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My copy of the Constitution says that the President can only establish these offices with the advice and consent of the Senate, and the funding of said offices is only by the consent of the House of Representatives, who shall not establish or fund any office not in support of their limited powers.
Looks like Ron Paul may know about the Constitution than you do.
Ron Paul doesn't know more than the United States Supreme Court which, for decades, has held that Congress may delegate power to executive agencies:
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Despite some dicta to the contrary, it appears that there is no power Congress cannot delegate. ''[A] constitutional power implies a power of delegation of authority under it sufficient to effect its purposes.'' 97 Denying that it had ever suggested that the taxing power was nondelegable, the Court has placed that congressional authority on the same plane of permissible delegation. 98 Nor is there a problem with the fact that in exercising a delegated power the President or another officer may effectively suspend or rescind a law passed by Congress. A rule or regulation properly promulgated under authority received from Congress is law and under the supremacy clause of the Constitution can preempt state law, 99 and likewise it can supersede a federal statute. Early cases sustained giving the President upon the finding of certain facts to revive or suspend a law, 100 and the President's power to raise or lower tariff rates equipped him to alter statutory law. 101 Similarly, in Opp Cotton Mills v. Administrator, 102 Congress' decision to delegate to the Wage and Hour Administrator of the Labor Department the authority, after hearings and findings by an industry committee appointed by him, to establish a minimum wage in particular industries greater than the statutory minimum but no higher than a prescribed figure was sustained. Congress has not often expressly addressed the issue of repeals or supersessions, but in authorizing the Supreme Court to promulgate rules of civil and criminal proce dure and of evidence it directed that such rules supersede previously enacted statutes with which they conflicted. 103
Recent concerns in the scholarly literature with respect to the scope of the delegation doctrine, 104 have been reflected within the judicial writings of some of the Justices. 105 Nonetheless, the Court's most recent decisions evidence no doubt of the constitutional propriety of very broad delegations, 106 and the practice will doubtlessly remain settled.
That's from a Findlaw article about the constitution. Perhaps Ron Paul ought to learn something about, oh, say the last 70 years or so of agency law.
These departments exist because congress has approved them, funded them, and delegated power to them. They are constitutional. Except to Ron Paul supporters, who make wild, unsupported claims that are belied by decades of Supreme Court precedent.
If Ron Paul wants to be the commander in chief, he'd better start explaining how he's going to protect the country after he eliminates the CIA and the FBI. Or perhaps information about terrorism, and the investigation and enforcement of federal laws that prohibit (for example) the passing of fake US currency, are simply presidential duties that don't interest Ron Paul.
Sorry, old law school joke. My honest answer is no. While again I grant you that the investigative powers of most of these agencies (not all) would dimnish if we had a reasonable construction of the commerce clause, that doesn't have anything to do with their existence. The federal government does have the authority to make law and agencies such as the ATF and the FBI and DEA certianly have a place to enforce those laws. Whether they have gone beyond their scope is a different matter than whether they are appropriate at all. 