“...NYT is either clueless, or probably blatantly ignoring, that Congress cannot constitutionally justify most of the taxes that it makes people pay, most federal domestic policy based on state powers and state revenues that the corrupt, post-17th Amendment ratification feds steal from the states....”
Most of them have already been “Constitutionally justified” by USSC decisions. I don’t necessarily agree with the decisions, but they are there. If there haven’t been such a decision, no one thought success was likely if challenging them. Remember someone has to bring the case to the Court. It can’t look for cases!
Almost every USSC decision of the FDR era should be reexamined. One of the most heinous USSC decisions and one which the regulatory state is based on is Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942). (USSC decision that dramatically increased the regulatory power of the federal government.) There are several others - like SS. (Where in the Constitution is there permission for a national federally administered retirement program?). A lot of those decisions made by the USSC were made under duress. FDR & cronies were trying to pack the court at the time.
A recent (1964) USSC decision that has devastated states with large urban areas was Reynolds v. Sims. The now forgotten Illinois senator Evertt Dirksen prophesized what that decision would do to his state and others. He led an effort to convene an Article V convention for an amendment to the Constitution that would allow for legislative districts of unequal population. (Probably unequal population state senatorial districts is good enough!)
Only Clarence Thomas has made some indications that he would like to see the Court revisit some of those decisions.
"Almost every USSC decision of the FDR era should be reexamined."
Yes, FDR's New Deal programs were based on stolen state powers imo.
But the federal government arguably started overreaching its constitutionally limited powers before the ink on the Constitution had dried imo, President Washington wrongly signing Hamilton's national bank into law regardless that the delegates to the Constitutional Convention had decided not to give banking powers to Congress for example.
The delegates were arguably naive in thinking that Englishmen could stop thinking within the framework of British legal system merely with words on paper imo.
Consider the hypothetical Pledge of Allegiance on the day that the drafters signed the Constitution.
"I Pledge Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands One Nation Under God Indivisible with Liberty and Justice for all.Oh, ... and G-d save the King!"