Federalists miss the boat

Several writers recently questioned my claim that the federal government has the right, if not the obligation, to promote education. Their objection is that the U.S. Constitution does not specifically authorize this, as if it needed to.

The authorization comes from the constitutional mandate to “promote the general welfare,” and from implied rights, not all of which are enumerated. If the critics were right, then the federal government would be forbidden to manage an air traffic control system, a space program, national parks, scientific research, the interstate highway system and, oh yes, support for education, among others. All of these promote the general welfare. None is specified in the document.

The 10th Amendment is not a master amendment that governs all others. It has become the refuge of those who wish to dismantle government as we know it. But it is fundamentally un-American to elevate the various states of America above the United States of America. But this is what federalists seem to want.

The supremacy of the United States over the several states has been continually affirmed by the Supreme Court, beginning in 1819 in McCulloch v. Maryland and as recently as June 28.

Federalists, give it up.

Lee Freese

Pullman