Whenever a new bill is introduced in Congress or is being proposed by one party or the other, every voter should be armed with some key questions for the supporters of the proposal. Karl Uppiano, writing for American Thinker has some suggestions for the Tea Party movement.
If you are a part of the Tea Party movement, you might sometimes wonder, “What can I do?” Well, you can memorize, or print out and carry in your pocket, these three questions:
1. Which article of the Constitution gives government the authority to do this?
2. How does this help reduce the deficit and balance the budget?
3. Why does this have to be mandatory and not voluntary?
These are three pretty good questions that will force supporters of proposed legislation to defend their position. However, I think there are at least two other questions that should be asked:
4. How dosed this proposal help to create jobs and/or promote economic growth?
5. Why does this need to be done at the federal level and not at the state level?
What other important question would you want to ask?
Asylum Watch 
“Why does this need to be done at the federal level and not at the state level?”
Right? DC already does too much and has too much power as it is. If they get any more muscle, they’ll be almost unstoppable.
The mandatory/voluntary thing is really critical too.
Another question-Does this legislation address an actual problem for US citizens or is it just meant to empower politicians over the people?
Now that is a good question; Why is this necessary? Thanks, KS.
Why must we always do something. Texas legislature meets every two years. How about taking a break after we fix the “order” thing with Zero.
Why? That is always a good question. Thanks, Bunkerville.
These are really excellent questions, including the two from your commenters. One thing for sure, we must never ignore any of this again. Boehner says each Bill will have a page where the author gives the Constitutional authority and is signed by the author.
That’s well and good, but I expect some conversation to go along with that on the floor of the House, especially if other House members see no correlation and no authority.
It will be our job to do the same. Verify, verify, verify.
Thanks Maggie. You are right. They can always make the claim that the proposed law is in compliance with some part of the constitution, but that doesn’t make it right. We have thousands of laws. Do we really need more?
These question need to be asked in committees so they never make it to the floor. They also need to ask who is requesting we make a new law?
Who wants us to use government, which is force, to require conformance to a new standard? Who benefits,who loses? Since most new laws have to do with picking winners and losers, most new laws do not conform to the spirit and intent of our Constitution, which designed a limited government that was only established to protect rights, not deny them.
Of course our government is too corrupt now to believe that this is the way they will conduct business.
However, if they were to set a priority of sifting out the corrupt, repealing bad laws- rather than writing new laws, they would be one of the most successful congresses in modern times, something we sorely need.
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/corruption-in-congress.html
“Repealing old laws instead of writing new laws”
Now that would be a Congress we all could respect. And thanks for the link, Dave, I’ve bookmarked it for future use.
“How does this help reduce the deficit and balance the budget?”
Change that to – How does this turn the deficit into a surplus and return money to the taxpayer?
Another question i’d add to the list – How does this reduce the size of the government?
And bunkerville has an excellent question, why must the government always do something, apart from pissing off and leaving everyone the heck alone.
Now we are talking. Good points,MK.