Nosmo King
Gold Member
Could local municipalities in the rural Tennessee Valley pay to electrify their region? What do you know of highway design and engineering? Could a highway be built in Florida with the same specifications as a highway built in Pennsylvania, or Colorado? Isn't there something to be said for a national government that sees infrastructure as a national need? A need in regions too poor or too inaccessible to pay for interstate highway quality roads?The "General Welfare" clause applies to the 18 enumerated powers of the federal government only. Otherwise, the federal government would literally have unlimited power. All they would need to do is deem something as "promoting the general welfare" and they could proceed. They could say it "promotes the general welfare" to eliminate free speech and there wouldn't be a damn thing you could do about it. They could say it "promotes the general welfare" to execute people named Nosmo King on message boards and there wouldn't be a damn thing you could do about it. You need to read and understand the U.S. Constitution - not just parrot progressive propaganda that you've heard. Here is Thomas Jefferson himself explaining it:Does infrastructure promote the general welfare?
“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” - Thomas Jefferson (June 6, 1817)
“[We] disavow, and declare to be most false and unfounded, the doctrine that the [Constitution], in authorizing its federal branch 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, has given them thereby a power to do whatever they may think, or pretend, would promote the general welfare–which construction would make that of itself a complete government, without limitation of powers… The plain sense and obvious meaning were that they might levy the taxes necessary to provide for the general welfare by the various acts of power therein specified and delegated to them, and by no others. – Thomas Jefferson (December 24, 1825)
I would have constitutional government - where the local municipality pays for their own roads and bridges and the state pays for it's own state highways. I said that clearly already. Are you really this stupid or are you just playing stupid?What would you have? No paved roads, rum used as an anesthetic and Negroes counted as 3/8 a person? If this nation is great, it's due to our system of transportation and our system of justice.
If we held to your narrow vision, this nation would still be thirteen struggling states huddled on the eastern seaboard. The Louisiana Purchase would be unconstitutional in your antiquated world.