A few months ago, President Trump floated the idea of getting rid of the National Endowment for the Arts and its companion, the National Endowment for the Humanities. Both belong on the chopping block, most centrally because the federal government has no constitutional authority to subsidize the arts, the humanities, and a host of other things. (And please don’t say that the general-welfare clause makes it okay — that’s another constitutional abuse.)

In my latest Forbes article, I write about a particularly laughable federal grant — $10,000 to Borderlands Theater in Tucson, Ariz., to support something called “Stand with Saguaros.” Patrons get to go out into the desert at night and stand among the giant cacti, then report their feelings. Guess what? The people find it makes them feel “connected” and “resilient.” Anyone in the area can do that for free almost any time.

The entire budget for the NEA and NEH are just drops in the federal bucket, but emblematic of the very serious budgetary problems we are facing, all due to the destruction of the Constitution’s limits on what the government may spend money on.