Why government function is spelled out in Constitutions

[docstrange]

A lot of constitutional (state and federal) discourse is carried out on the question of government over-reaching the powers granted to it. But powers are not the only things in there. The powers have purposes. There are also functions that are spelled-out requirements of the chartered government

Comments

[unixronin]

While the points the article makes are entirely sound, it also has to be said that one can't get blood out of a stone. The state has already had to borrow Federal money to cover extended unemployment benefits. Thrifty though NH is, it - like many other states - is staggering, and it doesn't have the Federal government's luxury of simply declaring new money to exist by fiat.

This is not New Hampshire's problem alone. All over the US, the legacy of decades of fiscal irresponsibility is coming home to roost, and sinking boats are pulling sound ones down with them. The official inside-the-beltway party line may be that "the recession is over", despite the fact that the economy is still bleeding jobs, but I still believe we have not seen the worst of this yet.

Afterthought:
We should also not forget that a vital purpose of a constitution is to enumerate not only the things that a government is required and authorized to do, but the things that it is explicitly forbidden to do. (However hard Congress tries to pretend otherwise and sweep the latter under the rug.) No government not of idealists will ever willingly decline power that it has the opportunity to take, nor ever willingly give up a power that it has once seized for itself whether openly or by subterfuge.

Once again, I find myself thinking that the Vikings had wisdom we could learn from. A part of the operation of the Althing was that once a year, they would pile up all the books of law and burn them. The Althing then got to keep as many laws as its members could remember and write down again in twenty-four hours. If no-one could remember a particular law in that period, it clearly wasn't important enough to need keeping.

[maradydd]

No government not of idealists will ever willingly decline power that it has the opportunity to take, nor ever willingly give up a power that it has once seized for itself whether openly or by subterfuge.

For a fascinating look into the psychology that enables this phenomenon, have you read Bob Altemeyer's The Authoritarians?

The Althing then got to keep as many laws as its members could remember and write down again in twenty-four hours.

This is pretty delightful. Do you have a source on that? I googled but came up empty.

[unixronin]

Sorry, I don't have an online source available to hand. I read it many years ago in a book on the history of the Norse culture.

[ilcylic]

Yeah, but if you tried that trick these days, you'd get a fine from the EPA.

[unixronin]

For open burning of toxic waste....? :)

[docstrange]

I don't think there's more than a tiny percent of lawyers out there that don't consider the current state of the CFR to be anything less than fearfully obtuse, mental blight.