[Rodney King]

An army, of some sort, quite different than today, is authorized,

Originally the Air Force was part of the Army... so even if a pure libertarian might argue that the Air Force as its own department is unconstitutional, its not like we would not have been able to field the Army Air corps.

[Dog Gone]

Well, HELL, let's call everything part of the Army!

It's all a semantics game!!

Glad to know how you Libertarians actually analyze things.

[KevinDavis]

The Air Force as its own is not unconstitutional........

[supercat]

Originally the Air Force was part of the Army... so even if a pure libertarian might argue that the Air Force as its own department is unconstitutional, its not like we would not have been able to field the Army Air corps.

In the days when airplanes took weeks or months to design and build, there would have been no problem regarding the Air Corps as being a branch of the Army. The only time I see a Constitutional issue with the Air Force is when Congress grants appropriations for projects that will take more than two years to build. One could probably finagle things by declaring that the Air Force was part of the Navy, and thus not subject to the two-year restriction. That would raise some interesting issues; as I see it, there are two reasons the Founders singled out the Navy:

1. Ships were large projects, which could easily require more than two years to design and build. Nothing needed by a land army would even come close.
2. Ships are limited to operating on water; even if a rogue government wanted to use the Navy against the citizenry, it would be powerless against any citizens who lived inland.

I think the Air Force clearly meets property #1, but does not meet property #2. To be sure, even today's Navy doesn't totally meet property #2 any more, but it would still be better to specifically authorize the Air Force than to pretend that the whole thing is a branch of the Navy.