[quote=SK in CV][quote=faterikcartman]It’s pretty clear the Constitution is out the window when we’re discussing cutting things that are in the Constitution in favour of things which are not. And nary a concern that there is no longer a valid and observed compact setting forth the terms by which the people agree to be governed — or what that means.[/quote]

Precisely which things do you think should be cut because they are not in the Constitution and which should not be cut because they are in the constitution? (And I’ll give you a head start. The constitution does not specify any spending levels. For anything.)[/quote]

Is this what happens when you stop teaching what the Constitution says and instead teach what judges, politicians, and media personalities say it says? And I never mentioned anything about specific spending levels. Perhaps you were trying some sort of Jedi mind trick right out of Star Wars (“these aren’t the droids you’re looking for”)?

Now I’ll give YOU a head start: taxing for and spending on the defence of the United States is actually in the Constitution. Anything related to the Department of Education, for example, is not. There are others. Read the document yourself and discover the richness of your national heritage.

We’ve now reached a point where the left’s position — as made clear through court decisions and acts of government — is that the General Welfare and Commerce Clauses are so broad as to allow virtually unlimited government activity. If that were true, however, the rest of the Constitution would have been pointless.

As far as the economic issues, politicians would do well to read what I wrote in the thread about gold. So-called “experts” have gotten so wrapped up in economic models and theory that they’ve lost sight of the basics of how and why it all works. People provide goods and services that other people want. People trade their excess goods and services for others which they desire. Currency makes these transactions more convenient and reliable. Generally, not only does government provide the goods and services people want more efficiently, it produces goods and services that most people don’t want, for a price that is not market driven and often too high, and forces wide swaths of the population — at the point of a gun — to give up large percentages of their income to pay for things they don’t want, and often for other people. Free people to spend their money on things they want and the economy will thrive for those who produce goods and services that others desire.

I’ve studied economic theory in upper division econ courses at the University of California (at San Diego — professor Bear anyone?) that seemingly involved little more than crunching differential equations, but the misleadingly simplistic explanation above is what most are missing today.