California embodies left-wing misery

[hadit]

Our Tenth Amendment is clear. The general power to provide for the general welfare cannot sacrifice the end to the means; we have no general badfare or general warfare clause.

The 10th Amendment is clear. And yet, somehow, you managed to fuck it up. So here it is again, as not a single word of what you just stated, resides in it:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Plain as day. Anything outside of the 18 enumerated powers in the US Constitution is illegal for the federal government to engage in.

Providing for the general welfare is expressed not implied in any way.

Yet you insist that it implies the government can do whatever it wants to in the name of "general welfare". That's not how it works, because you change the meaning of "general welfare" to fit whatever it is that you want at the time. Try this one on for size. The 2nd Amendment prevents the government from infringing on the right to own weapons. The "general welfare" clause is now interpreted to mean that it is in the best interests of the citizenry that citizens be allowed to defend themselves with firearms, because I say so. Thus, gun ownership is doubly protected.

We have to quibble that the general welfare cannot be the general badfare.

No, we do not. The clause CLEARLY was not intended to grant the federal government power to do whatever was trendy at the time in the name of the general welfare. THAT'S what you have to prove, and you have to go far beyond just insisting over and over again that it was. Post some writings of the people who wrote the clause and voted on it that support your assertion.

Both promote and provide are used in regard to the general welfare not the common defense. To the extent we don't enjoy perfect knowledge anything that promotes the general welfare will do; optimization should happen on a routine basis.

Post some writings of the people who wrote the clause and voted on it that support your assertion, don't just keep insisting you're right.

 

[miketx]

California is a self made shithole comparable to none.

 

[danielpalos]

Our Tenth Amendment is clear. The general power to provide for the general welfare cannot sacrifice the end to the means; we have no general badfare or general warfare clause.

The 10th Amendment is clear. And yet, somehow, you managed to fuck it up. So here it is again, as not a single word of what you just stated, resides in it:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Plain as day. Anything outside of the 18 enumerated powers in the US Constitution is illegal for the federal government to engage in.

Providing for the general welfare is expressed not implied in any way.

Yet you insist that it implies the government can do whatever it wants to in the name of "general welfare". That's not how it works, because you change the meaning of "general welfare" to fit whatever it is that you want at the time. Try this one on for size. The 2nd Amendment prevents the government from infringing on the right to own weapons. The "general welfare" clause is now interpreted to mean that it is in the best interests of the citizenry that citizens be allowed to defend themselves with firearms, because I say so. Thus, gun ownership is doubly protected.

We have to quibble that the general welfare cannot be the general badfare.

No, we do not. The clause CLEARLY was not intended to grant the federal government power to do whatever was trendy at the time in the name of the general welfare. THAT'S what you have to prove, and you have to go far beyond just insisting over and over again that it was. Post some writings of the people who wrote the clause and voted on it that support your assertion.

Both promote and provide are used in regard to the general welfare not the common defense. To the extent we don't enjoy perfect knowledge anything that promotes the general welfare will do; optimization should happen on a routine basis.

Post some writings of the people who wrote the clause and voted on it that support your assertion, don't just keep insisting you're right.

I am getting it from our Constitution, expressly.

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; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

You confuse everything that may be done for general welfare with anything that could be done for the general badfare or the general warfare.

 

[danielpalos]

California is a self made shithole comparable to none.

Still the largest economy in the US and moving toward non-fossil fuels.

 

[miketx]

California is a self made shithole comparable to none.

Still the largest economy in the US and moving toward non-fossil fuels.

Total unmitigated bullshit. You are a lying sack of shit.

 

[danielpalos]

California is a self made shithole comparable to none.

Still the largest economy in the US and moving toward non-fossil fuels.

Total unmitigated bullshit. You are a lying sack of shit.

Yes, you are. Why do you want to be taken seriously?

 

[Nostra]

Our Tenth Amendment is clear. The general power to provide for the general welfare cannot sacrifice the end to the means; we have no general badfare or general warfare clause.

The 10th Amendment is clear. And yet, somehow, you managed to fuck it up. So here it is again, as not a single word of what you just stated, resides in it:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Plain as day. Anything outside of the 18 enumerated powers in the US Constitution is illegal for the federal government to engage in.

Providing for the general welfare is expressed not implied in any way.

