January 26, 2004

Now that the 2004 Presidential Election is officially underway, let the baby kissing and pandering begin. The American people can expect presidential “hopefuls,” and I use that term very loosely, to start making grandiose promises to special interest groups across the nation in exchange for campaign contributions and votes. One of their favorite targets is the American education system. At a recent campaign stop, President Bush fired the first salvo by promising to expand federal spending for k-12 programs to $36.7 billion; an increase of $1.2 billion from the previous year. Total education spending by the federal government is expected to increase by $2.5 billion to a record $55.7 billion next year.

According to press reports, democratic hopefuls claim the President is actually attempting to under fund education programs. In fact, they have gone so far as to claim Bush’s proposed $1.2 billion increase is actually a cut because, according to their accounting methods, federal spending on k-12 programs was suppose to increase to $37.9 billion. Only in the twisted world of American politics would a political party attempt to curry favor with the people by claiming that a $1.2 billion increase in spending from one year to the next is actually a cut because it did not meet their anticipated projections.

If the press were functioning as a bulwark of liberty and a watchdog on government, then major news outlets would not have wasted a drop of ink on this political wrangling between the two parties. Instead, it would have castigated both political parties because the Constitution does not grant the federal government the power to spend a single penny on education within the several States.

During the debates in the Federal [Constitutional] Convention on August 18, 1787, it was proposed to grant Congress the power “[t]o establish an University.” The proposal was not acted upon until September 14 when Mr. Madison and Mr. Pinkney “moved to insert in the list of powers vested in Congress a power ‘to establish an University, in which no preferences or distinctions should be allowed on account of Religion.’” Their proposal was rejected.

If the delegates to the Federal Convention had structured the Constitution to grant the federal government general power over education, then why, three days before the Convention adjourned, was a proposal made that would have vested Congress with a special power? And if the federal government was denied the constitutional power “to establish an University” when the Constitution was written and adopted, where does it get the power to fund universities today?

Even in the dark halls of Washington DC one can find admissions that the federal government does not have any constitutional authority over education within the several States. On the website of the National Archives was a section that contained questions and answers on the Constitution. The source of the information was a book written by Sol Bloom in 1937 entitled: “The Story of the Constitution.”

Question―Where, in the Constitution, is there mention of education?

Answer―There is none; education is a matter reserved for the States.

Since the Constitution has not been amended since Mr. Bloom’s book was written, education is still a matter reserved to the States. Thus, any federal intrusion into the field of education is nothing but a usurpation of power and a violation of the Constitution.

When a President proposes to spend taxpayer dollars to fund a program not authorized by the Constitution, it is no different than the bank robber who sticks a gun in the chest of a bank teller. The only difference is the bank robber goes to jail while government uses the power of government to legitimize its theft.

Conservative media pundits continually tout President Bush and the republican party as the poster children of honesty and virtue in government. It’s the Republican Party, they claim, that stands for the Constitution and limited government. President Bush’s call for increasing federal spending for education is nothing less than the unconstitutional theft of taxpayer dollars under the guise of legitimate government.

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