support of this amendment will further their individual cause. Those for abortion and gay rights in blue states and those against in red states make up majorities in their respective states, if this passes those issues will be decided on a state by state basis and their vote will count for allot more in state or local elections that in a national election.

Gun rights, drug policy, abortion, gay marriage, all the things that divide the country could be settled on a state by state basis this would make it easier to agree, or agree to disagree when necessary.

This would also make government more efficient, by spreading the responsibilities. Currently the Federal government is responsible for everything from trade policy and road building to education and health care and are doing a poor job at most of it. They might be more efficient if they could concentrate on their constitutionally enumerated responsibilities.

State taxes would increase but federal taxes would drop at a corresponding level. The overall effect on and individual citizen from a tax perspective would be a slight decrease due to the increased efficiency at first. Once the state governments take over they will be free to have high taxes more social programs, spend more on schools and roads others will spend less and have low taxes, each will be responsible to the people of the state at election time.

What I propose is not a radical change to the constitution, it is a restoration, this is what people like Thomas Jefferson and the Tenth Amendment originally intended. The Tenth amendment is just as important as the Fifth and the First and the rest of the amendments in our ‘Bill of Rights’.

The 10th Amendment is a complicated issue in today’s hyper-polarized political environment. It is hard to discuss its history without stumbling all over Strom Thurmond, George Wallace and men of their ilk. It is impossible to ignore the fact that slavery WAS in fact constitutional, it being RECOGNIZED in the text of the Constitution. Now, we will all agree from the 21st Century perspective that slavery IS an abomination and SHOULD have been abolished IN the Constitution, but this just didn’t happen. Sorry.

It is also necessary to note that the “supreme Court” (Constitution’s capitalization!) has bumbled and stumbled all over itself over the years, beginning in 1794, trying to make sense of the 10th Amendment. Given that the Judiciary has given us Dred Scott, Plessy, and Roe, not to mention the present legal battles over gay marriage and the death penalty, not to mention the issue of public displays of religion, perhaps we should enact a piece of the TEXT of the Constitution. Look up Article 3, Sections 1 and 2 and the topic of Jurisdiction Stripping. Interesting read!

And our Congress and Presidential candidates are doing no better! Socialism is completely incompatible with the Constitution, and we must put off this “obsequious court to the people” and those who would oppose the very document itself.

Great web site! Keep up the good work, and get out the news!!

Of course, these things are hard to know for sure, even for the President. Unless we can win over a significant majority of the Iraqi people to risk their own lives and help us, I don’t think the President will reach his objectives. Our forces are needed in other places (or will be). To win their hearts and minds of Iraqis will take decades. We are now blamed rightly for destroying their infrastructure and standard of living. Every nation resents being occupied. They’re past their limit of tolerance. We need to start getting out of there. And the Biden plan of decentralization is a good guide and refutes the notion that Democrats have no plan for the consequences of leaving Iraq. This is just a scare tactic. We are in debt billions of dollars to China and Japan. What is the sense of spending billions more when the outcome is so uncertain?

If we leave Iraq as failures, it will make things worse for a time. But we’ve had four years, as long as we were in WWII, spent half a trillion dollars, with no end in sight. Maybe, if we doubled the troops and spent ten years, we would “win.” But I see no evidence that the consequences to our economy and our people and the weakening of our country are worth it.

They say it’s not about oil. At least Bush 41 had the courage to euphemistically admit The Gulf War was about oil when he said we are fighting the war to protect or preserve our way of life. If we’re not fighting in Iraq for a friendly regime to sell us oil at a reasonable price, what are we fighting for? No matter who takes over Iraq, we’re never going to get back what we’ve invested. And I don’t believe Pres. Bush has such a love for the Iraqi people that his first concern is to shepherd them into democracy so they can enjoy the bounties of freedom. And also, democracy doesn’t guarantee a love of the U.S. After all Adolf Hitler was elected in Germany democratically. Even though he was not elected legitimately (he cheated), he was still elected.