Yet you insist that it implies the government can do whatever it wants to in the name of "general welfare". That's not how it works, because you change the meaning of "general welfare" to fit whatever it is that you want at the time. Try this one on for size. The 2nd Amendment prevents the government from infringing on the right to own weapons. The "general welfare" clause is now interpreted to mean that it is in the best interests of the citizenry that citizens be allowed to defend themselves with firearms, because I say so. Thus, gun ownership is doubly protected.

We have to quibble that the general welfare cannot be the general badfare.

No, we do not. The clause CLEARLY was not intended to grant the federal government power to do whatever was trendy at the time in the name of the general welfare. THAT'S what you have to prove, and you have to go far beyond just insisting over and over again that it was. Post some writings of the people who wrote the clause and voted on it that support your assertion.

Both promote and provide are used in regard to the general welfare not the common defense. To the extent we don't enjoy perfect knowledge anything that promotes the general welfare will do; optimization should happen on a routine basis.

Post some writings of the people who wrote the clause and voted on it that support your assertion, don't just keep insisting you're right.

Here is what they have to say, but it doesn't help him out. In fact, it destroys his bullshit.




From this clause, many have construed the “general Welfare” statement to grant practically unlimited power to Congress to collect and spend the tax payers’ money on whatever cause Congress may invent for the “good” of the government or the people. Is that what the designers of our Constitution intended when they penned those words “general Welfare?”

James Madison, the Father of the Constitution and 4th President suggests that the meaning of the “general Welfare” clause is the exact opposite.

According to the father of the Constitution the powers delegated to the central government “are few and defined and those that remain in the States are numerous and indefinite.” Federalist #45.

Madison also explained that those powers are “reserved to external objects” of “war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce.” He also stated that the central government’s power to tax is intended to be limited to those powers. Federalist #45

In 1792, while serving as a representative to the people of Virginia, Madison made the true meaning of this often abused “general welfare clause,” during a debate on The Cod Fishery Bill. Madison begins by reminding the representatives of what he explained in Federalist #45:

“I sir have always conceived—I believe those who proposed the Constitution conceived—it is still more fully known and more material to observe, that those who ratified the Constitution conceived—that this not an indefinite government…but a limited government tied down to the specific powers.”

Madison knew during the ratification of this Constitution, much discussion was heard on the meaning of the “general welfare” clause, as some delegates were concerned that this clause would offer too much power to the federal government. During the Virginia Ratification Debates, Edmund Randolph explained to Patrick Henry, that the “general welfare clause” did not equate to general powers:

“But in the general Constitution, its powers are enumerated. Is it not, then, fairly deducible, that it has no power but what is expressly given it? – for if its powers were to be general, an enumeration would be needless…But the rhetoric of the gentleman has highly colored the dangers of giving the general government an indefinite power of providing for the general welfare. I contend that no such power is given.” [emphasis mine]

As Madison also reminds the House, this very specific and limited meaning of the “general welfare clause” was the accepted meaning by those who ratified the Constitution. Then Madison continues in 1792, to explain that the “General Welfare clause” was added to instruct the federal government in the purpose of the limited powers being delegated; so the central government would use those delegated powers for the union as a whole, rather than for the benefit of one State over the other. This debate makes it crystal clear, that this is not a blanket power to “do anything you can think of” to promote the so-called general welfare. It is in fact a limitation to direct that the power be wielded equitably.

This definition was so settled in the minds of those who ratified the Constitution, James Madison wrote a letter to James Robertson, Jr. repeating the application of the “general welfare clause” those who ratified the Constitution espoused:

“With respect to the words "General welfare" I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense, would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character, which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its Creators.”[emphasis mine]

Even Thomas Jefferson in his letter of 1817 to Albert Gallatin remarks at how absurd it would be to propose that the “general welfare clause” conveys a general and relatively unlimited power to Congress:

“provide for the general welfare," was an extension of the powers specifically enumerated to whatever would promote the general welfare; and this, you know, was the federal doctrine…that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated; and that, as it was never meant they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers, so it could not have been meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action; consequently, that the specification of powers is a limitation of the purposes for which they may raise money.” [emphasis mine]

The drafters of our Constitution knew the dangers inherent in a federal government unlimited by only its own design. In Cod Fishery Bill debate Madison gives a stern warning to the House of the consequences of interpreting this clause as a general boilerplate power, rather than a description of the intent that the limited powers be used to the general benefit of the entire union. He says if the general welfare clause takes is erroneously given such a broad meaning then we will have a govt that is far more expansive than what the Constitution authorizes:

“…for if the clause in question really authorizes Congress to do whatever they think fit, provided it be for the general welfare, of which they are to judge, and money can be applied to it, Congress must have power to create and support a judiciary establishment, with a jurisdiction extending to all cases favorable, in their opinion, to the general welfare, in the same manner as they have power to pass laws, and apply money providing in any other way for the general welfare….

