Last week, I asked South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn, the
third-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, where in
the Constitution it authorizes the federal government to
regulate the delivery of health care. He replied: "There's
nothing in the Constitution that says that the federal
government has anything to do with most of the stuff we do."
Then he shot back: "How about [you] show me where in the
Constitution it prohibits the federal government from doing
this?" Rep. Clyburn, like many of his colleagues, seems to have
conveniently forgotten that the federal government has only
specific enumerated powers. He also seems to have overlooked the
Ninth and 10th Amendments, which limit Congress's powers only to
those granted in the Constitution. One of those powers—the power
"to regulate" interstate commerce—is the favorite hook on which
Congress hangs its hat in order to justify the regulation of
anything it wants to control. Unfortunately, a notoriously
tendentious New Deal-era Supreme Court dec