Constitutional Checks

The Republicans tried to sell the idea that every bill should be explicitly permitted by the constitution. Normally a bill is considered constitutional unless it contradicts the constitution. By Republican thinking, there could be no bills about cars, trains, airplanes, electricity, highways, telephones, computers, credit cards, ATM (Automated Teller Machine) s, the Internet… since none of those things even existed at the time of the constitution, much less explicitly mentioned in it.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)