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Comment by lesuorac | Hacker News Reader

> Speaking of the Constitution, what is the Constitutional basis for this large structure of federal funding for the sciences? Nothing in Article I, Section 8 appears to cover it: the encouragement of science appears to be limited to copyright and patent monopolies.

This is like saying I read the first sentence of the wikipedia article and it doesn't mention something so it must not exist.

Congress authorized it in 1950; it's extremely visible. [1]

> The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is authorized and governed by the "National Science Foundation Act of 1950," as amended, as well as other statutes authorizing NSF activities and making appropriations to the agency.

[1]: https://new.nsf.gov/about/authorizing-legislation

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Yes, 42 U.S.C. 1861, et seq is the legal basis for the NSF. What’s the Constitutional basis for that law? The Congress only has the powers granted in Article I and further amendments. For example, the Congress does not have the power to regulate rents outside of federal territories. Which enumerated power enables 42 U.S.C 1861?

The Tenth Amendment clearly states, ‘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.’ If the Constitution does not grant a power to the Congress, it does not have it and it has no more legislative authority in that regard than you or I do.

Uh, Congress absolutely does how the power to charge money outside of federal territories [1] and it's a long standing complaint of ex-pats that they have to pay federal taxes.

Section 7 [2] lets them write laws as well as Section 8 [4] . Section 8 aslo lets them pay for it [3].

[1]: https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/us-c...

[2]: https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-1/#ar...

[3]: https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-1/#ar...

[4]: https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-1/#ar...

> Congress absolutely does how the power to charge money outside of federal territories

Of course it does. It has no power to regulate rents outside of federal territories, which is what I wrote. It cannot pass national rent control, for example.

> Section 7 lets them write laws as well as Section 8

Section 7 describes how bills are passed; Section 8 describes what those bills may do. Congress has no Constitutional power to require that every home in the United States have yellow shutters. I feel like this should be uncontroversial! I’m genuinely surprised anyone thinks otherwise.

“While, therefore, the power to tax is not unlimited, its confines are set in the clause which confers it, and not in those of section 8 which bestow and define the legislative powers of the Congress. It results that the power of Congress to authorize expenditure of public moneys for public purposes is not limited by the direct grants of legislative power found in the Constitution.“

https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep...

Oh boy, wait until you read [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn], where the Supreme Court ruled that growing food for your own use, on your own land falls within the boundaries of the interstate commerce clause, and hence can be regulated by the Federal gov’t.

Funding the NSF fits neatly into the commerce clause; which is a tent large enough to cover practically anything since Wickard v. Filburn.

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