No government ever reduces the scope of its influence or power. “We have to pass more laws and regulations’ is the prime directive of bureaucracies.
It matters not that HHS, Education, and a slew of other agencies are a waste and not part of the power of the federal government under the constitution. All three branches decided these ARE in the constitutional, and the government has the last word.
All those SCOTUS cites predate the “new” commerce clause jurisprudence, started around Schecter Poultry and running through Wickard v. Filburn and more recently the pot decision, Raich.
Even gun regulation is now justified as constitutional by dint of commerce clause. And if that doesn’t work, Roberts will just relabel the law as a tax. All taxes are constitutional.
The voters actually have the last word imo. But corrupt, post-17th Amendment (17A) ratification activist lawmakers, presidents and justices have seized the opportunity provided by widespread, inexcusable ignorance of the federal government’s constitutionally limited powers to trick ordinary voters into turning the Oval Office into a throne room imo.
Regarding Wickard v. Filburn (Wickard), that’s when FDR’s state sovereignty-ignoring activist justices scandalously started the political nullification of 10th Amendment (10A)-protected state sovereignty, including effectively nullifying the unique Article V power of the states to amend the Constitution.
More specifically, using inappropriate terms like “concept” and “implicit,” here is what was left of 10A by FDR’s activist justices in Wickard after the last of state sovereignty-respecting majority justices had appropriately emphasized that amendment in United States v. Butler.
"10th Amendment: 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."
”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.
"In discussion and decision, the point of reference, instead of being what was "necessary and proper" to the exercise by Congress of its granted power, was often some concept [???] of sovereignty thought to be implicit [??? emphases added] in the status of statehood." —Wickard v. Filburn, 1942.
Ongoing abuse of their 17A power by ordinary voters sending crooks to DC has really finished off 10A and Article V imo.
Think of this political mayhem as crooks following the money, following the unconstitutional federal taxes, taxes that corrupt Congress cannot justify under its constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers.
"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
Insights welcome.