If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their Own hands; they may appoint teachers in every state, county, and parish, and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision for the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress; for every object I have mentioned would admit of the application of money, and might be called, if Congress pleased, provisions for the general welfare.” James Madison, On The Cod Fishery Bill, Granting Bounties, 1792

It is relevant to note in this discussion that Madison is remarking that it would be an unconstitutional expansion of power for the central government to involve itself in areas such as education, roads, social welfare, and law enforcement. He is speaking to his colleagues in extremes to show his point that interpreting the clauses in this way would result in an unlimited central government, a notion that would have been highly offensive to the men involved in this debate. And had they not been convinced that the central govt was barred by the Constitution form intruding into these areas, they would have never ratified the Constitution.

So according to the Father of the Constitution, the General Welfare clause does not give power or permission for federal involvement in the internal affairs of the States. There is no provision in the Constitution for federal power over parks, schools, preserves, police, hospitals, healthcare, or the myriad of other “programs” funding using the “general welfare clause” as a justification for the increase of their power. And to the contrary, once we see the adoption an erroneously expansive interpretation of the general Welfare clause, and see federal involvement in our schools, local governments, parks, preserves, police, roads, and every minute affair of our lives, we will know we have an absurdly out of control federal government.

As Madison himself said,

“I venture to declare it as my opinion, that, were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America; and what inferences might be drawn, or what consequences ensue, from such a step, it is incumbent on us all to consider.”

Because we have turned Constitutional interpretation over to the musings of those in power, we have allowed those entrusted with the preservation of the Constitution to “transmute” into something other than a Constitutional Republic. In an arrogance magnified by ignorance, the political elite have decided that the wisdom sown into our founding documents and expressed in the profuse writings of its framers does not need to be consulted.

The fact is, this wisdom is tied to over 700 years of lessons in history and 5 foundational Liberty Charters, not to mention the political philosophers and writers that the designers of our Constitution diligently consulted. The question is, where is such negligence leading us? What kind of government are we allowing? Into what have we been transmuted? And as James Madison asked “What consequences might ensue?”

 

[danielpalos]

Our Tenth Amendment is clear. The general power to provide for the general welfare cannot sacrifice the end to the means; we have no general badfare or general warfare clause.

The 10th Amendment is clear. And yet, somehow, you managed to fuck it up. So here it is again, as not a single word of what you just stated, resides in it:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Plain as day. Anything outside of the 18 enumerated powers in the US Constitution is illegal for the federal government to engage in.

Providing for the general welfare is expressed not implied in any way.

Yet you insist that it implies the government can do whatever it wants to in the name of "general welfare". That's not how it works, because you change the meaning of "general welfare" to fit whatever it is that you want at the time. Try this one on for size. The 2nd Amendment prevents the government from infringing on the right to own weapons. The "general welfare" clause is now interpreted to mean that it is in the best interests of the citizenry that citizens be allowed to defend themselves with firearms, because I say so. Thus, gun ownership is doubly protected.

We have to quibble that the general welfare cannot be the general badfare.

No, we do not. The clause CLEARLY was not intended to grant the federal government power to do whatever was trendy at the time in the name of the general welfare. THAT'S what you have to prove, and you have to go far beyond just insisting over and over again that it was. Post some writings of the people who wrote the clause and voted on it that support your assertion.

Both promote and provide are used in regard to the general welfare not the common defense. To the extent we don't enjoy perfect knowledge anything that promotes the general welfare will do; optimization should happen on a routine basis.

Post some writings of the people who wrote the clause and voted on it that support your assertion, don't just keep insisting you're right.

Here is what they have to say, but it doesn't help him out. In fact, it destroys his bullshit.




From this clause, many have construed the “general Welfare” statement to grant practically unlimited power to Congress to collect and spend the tax payers’ money on whatever cause Congress may invent for the “good” of the government or the people. Is that what the designers of our Constitution intended when they penned those words “general Welfare?”

James Madison, the Father of the Constitution and 4th President suggests that the meaning of the “general Welfare” clause is the exact opposite.

