Obama Doesn’t Draw the Military Vote
March 17th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
March 17th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
AP reports that Barack Obama told military vets that he would not lower the drinking age.
Army veteran Ernest Johnson, 23, of Connecticut, said one of the things that peeved him before he turned 21 was that he couldn’t come home and drink a beer — even though he was old enough to serve in the armed services and die for his country.Obama told Johnson he sympathized, but that setting the legal drinking age at 21 had helped reduce drunken driving incidents and should remain.
The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 was a constitutional end-around, threatening the states into mandating a drinking age of 21 or lose 10% of federal highway funds. There is no provision in the Constitution that gives the federal government the right to set a minimum drinking age.
Unfortunately, some believe the federal government cannot relinquish a little bit of its power for the people that defend it.
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March 19th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Although hotly contested from the start, nonetheless, since the time of the founding, Art I, Sec. 8, cl. 1 has been taken as a grant of power to the national government separate from the powers listed below it.
It’s called the “spending clause” and reads: “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes . . . to . . . provide for . . . the general welfare of the United States.”
So the national government can use it spending power to achieve ends consistent with what Congress deems to be the “general welfare” of the nation, even if Congress does not have the authority to regulate the matter directly under the subsequent powers granted in art. I, sec. 8.
So, e.g., Congress may not directly legislate a national drinking age under its art. I, sec. 8 powers (because that power is not delegated to Congress), but it can use its spending power to provide incentives and inducements to achieve ends indirectly that it cannot achieve directly.
As I mentioned, the Jeffersonians hotly constested this reading of the Constitution from the start, arguing that the art I, sec. 8, cl. 1 spending power authorizes spending only for the powers subsequently delegated to the national government in art. I. sec. 8. There are some interpretive problems with the Jeffersonian view, but they’re a bit “inside baseball” to go into here.
And, of course, there’s no problem at all with states making exceptions in their drinking-age laws for military personnel. I’d like to see the national government try to yank transportation funds from any state that made such an exception.
March 20th, 2008 at 12:18 am
Jim, thanks. I actually wouldn’t mind reading a discussion on that. If you have an email or a link, I’d appreciate it.
March 20th, 2008 at 11:31 am
Dan,
In U.S. v. Butler, 297 U.S. 231 (1936), the Court has a concise and fairly non-technical discussion of the two main positions on the spending clause in the early time of the U.S. I’m pretty sure that there are several websites which the general public can use to access U.S. Supreme Court decisions. (I can provide additional case citations as well, if you’re interested.)
There’s also a decent discussion at: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/article01/26.html (Discussion of the “spending clause” begins about half-way down the page.)
Also, Philip B. Kurland and Ralph Lerner reproduce twenty-eight different discussions from the founding era on the spending clause (and some on the so-called taxing clause, which is also cl. 1, but raises slightly different questions than does the spending clause) in vol. 2 of THE FOUNDERS’ CONSTITUTION (University of Chicago Press 1987), pp. 407-470.
I’m always happy to chat via e-mail as well. Although I’m no expert on the spending clause itself.