The US Constitution allows congress to spend on things other than defense

A reply to Two Dogs, who argues strongly that the Constitution restricts the Federal Government to national defense only and exclusively.

Naturally I think you're wrong TD. And here's why:

Section 8:

The Congress shall have power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.

Tax in order to provide for the General Welfare?

The Constitution does not give any explicit limit to what the government can spend its money on. Nor does it give any limit to the amount of tax revenue it can raise. Nor does it explicitly (or implicitly) support the notion of "small government".

Amendment 16 says:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

What? Nothing there about what congress is not allowed to spend money on? Why? Perhaps because the framers of the constitution expected the government to spend money in order to provide for the common welfare!

You state

The Fed is there for one purpose, to protect the citizens of this country

yet the constitution actually says:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The writers of the constitution did not limit it just to "the common defence".

But, of course, is this an "originalist" interpretation? Why not check out the Federalist papers on this?

Federalist Paper 30 starts off with:

IT HAS been already observed that the federal government ought to possess the power of providing for the support of the national forces; in which proposition was intended to be included the expense of raising troops, of building and equipping fleets, and all other expenses in any wise connected with military arrangements and operations. But these are not the only objects to which the jurisdiction of the Union, in respect to revenue, must necessarily be empowered to extend. It must embrace a provision for the support of the national civil list; for the payment of the national debts contracted, or that may be contracted; and, in general, for all those matters which will call for disbursements out of the national treasury. The conclusion is, that there must be interwoven, in the frame of the government, a general power of taxation, in one shape or another.

All this disproves the notion that the constitution limits the federal government to spending on national defence only and exclusively. Rather, it proves that congress may raise taxes and increase revenue in order to promote general welfare and institute domestic tranquillity.