The U.S. Constitution grants several powers to Congress, which are primarily outlined in Article I, Section 8. These powers include: 1. The power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States. 2. The power to borrow money on the credit of the United States. 3. The power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, among the several states, and with the Indian tribes. 4. The power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States. 5. The power to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures. 6. The power to provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States. 7. The power to establish post offices and post roads. 8. The power to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing, for limited times, to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. 9. The power to constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court. 10. The power to define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations. 11. The power to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water. 12. The power to raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years. 13. The power to provide and maintain a navy. 14. The power to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces. 15. The power to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions. 16. The power to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively the appointment of the officers and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress. 17. The power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings. These powers, along with the Necessary and Proper Clause (sometimes referred to as the Elastic Clause), grant Congress the authority to make laws necessary and proper to carry out its enumerated powers and all other powers vested by the Constitution in the government or any department or officer thereof.