Commentary The first, second, third, and fourth installments in this series described how the Constitution established a relatively small federal government with limited powers and how President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal challenged that plan. Initially, the Supreme Court tried to balance the New Deal with the Constitution. During the years 1937 to 1944, however, the court dismantled most of the Constitution’s restraints on federal power. The first two casualties were limits on federal spending (1937) and on federal land ownership (1938). This installment explores the destruction of constitutional limits on Congress’s economic authority. Congress’s Economic Powers The Constitution granted Congress significant, but limited, economic powers. They included: passing “uniform Laws on the subject of Bankrupcies,” coining and controlling the currency (pdf), fixing weights and measures, establishing post offices, establishing “post Roads”—that is, intercity highways (pdf), issuing patents and copyrights, governing federal enclaves and territories, and “regulat[ing] Commerce with foreign …
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