I copied this paragraph from the article Amos provided a link to:

This is the vision Chief Justice Marshall embraced in Gibbons when he wrote that the "wisdom and the discretion of Congress, their identity with the people, and the influence which their constituents posses at elections" are the most robust limits on Congress's commerce power. If national leaders want to cast aside the minimum wage, allow poor children to toil in sweatshops, and eliminate Social Security and Medicare, than they have that right. But the American people must also have the power to swiftly cast such fools out of office.

Unfortunately it appears that this year the American people are determined to cast such fools into office. One of the most frustrating aspects of U.S. politics is how often working class people are tricked into voting against their own best interest. I mean, if someone is proposing a tax cut for the wealthy that would benefit 3% of the population at the expense of everyone else, you would think it had a snowballs chance in hell of going through. but if pollsters are right, congress will fall into the hands of people who wish to do exactly that. Howard Zinn in "The Peoples' History of the United States" makes the case that over our entire history there is example after example of the powerful using divide and conquer techniques to play one oppressed group off against another to preserve their own interests. It started in the colonial era when poor frontiers people were used to create a buffer zone between Natives and the established territories along the Atlantic coast. It continued into the industrial age when playing off one ethnic group against another kept them fighting each other when they actually had a common enemy in the factory and mine owners. Look at the anti-Irish sentiments held by working people during the mass immigration caused by the potato famine and the ban on African-American membership in most labor unions