Joe Steel
Class Warrior
The General Welfare clause can be interpreted in more ways than one.
How do you know it means that the Govt can mandate healthcare to all and that they have the right to do so?? That the Congress can use taxpayer money as "bribes"? Is this in the general welfare?? Or just the welfare of some??
The" General Welfare " statement can cover a pretty broad area.
Exactly. That's why the Founders added the so-called enumerated powers. Reasonable persons can have good-faith disagreements about what serves the general welfare. The 15 or so things following the general welfare clause are explicitly defined as the serving the general welfare. Congress may do these things without further discussion but that doesn't mean they can't do whatever else they think would serve the general welfare.
I take this to mean that whatever party is in power at the time can make these decisions and feel that they are following the Constitution???
Man. What a giant grey area.
Indeed. As Brutus V says:
The great objects then are declared in this preamble in general and indefinite terms to be to provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and an express power being vested in the legislature to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution all the powers vested in the general government. The inference is natural that the legislature will have an authority to make all laws which they shall judge necessary for the common safety, and to promote the general welfare. This amounts to a power to make laws at discretion: No terms can be found more indefinite than these, and it is obvious, that the legislature alone must judge what laws are proper and necessary for the purpose.