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American Government Lecture Two (view source)

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All laws passed by Congress must be based on one of its powers (specific clauses in the Constitution).
 
All laws passed by Congress must be based on one of its powers (specific clauses in the Constitution).
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== Federal Power is Limited ==
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A fundamental aspect of our constitutional system is that the power of our federal (national) government '''''is limited'''''.  It is easy to forget this because the media rarely mention this.  State and local authority is unlimited (except by the Bill of Rights, which establish specific rights like free speech that no level of American government can infringe upon).  But the power of the United States government is limited by what is given to it by the U.S. Constitution.
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Here are some examples of what the federal government is '''''without power to do''''':
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*establish a public school in your neighborhood.
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*stop someone for driving too fast.
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*take children away from parents.
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*prohibit or regulate homeschooling.
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*pick up garbage every week.
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*perform a marriage ceremony.
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*define the minimum age for the purchase of alcohol.
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Can you think of additional examples?
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Now you may be wondering why you sometimes hear presidential candidates mention issues that relate to some of the above examples.  The reason is that the federal government has grown so large that it often affects the above issues, and almost any issue, by how it spends money.  For example, federal spending does affect public school and homeschooling.  One example is a clever provision placed into the "No Child Left Behind" law by homeschoolers that prohibits public schools from accepting certain federal money if they require homeschoolers to take the same exams that public school students take.  This helped block an attempt in New Jersey to require homeschoolers to take the biased, atheistic public school exams every year.  If New Jersey were ever to impose such a requirement on homeschoolers, then New Jersey would lose millions of dollars in federal funding, and some public school teachers would lose their jobs.  So New Jersey is not likely to interfere with homeschooling in this manner.
    
== How Laws are Made ==
 
== How Laws are Made ==
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