This tells me that most citizens have never understood the federal government’s constitutionally limited powers. Did you know that basically the only power that the Founders delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, to regulate an aspect of intrastate commerce is to decide policy for the US Mail Sevice (1.8.7).
In other words, the states have always had the 10th Amendment-protected power to establish their own social spending programs that so many voters are now dependent on the corrupt feds for, most of these federal spending programs unconstitutional imo.
In fact, here’s two excerpts from Supreme Court case opinions that express not only the federal government’s constitutionally limited powers, but appropriately the fed’s limited power to tax and spend.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.
The Founding States had undoubtedly expected federal senators to protect their states by killing bills which not only steal 10th Amendment-protected state powers, but also steal state revenues associated with those powers.
So what government services were citizens demanding from the constitutionally humbled federal government that they couldn’t get from their constitutionally powerful states?
Also, I cannot figure out why, since FDR was evidently a popular president, he didn’t establish his social spending programs within the framework of the Constitution by first leading Congress to proprose appropriate amendments to the Constitution to the states. He instead made a fool out of himself by attempting to stack the Supreme Court with activist justices who shared his “great society” ideas.
> “So what government services were citizens demanding from the constitutionally humbled federal government that they couldn’t get from their constitutionally powerful states?”
Mark Levin mentions the relevant factor is the large money creation machine via the Federal Reserve. The States have no such machine.
> “Also, I cannot figure out why, since FDR was evidently a popular president, he didn’t establish his social spending programs within the framework of the Constitution by first leading Congress to propose appropriate amendments to the Constitution to the states.”
FDR was not popular into his 2nd term. He swung to the right. And then the wars came. He had no mandate for amendments.
> “He instead made a fool out of himself by attempting to stack the Supreme Court with activist justices who shared his “great society” ideas.””
He threatened to stack the Supreme Court because they were declaring many of his New Deal Programs unconstitutional.
Obama and the democrats used the FDR playbook for Social Security nearly verbatim when they initially defended the PPACA Obamacare before the Supreme Court. They used FDR’s gameplan as a template for their own.
FDR had been selling his Social Security as just an old age pensioner program that was voluntary. But the Supreme Court was looking to strike it down but his lawyers argued in court that the Old Age Pension program (Social Security) was a tax. FDR knew and he remarked that he knew Congress and the courts would never reverse it if it was a tax. But he kept saying in public that it was not a tax.
Also FDR had social healthcare in the works to be launched but it was shelved because it became clear that FDR was pushing his luck. The democrats waited 75 years to get their social healthcare forced on Americans. The lesson to be learned is that the progressives never give up and are constantly looking for an opportunity to move their agenda forward.