From: veal@utkvm1.utk.edu (David L. Veal)
Subject: Re: Presidential Line-Item Veto Power
Organization: University of Tennessee Division of Continuing Education
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 15:49:16 GMT

In article <Bs4LJB.8q4@news.cso.uiuc.edu> gt38091@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Greg ) writes:

>veal@utkvm1.utk.edu (David L. Veal) writes:

>>>>     The Constitution does not provide for a line-item veto.  Everything
>>>>else is wishful thinking.  (Not that anyone, even the President who swears
>>>>to defend the damn thing, bothers to read it.  It's all "elastic clauses"
>>>>and "general welfare" clauses.  If that's a recipe for limited government 
>>>>I'd hate to see an unlimited one...)

>if you are even the least bit politically awake, you'd know that not everything
>the government is allowed to do is spelled out verbatum in the Constitution...
>even the thought that the government should be restricted to what is explicitly
>stated in the Constitution is a joke...there are too many things that could come
>up...

     What is the case for all practical purposes and what *should* be the
case are two different things.  Everything the government can do legally
*is* spelled out in the Constitution.  That is the idea behind a limited
government.  The Constitution has an amendment process in order to deal with
things that "come up."
     What you fail to realize is that most of the things people say have 
"come up" and the Constitution needs to deal with were never intended to
be a function of the Federal Government.  Those things that have come up
that do need to be done nationally (like, say, the environment) need to
be amended.
     There is no point in writing your government down if you don't follow
what's on the paper.

>>>But it does describe a limited government, and you need to understand what
>>>the Founders meant by their words (as described by themselves in documents
>>>such as the Federalist Papers) to fully appreciate it.  If you examine the
>>>first 10 ammendments you will notice that they are mostly negations of
>>>Federal power.  This is what the States feared, a strong central government
>>>which would dominate them (Hmm, seems like it happened in spite of the
>>>Founders - score one for the Statist Liberals).

>hmmn...isn't that one major difference between democrats and republicans in
>that republicans have been trying to get government out of areas where it has
>no business...i.e deregulation???...does that make democrats unconstitutional???

     They *both* support unconstitutional legislation.  The Republicans and
the Democrats are more alike than you think.

>>     We must confine ourselves to what the Constitution *says* as oppose
>>to what it *should* say.  Where the Constitution is lacking, it should
>>be amended.  "Interpreting" a line-item veto because "it is necessary"
>>defeats the purpose of writing the law down in the first place.

>so what you're saying is that we don't even need a supreme court, since
>whatever's in the Constitution is law, and that's it?!?

     Whatever *is* in the Constitution is law.  The Supreme Court, using
their own set of implied powers that are not listed in the Constitution,
interpret that law.

>...then why is there
>a provision in the Constitution for a Supreme Court???...

     Look at the provision for the Supreme Court in the Constitution.
Judicial Review is an "implied" power, not an enumerated one.

>hey, the primary
>function of government is to provide for the people that which they can't 
>provide for themselves (i.e. military, police, etc...)...this is a huge respon-
>sibility, and that's why the "necessary and proper" clause is in there.

     The government is their to protect our rights, among other things.

     The "necessary and proper" clause give the Congress the power to make 
all laws "which shall be necessary and proper to carry into execution the
foregoing powers."  Which means that the Congress may make laws relating to
those powers, and only those powers, which are specifically granted it
in Article I, Section 8.
     It does not grant any unlimited ability to make laws they deem 
appropriate.



===========================================================================
|David Veal  PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu  University of Tennessee             |  
|                                     Division of Continuing Education    |
| Statistics are any data which can be twisted to support your posititon  | 
===========================================================================

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