According to the father of the Constitution the powers delegated to the central government “are few and defined and those that remain in the States are numerous and indefinite.” Federalist #45.

Madison also explained that those powers are “reserved to external objects” of “war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce.” He also stated that the central government’s power to tax is intended to be limited to those powers. Federalist #45

In 1792, while serving as a representative to the people of Virginia, Madison made the true meaning of this often abused “general welfare clause,” during a debate on The Cod Fishery Bill. Madison begins by reminding the representatives of what he explained in Federalist #45:

“I sir have always conceived—I believe those who proposed the Constitution conceived—it is still more fully known and more material to observe, that those who ratified the Constitution conceived—that this not an indefinite government…but a limited government tied down to the specific powers.”

Madison knew during the ratification of this Constitution, much discussion was heard on the meaning of the “general welfare” clause, as some delegates were concerned that this clause would offer too much power to the federal government. During the Virginia Ratification Debates, Edmund Randolph explained to Patrick Henry, that the “general welfare clause” did not equate to general powers:

“But in the general Constitution, its powers are enumerated. Is it not, then, fairly deducible, that it has no power but what is expressly given it? – for if its powers were to be general, an enumeration would be needless…But the rhetoric of the gentleman has highly colored the dangers of giving the general government an indefinite power of providing for the general welfare. I contend that no such power is given.” [emphasis mine]

As Madison also reminds the House, this very specific and limited meaning of the “general welfare clause” was the accepted meaning by those who ratified the Constitution. Then Madison continues in 1792, to explain that the “General Welfare clause” was added to instruct the federal government in the purpose of the limited powers being delegated; so the central government would use those delegated powers for the union as a whole, rather than for the benefit of one State over the other. This debate makes it crystal clear, that this is not a blanket power to “do anything you can think of” to promote the so-called general welfare. It is in fact a limitation to direct that the power be wielded equitably.

This definition was so settled in the minds of those who ratified the Constitution, James Madison wrote a letter to James Robertson, Jr. repeating the application of the “general welfare clause” those who ratified the Constitution espoused:

“With respect to the words "General welfare" I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense, would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character, which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its Creators.”[emphasis mine]

Even Thomas Jefferson in his letter of 1817 to Albert Gallatin remarks at how absurd it would be to propose that the “general welfare clause” conveys a general and relatively unlimited power to Congress:

“provide for the general welfare," was an extension of the powers specifically enumerated to whatever would promote the general welfare; and this, you know, was the federal doctrine…that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated; and that, as it was never meant they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers, so it could not have been meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action; consequently, that the specification of powers is a limitation of the purposes for which they may raise money.” [emphasis mine]

The drafters of our Constitution knew the dangers inherent in a federal government unlimited by only its own design. In Cod Fishery Bill debate Madison gives a stern warning to the House of the consequences of interpreting this clause as a general boilerplate power, rather than a description of the intent that the limited powers be used to the general benefit of the entire union. He says if the general welfare clause takes is erroneously given such a broad meaning then we will have a govt that is far more expansive than what the Constitution authorizes:

“…for if the clause in question really authorizes Congress to do whatever they think fit, provided it be for the general welfare, of which they are to judge, and money can be applied to it, Congress must have power to create and support a judiciary establishment, with a jurisdiction extending to all cases favorable, in their opinion, to the general welfare, in the same manner as they have power to pass laws, and apply money providing in any other way for the general welfare….

If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their Own hands; they may appoint teachers in every state, county, and parish, and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision for the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress; for every object I have mentioned would admit of the application of money, and might be called, if Congress pleased, provisions for the general welfare.” James Madison, On The Cod Fishery Bill, Granting Bounties, 1792

It is relevant to note in this discussion that Madison is remarking that it would be an unconstitutional expansion of power for the central government to involve itself in areas such as education, roads, social welfare, and law enforcement. He is speaking to his colleagues in extremes to show his point that interpreting the clauses in this way would result in an unlimited central government, a notion that would have been highly offensive to the men involved in this debate. And had they not been convinced that the central govt was barred by the Constitution form intruding into these areas, they would have never ratified the Constitution.

