But that also doesn't mean that it IS. The outside world's perception has absolutely no bearing, yay or nay, on how homogenous the US is. End of story. The US is not homogenous, yet.
2) Only with Congress' consent
Which he gets, usually, so that's still constitutional, don't nitpick.
4) He can introduce but Congress is under no obligation to even consider it.
5) He can sign them only. The signing statements that have been added to damn near every bill Bush has signed (not that nobody else before him has dont it, just on a smaller scale) are unconstitutional.
Once again, you nitpicking, you said name currently used constitutional presidential powers, I did. What else he does that is unconstitutional is immaterial. Besides, the Constitution is not holy writ, the Supreme Court was made specifically to interpret the constitution, and there are the amendments, anyways, your argument is about 200 years too late, the days of the strict constructionists are long over. And the biggest offender against the constitution has to be Roosevelt anyway, he did more to increase the presidents power than any other. But you probably already knew that.
1) Congress can write and pass laws on very, very few things. Off the top of my head I'd say less than 10% of all laws Congress has passed in the last 20 years were Constitutionally allowed.
Nevertheless, they are allowed to pass them. Powers are easier than laws, it's hard to say whether some laws are constitutional or not, because the Constitution is very unspecific on laws, it prohibits some yes, but mostly it just says congress can pass them, it doesn't proscribe exactly what sort of laws can be passed.
4) Incorrect. Congress has made a privately owned central bank (Federal Reserve) but it's not Constitutional. As an aside, anyone who says Bill Gates is the richest man in the world needs to study the Federal Reserve a lot more closely. As a point of reference they could lose every penny they had and in a matter of months they could completely buy out Bill Gates.
They have the power to print money, the bank is debatable, not speciifically prohibited, and is a logical step. The power to print money IS specifically outlined in the constitution. The Federal reserve is not owned by one person, so Gates is the richest MAN in the world. The US government is the richest GOVERNMENT in the world.
5) I had thought that Congress could create bureaus to enforce the laws it has enacted, but the only thing I see in the Congressional section of the Constitution providing for bureaus is one provision allowing for the USPS.
Well if one is allowed, and others not specifically prohibited, how are they unconstitutional? As I said the time of the strict constructionist is long over.
As we discussed before the Civil War like every conflict had a number of causes, but states rights was by far and away the most dominant one. I'm not sure how exactly loss of states rights was a price we paid for a unified country. A more accurate statement would be to say that 2 seperate countries was nearly the price we had to pay for losing state's rights, not the other way around.
States rights, specifically the right to decide whether to be a slave state or free state, and the right to secede were probably the dominant factors, but there were certianly others that came close, such as the whole issue of the North, in taking away slaves, was trying to destroy the South's economy. But I am right when I say we the loss of state's rights was the price the country paid to stay unified. The states lost the right to determine several things, such as free or slave state status, and they lost their right to secede.
It is said that when Rincewind dies, the occult ability of the human race will go UP by a fraction. -Terry Pratchett
