Limited government

[Jonathan Buhacoff]

Proposal:

Each level of government should be granted only the minimum set of powers necessary for it to fulfill its purpose — not more and not less.

Each level of government should enact only the minimum set of obligations and prohibitions that are necessary to fulfill its purpose — not more and not less.

Intent:

Granting more powers than necessary is the road to oppression. Granting less powers than necessary is the road to chaos because the government won’t be able to fulfill its purpose.

To enact more laws than are needed would be overreach. To enact less would be ineffective governance.

Wherever possible, government should enact laws that are broad in nature and specify their intent so they will not be misapplied by the executive, and so any such misapplications can be reversed by the judiciary based on a reading of the law and its intent and comparing with the facts of the case.

Discussion:

A government should only have the powers expressly granted to it by the people in its formation and, over time, by enacting additional laws through legitimate representatives of the people. When a law becomes outdated or irrelevant, it should be revoked by a vote of the legislature.

If the consensus is that a level or branch government has accumulated too much power or has been rendered powerless by the overreach of another level or branch of government, the people should advocate and vote for reforms.

Comparison with the United States:

In the United States Constitution, the Tenth Amendment states “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.” This reflects the importance of limited government to the people at the time it was written, and the fear that a government will attempt to claim powers for which the people haven’t consented.

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