So according to the Father of the Constitution, the General Welfare clause does not give power or permission for federal involvement in the internal affairs of the States. There is no provision in the Constitution for federal power over parks, schools, preserves, police, hospitals, healthcare, or the myriad of other “programs” funding using the “general welfare clause” as a justification for the increase of their power. And to the contrary, once we see the adoption an erroneously expansive interpretation of the general Welfare clause, and see federal involvement in our schools, local governments, parks, preserves, police, roads, and every minute affair of our lives, we will know we have an absurdly out of control federal government.

As Madison himself said,

“I venture to declare it as my opinion, that, were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America; and what inferences might be drawn, or what consequences ensue, from such a step, it is incumbent on us all to consider.”

Because we have turned Constitutional interpretation over to the musings of those in power, we have allowed those entrusted with the preservation of the Constitution to “transmute” into something other than a Constitutional Republic. In an arrogance magnified by ignorance, the political elite have decided that the wisdom sown into our founding documents and expressed in the profuse writings of its framers does not need to be consulted.

The fact is, this wisdom is tied to over 700 years of lessons in history and 5 foundational Liberty Charters, not to mention the political philosophers and writers that the designers of our Constitution diligently consulted. The question is, where is such negligence leading us? What kind of government are we allowing? Into what have we been transmuted? And as James Madison asked “What consequences might ensue?”

Our Commerce Clause has done that.

 

[danielpalos]

Enrolling more militia could enable the State to have more personnel available and help stimulate and automatically stabilize State economies in the process.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

The states in this downturn, even those most productive in the past, have no ability to “monetarize debt.” They will go bankrupt without Federal assistance.

And? So? If they didn’t handle their responsibilities properly, they should go bankrupt. Maybe then their ignorant citizens will stop voting for the failed left-wing ideology.

If many states are forced into bankruptcy because the Federal government aids bankrupt crony capitalists but refuses to aid states dependent on taxation (or laid off workers directly), the crucial services states provide will be drastically cut back. Many more workers will be laid off in the middle of a depression and demand will plummet. Layoffs of hospital workers, cops, disruption of crucial infrastructure maintenance, all will result. Some millions may eventually move to other states or rural areas. But not everyone can or will move. Everywhere crime and chaos will increase.

Some lunatic rural Trumpsters may think they can sit back and enjoy another Great Depression, believing it will mostly effect big cities and Democrats, but Republican states will suffer too, and eventually cutbacks in services and economic decay will hurt everyone. Only the very wealthy will be able to insulate themselves.

 

[danielpalos]

We need national policy to help recover the economy.

 

[Nostra]

Our Tenth Amendment is clear. The general power to provide for the general welfare cannot sacrifice the end to the means; we have no general badfare or general warfare clause.

The 10th Amendment is clear. And yet, somehow, you managed to fuck it up. So here it is again, as not a single word of what you just stated, resides in it:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Plain as day. Anything outside of the 18 enumerated powers in the US Constitution is illegal for the federal government to engage in.

Providing for the general welfare is expressed not implied in any way.

Yet you insist that it implies the government can do whatever it wants to in the name of "general welfare". That's not how it works, because you change the meaning of "general welfare" to fit whatever it is that you want at the time. Try this one on for size. The 2nd Amendment prevents the government from infringing on the right to own weapons. The "general welfare" clause is now interpreted to mean that it is in the best interests of the citizenry that citizens be allowed to defend themselves with firearms, because I say so. Thus, gun ownership is doubly protected.

We have to quibble that the general welfare cannot be the general badfare.

No, we do not. The clause CLEARLY was not intended to grant the federal government power to do whatever was trendy at the time in the name of the general welfare. THAT'S what you have to prove, and you have to go far beyond just insisting over and over again that it was. Post some writings of the people who wrote the clause and voted on it that support your assertion.

Both promote and provide are used in regard to the general welfare not the common defense. To the extent we don't enjoy perfect knowledge anything that promotes the general welfare will do; optimization should happen on a routine basis.

Post some writings of the people who wrote the clause and voted on it that support your assertion, don't just keep insisting you're right.

Here is what they have to say, but it doesn't help him out. In fact, it destroys his bullshit.




From this clause, many have construed the “general Welfare” statement to grant practically unlimited power to Congress to collect and spend the tax payers’ money on whatever cause Congress may invent for the “good” of the government or the people. Is that what the designers of our Constitution intended when they penned those words “general Welfare?”

James Madison, the Father of the Constitution and 4th President suggests that the meaning of the “general Welfare” clause is the exact opposite.

According to the father of the Constitution the powers delegated to the central government “are few and defined and those that remain in the States are numerous and indefinite.” Federalist #45.

