The very least possible.
Post a vanity as news! Save us all!
As little as possible. Protect America with proper military. Balance budget yearly. Follow the Constitution.
Leave us alone.
– Federalist Paper #45, paragraph #9.
The Constitution clearly says that the Feds’ role is only to provide for the common defense, manage foreign relations, protect citizens’ constitutional rights, establish federal courts; apply and explain federal law (in the judiciary’s case); and a few other minor issues. No branch of the Federal Government is authorized to handle any other issues. So the federal establishment should be strictly limited to these tasks; all others should be reassigned to the states, local governments, and individual Americans.
Of course, the Congress should adequate finance the few agencies that perform constitutional tasks, while auditing and supervising them, and ensuring that their budgets are well spent. Indeed, the federal government even has a few constitutional obligations, such as defense.
See Artcicle II, Section 8.
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“What is the government supposed to do?”
“The government”? We have lots of “governments”; Federal, State, Local.
What is government supposed to do?
Secure our rights.
Establish just laws (”...the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.”)
Administer those laws justly.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Th one thing the gun grabbers don’t want people to know is the 2nd amendment does not only to allow us to protect ourselves from criminal activity but more than that to protects ourselves from the government.
Only what the private sector cannot.
Much, much less than it is doing now.
Vanities survive best in chat.
Our government has survived this long because it was only fairly recently that those who lust for power (liberals) have discovered the wink link: the judiciary. Control that and you can make the federal government as totalitarian as any dictatorship while appearing to be "for the people"...
Not a whole Hell of a lot!
Only that which we cannot do for ourselves.
And then, only that which we, the people, have given it permission to do as written in our Constitution.