Is the US Department of Education a constitutional exercise of congressional authority? No, argues Cato’s Adam Schaeffer in this post. That is because the Constitution does not enumerate any power by which any branch of the federal government can spend money on or assert control over education. In the post, he disputes another blogger who believes that since the Constitution is silent on federal educational power, it must then be an open question. Sorry, but that isn’t how the document reads. No federal authority is the default condition and only if there is a specific grant of power does the federal government have any role to play. The Tenth Amendment makes that clear. Why is this so hard for many to grasp?