Madison also explained that those powers are “reserved to external objects” of “war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce.” He also stated that the central government’s power to tax is intended to be limited to those powers. Federalist #45

In 1792, while serving as a representative to the people of Virginia, Madison made the true meaning of this often abused “general welfare clause,” during a debate on The Cod Fishery Bill. Madison begins by reminding the representatives of what he explained in Federalist #45:

“I sir have always conceived—I believe those who proposed the Constitution conceived—it is still more fully known and more material to observe, that those who ratified the Constitution conceived—that this not an indefinite government…but a limited government tied down to the specific powers.”

Madison knew during the ratification of this Constitution, much discussion was heard on the meaning of the “general welfare” clause, as some delegates were concerned that this clause would offer too much power to the federal government. During the Virginia Ratification Debates, Edmund Randolph explained to Patrick Henry, that the “general welfare clause” did not equate to general powers:

“But in the general Constitution, its powers are enumerated. Is it not, then, fairly deducible, that it has no power but what is expressly given it? – for if its powers were to be general, an enumeration would be needless…But the rhetoric of the gentleman has highly colored the dangers of giving the general government an indefinite power of providing for the general welfare. I contend that no such power is given.” [emphasis mine]

As Madison also reminds the House, this very specific and limited meaning of the “general welfare clause” was the accepted meaning by those who ratified the Constitution. Then Madison continues in 1792, to explain that the “General Welfare clause” was added to instruct the federal government in the purpose of the limited powers being delegated; so the central government would use those delegated powers for the union as a whole, rather than for the benefit of one State over the other. This debate makes it crystal clear, that this is not a blanket power to “do anything you can think of” to promote the so-called general welfare. It is in fact a limitation to direct that the power be wielded equitably.

This definition was so settled in the minds of those who ratified the Constitution, James Madison wrote a letter to James Robertson, Jr. repeating the application of the “general welfare clause” those who ratified the Constitution espoused:

“With respect to the words "General welfare" I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense, would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character, which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its Creators.”[emphasis mine]

Even Thomas Jefferson in his letter of 1817 to Albert Gallatin remarks at how absurd it would be to propose that the “general welfare clause” conveys a general and relatively unlimited power to Congress:

“provide for the general welfare," was an extension of the powers specifically enumerated to whatever would promote the general welfare; and this, you know, was the federal doctrine…that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated; and that, as it was never meant they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers, so it could not have been meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action; consequently, that the specification of powers is a limitation of the purposes for which they may raise money.” [emphasis mine]

The drafters of our Constitution knew the dangers inherent in a federal government unlimited by only its own design. In Cod Fishery Bill debate Madison gives a stern warning to the House of the consequences of interpreting this clause as a general boilerplate power, rather than a description of the intent that the limited powers be used to the general benefit of the entire union. He says if the general welfare clause takes is erroneously given such a broad meaning then we will have a govt that is far more expansive than what the Constitution authorizes:

“…for if the clause in question really authorizes Congress to do whatever they think fit, provided it be for the general welfare, of which they are to judge, and money can be applied to it, Congress must have power to create and support a judiciary establishment, with a jurisdiction extending to all cases favorable, in their opinion, to the general welfare, in the same manner as they have power to pass laws, and apply money providing in any other way for the general welfare….

If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their Own hands; they may appoint teachers in every state, county, and parish, and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision for the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress; for every object I have mentioned would admit of the application of money, and might be called, if Congress pleased, provisions for the general welfare.” James Madison, On The Cod Fishery Bill, Granting Bounties, 1792

It is relevant to note in this discussion that Madison is remarking that it would be an unconstitutional expansion of power for the central government to involve itself in areas such as education, roads, social welfare, and law enforcement. He is speaking to his colleagues in extremes to show his point that interpreting the clauses in this way would result in an unlimited central government, a notion that would have been highly offensive to the men involved in this debate. And had they not been convinced that the central govt was barred by the Constitution form intruding into these areas, they would have never ratified the Constitution.

So according to the Father of the Constitution, the General Welfare clause does not give power or permission for federal involvement in the internal affairs of the States. There is no provision in the Constitution for federal power over parks, schools, preserves, police, hospitals, healthcare, or the myriad of other “programs” funding using the “general welfare clause” as a justification for the increase of their power. And to the contrary, once we see the adoption an erroneously expansive interpretation of the general Welfare clause, and see federal involvement in our schools, local governments, parks, preserves, police, roads, and every minute affair of our lives, we will know we have an absurdly out of control federal government.

