Current Events vs. Founding Documents

Entry 4                                     Submitted by: Mark Musselman

Current Event

President Obama recently commented in Men’s Health Magazine he thinks a “sin tax” on soda is an “idea that we should be exploring”.

VS

Does any federal agency have the power to regulate eating behavior through tax policy?

Founding Document

The Constitution, Tenth Amendment:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

An excerpt from the Declaration of Independence

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Closing Comments:

The answer is obvious.  No, neither Obama nor Congress has such powers, but they will take them, our liberty, and our money in the name of protecting us if we do not actively oppose their attempts to do so.  We must not wait for them to further implement the “long train of abuses and usurpations”.  Indeed we must recruit our neighbors who have not yet awaked from their apathy to call their elected officials today and tomorrow.