I've always had a soft spot for strict Constitutionalists, and this week Dr. Walter E. Williams wrote a brilliant op-ed about government powers and spending. Williams quotes James Madison in Federalist paper 45:

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will for the most part be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people; and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.

Williams rightly points out that if Madison were alive today, he would have been tarred and feathered for pushing fiscal conservativeness. Congressmen on both sides of the aisle don't think twice about seizing money from hard working Americans to spend on "bailouts for airlines, prescription drugs, education, Social Security," and just about everything else; with no Constitutional authority. Given that we are the ones that keep sending the same bums back to Capitol Hill, we have only ourselves to blame.