As Madison himself said,

“I venture to declare it as my opinion, that, were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America; and what inferences might be drawn, or what consequences ensue, from such a step, it is incumbent on us all to consider.”

Because we have turned Constitutional interpretation over to the musings of those in power, we have allowed those entrusted with the preservation of the Constitution to “transmute” into something other than a Constitutional Republic. In an arrogance magnified by ignorance, the political elite have decided that the wisdom sown into our founding documents and expressed in the profuse writings of its framers does not need to be consulted.

The fact is, this wisdom is tied to over 700 years of lessons in history and 5 foundational Liberty Charters, not to mention the political philosophers and writers that the designers of our Constitution diligently consulted. The question is, where is such negligence leading us? What kind of government are we allowing? Into what have we been transmuted? And as James Madison asked “What consequences might ensue?”

Our Commerce Clause has done that.

More nutbaggery.

 

[danielpalos]

Equal protection of the laws is in our Constitution. We should be promoting the general welfare at every opportunity.

 

[P@triot]

What would be excluded from the general welfare, but the general badfare?

If the immutable character of constitutional text is contested, perhaps this construct called “constitutional law” is as culturally constructed as say, institutionalized powers; indeed, perhaps it was always already law, with the consequence that the distinction between text and interpretation turns out to be no distinction at all.

It would make no sense, then, to define “welfare” as the interpretation of welfare, if text itself is a legal category. Text ought not to be conceived merely as the constitutional inscription of meaning on a pregiven text (a juridical conception); but it must also designate the very apparatus of production whereby the text itself is established.

As a result, the constitution is not to law as law is to legality; it’s text is also the discursive/judicial means by which “constitutional law” or “a legal” federal government is produced and established as “pre-discursive,” prior to constitutional text, a politically neutral surface on which legality acts.

 

[P@triot]

We should be promoting the general welfare at every opportunity.

Agreed. And nothing “promotes the general welfare” like small, limited government with low taxes, no regulations, and 0 social programs.

Gladly you finally woke up and agreed with us.

 

[danielpalos]

What would be excluded from the general welfare, but the general badfare?

If the immutable character of constitutional text is contested, perhaps this construct called “constitutional law” is as culturally constructed as say, institutionalized powers; indeed, perhaps it was always already law, with the consequence that the distinction between text and interpretation turns out to be no distinction at all.

It would make no sense, then, to define “welfare” as the interpretation of welfare, if text itself is a legal category. Text ought not to be conceived merely as the constitutional inscription of meaning on a pregiven text (a juridical conception); but it must also designate the very apparatus of production whereby the text itself is established.

As a result, the constitution is not to law as law is to legality; it’s text is also the discursive/judicial means by which “constitutional law” or “a legal” federal government is produced and established as “pre-discursive,” prior to constitutional text, a politically neutral surface on which legality acts.

the point is we have a general welfare clause but no general defense clause.

 

[P@triot]

If many states are forced into bankruptcy because the Federal government aids bankrupt crony capitalists...

For the record, the federal government should not be bailing out any private industry either. Too big to fail is too stupid to buy into.

 

[P@triot]

the point is we have a general welfare clause but no general defense clause.

The point is, you once again avoided the discussion and then tried to deflect with your cut & paste nonsensical platitude.

Defense is the constitutional responsibility of the federal government. “General welfare” is not. It is the framework for the individual power outlined.

 

[danielpalos]

We should be promoting the general welfare at every opportunity.

Agreed. And nothing “promotes the general welfare” like small, limited government with low taxes, no regulations, and 0 social programs.

Gladly you finally woke up and agreed with us.

It didn't work for us under the Articles, why should we take that point of view seriously in modern times.

We can actually solve simple poverty in a market friendly manner in our at-will employment States. Full employment of capital resources both promotes and provides for the general welfare of our economy by ensuring all individual boats are lifted by the general welfare tide.

 

[danielpalos]

the point is we have a general welfare clause but no general defense clause.

The point is, you once again avoided the discussion and then tried to deflect with your cut & paste nonsensical platitude.

Defense is the constitutional responsibility of the federal government. “General welfare” is not. It is the framework for the individual power outlined.

Providing for the general welfare is expressly declared in our Constitution and is even more Constitutional as a general power than the defense clause as a common power.