Overview

Restoring constitutional government is the chief object of my campaign. The Constitution delegates certain powers and functions to the federal government -- mostly only national defense and the federal judiciary. The 9th and 10th Amendments to the Constitution spell out exactly what the Constitution was meant to do:

IX. The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

This means, very simply, that your rights don't have to be listed ("enumerated") specifically in the Bill of Rights. The federal government can't deny you any right that wasn't deliberately taken from you by the Constitution. You have a right to privacy, you have a right to say what you want, you have a right to put whatever you want in your own body, you have a right to defend yourself and your family without interference from the government, you have a right to refuse to join the government's retirement scheme, you have a right to choose your own medicines and health care without interference from the government.

You can see how far America has strayed from its Constitutional foundation.

X. 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.

This means, very simply, that the federal government has no business in any activity that isn't specifically authorized in the Constitution. The federal government has no authority to be involved in any way in education, health care, welfare, law enforcement, the retirement business, or anything else the Constitution hasn't specified.

And it's obvious the Founding Fathers knew what they were doing. The federal government has created havoc in all of these areas. But there's even more involved: a Constitutional government would cost a small fraction of today's federal budget. We could finance national defense, the judiciary, and the few other Constitutional functions with just the tariffs and excise taxes already being collected. A Constitutional government could survive easily without the income tax.

And that is the basis for The Great Libertarian Offer:

Would you give up your favorite federal programs if it meant you'd never have to pay income tax again?

The Quotable Harry Browne: On the Constitution

"We need to reduce the government to just the functions authorized in the Constitution. Then, if you believe that leaves the federal government too big or too little, you can work to amend the Constitution to make it more to your liking. But the first step is to establish limits, so that we no longer have unlimited government that the politicians can use for anything they want."

"If you want Constitutional government, you want a federal government about a tenth of its present size. That means that if a Democrat or Republican is elected President, government will be about ten times too big for you. But if a Libertarian is elected, government might turn out to be 5% too big or too small for your taste. So, obviously, there's no contest: only the Libertarian comes close to what you want."