Congress' monument to self distorts the constitution

The Capitol Visitors Center

“In the summer because of the heat and high humidity, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol. It may be descriptive but it's true."

That is what Senator Harry Reid had to say about the grand opening of the new Capitol Visitors Center, a new addition to Washington, DC, which will accommodate those smelly tourists (mostly American taxpayers); so as not to offend Reid’s delicate olfactory senses. While Reid may be spared the BO of the unwashed masses, unfortunately American taxpayers still have to endure Reid’s own stench: the BS he routinely spouts.

The CVC is a multimillion dollar boondoggle ($356 million over budget complete with lawmaker offices, movie theater, and restaurant) designed to corral visitors to the capitol grounds in a labyrinthine “holding pen” as Marc Fisher of the Washington Post calls it. Fisher is appalled by the project’s vast size and gargantuan price tag. Despite this, Fisher is enthralled by the “meaty content” of the center’s main exhibition.

What is this “meaty content?”

In describing the Constitution the exhibit declares that it sets up “six aspirations” for Congress: unity, knowledge, freedom, defense, exploration, and the general welfare.

Aspirations? Silly me, here I was taught the Constitution was a document explicitly stating the divided powers of the three branches of the federal government. What happened to the document describing negative liberties on the government to ensure individual freedom (as enshrined in the Bill of Rights). Jettisoned is James Madison’s (architect of the Constitution) admonition:

“If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions.”

For starters, the founders looked upon “unity” with great skepticism, hence the reason they devised a system of divided government to curb the excesses of faction i.e. too much unity. Madison again explains why:

"Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature"

The unity exhibit originally labeled E pluribus unum the Latin rendering of “out of many one” as our national motto. It isn’t. Our national motto, as established by Congress in 1956, is “In God We Trust.”

The Washington Times points out that in a clever conceit under the “knowledge” aspiration the exhibit selectively edits the Constitution to give the appearance that Congress has powers it in fact does not.

"Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, reducing the full explanation - "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" - to an expansive grant: "The Congress shall have Power To ... promote ... useful Arts."

The display says that grant of powers is the basis under which Congress founded the Library of Congress, "promoted public education, supported the arts and sciences, and funded extensive research."

Expansive grants of power come in for a rosy treatment as well in a “rah rah” section on Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, a certain bête noire of mine. The exhibit calls the New Deal “a creative burst of energy that initiated economic recovery” Except that it didn’t as economic historian Burt Folsom explains:

That "creative burst of energy" almost ruined the country. It produced the NRA and AAA, for example, both of which were so poorly crafted and so outlandish in action that the Supreme Court declared them unconstitutional (in the case of the NRA, by a 9-0 vote). Jacob Maged did not have his "confidence and prosperity" restored; he went to jail for giving a nickel discount to customers who wanted their pants pressed. That 100 days was the worst constitutional and economic debacle in U.S. history. The 79 percent top tax rate that ultimately resulted from that spending orgy was the highest in U.S. history and kept the high unemployment going for six more years. In the early months of 1939, six years after that miraculous 100 days, the U.S. still had 20 percent unemployment. So much for the promised "economic recovery"

Heritage Foundation Scholar Matthew Spalding said of the CVC, “In this distorted view, the Constitution is an empty vessel, to be adapted to the times, as change requires. It means nothing — or anything.”

He’s right, and given that Congress has long been accused—and guilty—of ignoring the Constitution, I can’t think of a more fitting monument. Unfortunately, with the monumental civic illiteracy of many Americans the irony of it all is lost.