This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the LandU.S. Const., Art VI, Cl. 2.
U.S. code outside the enumerated powers delegated by the Constitution to feds are invalid and void. Thus, your Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) not passed by Congress is unconstitutional because ONLY CONGRESS may pass national law. The IRS is validated, unfortunately, by the Sixteenth Amendment.
I think it is intuitive the US government cannot be operated solely by the Constitution.
Then you're a good Anti-American Leftist in favor of unlimited government and federal tyranny which by definition are unconstitutional acts of the feds.
The NSA is constitutional because the federal government created it
Hardly. It is part of the, “administrative state” in which the authority to make regulations (effective as laws) is unlimited, centralized, and delegated to unelected bureaucrats.
You need to get out of the beltway for awhile so you can see the chaotic mess you are in the middle of in D.C. But if you actually think it is valid for the federal government to go outside its constitutional authority, then I don't know why you are on this site which stands for our Free Constitutional Republic.
And if you actually think it is valid for the federal government to go outside its constitutional authority, we have no common ground to have a coherent discussion here because my whole premise is the Constitution is the Supreme law of the land and there is NO valid federal act outside enumerated constitutional authority (id.).
The problem I have, and you have not answered, is if you think the Constitution should be the sole document (no other) to IMPLEMENT law?
Case in point. Title 10 of US Code for the Armed Forces. The Constitution does not spell out how defending the nation should be performed, but its authority is derived from the Constitution itelf.
If you posit that the Constitution and nothing else can run the government, then you are a lonely man with that view. No one believes that but you. No one. It is the first I've heard of it, and I am a staunch constitutionalist. I can tell you no one would be able to do their jobs without implementing instructions (not talking about authority).
I would enjoy Mark Levin or Chris Plant opining on this because as it stands, it is a freak show proposition. So congrats.