FDR's Economic Bill of Rights: A Good or Bad Idea?

[Publius1787]

Sorry. Blame it on spellcheck and an iPad keyboard.

My point is wealth was once created by creating things. Now, wealth is created by making a killing in the market. Which is more sustainable, accessible and noble?

What do you think that money in the market does?

Money as in actual coinage and Bank Notes or virtual values whose actual value does not trickle down to those who actually create the wealth?

Either/Or

 

[CrusaderFrank]

FDR first two terms were the worst in the history of the USA: economic failure and an Administration where more people reported to Stalin than to FDR

 

[Publius1787]

FDR first two terms were the worst in the history of the USA: economic failure and an Administration where more people reported to Stalin than to FDR

According to UCLA he prolonged the Great Depression by 7 years. FDR's policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate / UCLA Newsroom

 

[expat_panama]

... What does that money do other than enrich the investors? ...

Whoa neat --we're having a Wobbly Meeting!!! Let's all sing our favorites from the Little Red Songbook

Seriously, most U.S. employees work for corporations and that's because most people in the U.S. have paid the money for the hiring when they bought corp stocks.

 

[expat_panama]

...wealth is created by making a killing in the market...

Ah. Personally I'm unconvinced that those with hundreds of $millions from say running touchdowns or staring in movies etc. have ever had to kill someone in a supermarket, but hey we're all free to believe what we want to.

In the grand view of the economy, what percentage of wage earners are fullbacks or movie stars?

Ah, so now we got wealth=stockmarket go from "all" to "most".

Make that "hardly any". Let's look at the actual numbers from the Fed's Flow of Funds Report on how much of private wealth increases are from stocks. Right now America's total private net worth (wealth in money) is just over $77 trillion. That's an increase since 2000 of $33 trillion. In other words since 2000 when Americans had $44 trillion total, they've created $33 of new wealth. Of that $33T, less than $2T is from stocks. Total private wealth created since 2000 was 94% something other than stock market profits.

Here it is on a graph:

Real life: only 1/17th of private wealth creation is from stock profits.

 

[oldfart]

As usual, you ask a loaded question. If you want a survey, stop asking "push questions". The constitutions and laws of most developed representative democracies contain similar language, not just Stalinist and Nazi regimes.

 

[oldfart]

Have we already forgotten 2008, or 1929?

Yes. That boat officially sailed in the third quarter of 2009.

 

[oldfart]

Nothing you posted above discredits Madison's legal theory. However, you can start by addressing this question: If the words "general welfare" are a grant of general power (And not an understanding that the enumerated powers must be carried out in a manner that promotes the general welfare), then why did the Founding Framers bother enumerating any powers at all? No one in the history of the United States as been able to answer this question.

Among the enumerated powers voted down during the constitutional convention was the power to charter a bank, the powers to direct funds toward internal improvements, roads, canals, schools, and etcetera. And yet, the federal government of today in involved in all of this and more.

I'm a bit puzzled by your remarks, so rather than answering tit-for-tat, let me start with the question you posed above. My understanding of the mainstream view of enumerated powers and their relationship to the Tenth Amendment and the "general welfare" and "enabling" clauses is that the general welfare clause was intended to be a savings clause anticipating that changing circumstances would make some enumerated powers (like granting letters of marque and reprisal) moot issues an that new powers would be needed. While you note that a proposal to give Congress an enumerated power to fund roads was considered and declined, Article I explicitly gives Congress the power to fund "post roads". I often wondered why Ike went to a "National Defense Highway Act" to establish the Interstate system when we could make a reasonable argument for the need of expanded post roads. The Tenth Amendment was intended as a counterweight to this line of reasoning, and courts developed "balancing tests" to determine when changing circumstances justified a modification in what qualified under the "general welfare" and "enacting" clauses.

Now I realize that this is tantamount to a rejection of strict construction based on original intent. But without it, the enumerated power of providing post offices and post roads could not be extended to measures to facilitate air mail. Nowhere in the enumerated powers is there any provision for the federal government to purchase or lease airplanes to fly mail, nor for that matter to use trucks or railroads to transport mail, but everyone seems to hold that these are logical extensions of enumerated powers. Similarly
Article I gives Congress the authority to raise, fund, and regulate an army and a navy, but not an air force, nor a Coast Guard (although that agency grew out of Hamilton's revenue cutters of the Treasury when there was no US Navy!), nor any intelligence services; all of which are now deemed necessary parts of national defense and not to have required a constitutional amendment to add them as enumerated powers.

I think a fair reading of Madison would confirm that he anticipated that if the Constitution survived more than a generation (quite a few founders anticipated the project would have to be re-worked every fifty years or so), it would need to be tweaked, and he realized that the amendment process was too cumbersome to be often used. By his presidency the first twelve amendments had been adopted; the Bill of Rights in the first rush, the Eleventh to reverse Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. 419 (1793), and the Twelfth to fix the electoral college problem that almost elected Aaron Burr president. It took a full sixty years and a ruinous civil war before there would be another.

In short, I believe that the "general welfare" clause was intended primarily as a preamble to the enumerated powers, and secondarily as a saving clause to lend flexibility to extend the enumerated powers without amendment when there was substantial consensus that evolving circumstances made such flexibility logical. The Tenth Amendment, the judicial balancing tests, and the political process working through elections would provide the checks and balances to correct any over-enthusiasms.

When strict constructionism first made a modern appearance, one scholar suggested that if the Founding Fathers intended that degree of rigidity, they probably would have required a constitutional convention to be called after every census to propose amendments!

 

[Toro]

Bad idea.

Nobody has a "right" to the labors of others.

Please cite in FDR's Rights precisely where it says what you say it says.

Anything that compels an economic right ultimately requires someone to pay for it.

 

[JimmieD]

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

I guess I would wonder how one would ensure that these rights are enforced. I mean, a right by virtue of it's nature is something you are entitled to just for being an individual. Take the last one for example. How do you ensure/enforce my right to a good education? To just play a logical thought-game, what if there are no teachers or what if all the teachers providing a good education live on the west coast and I live on the east coast? Who decides what is a good education and how do they decide it?

How do you ensure/enforce my right to a decent home? Who decides what is a decent home and how do they decide it?

How do we ensure that a farmer sells his product at a decent return? What if nobody wants to buy his product?

 

[Publius1787]

Nothing you posted above discredits Madison's legal theory. However, you can start by addressing this question: If the words "general welfare" are a grant of general power (And not an understanding that the enumerated powers must be carried out in a manner that promotes the general welfare), then why did the Founding Framers bother enumerating any powers at all? No one in the history of the United States as been able to answer this question.

Among the enumerated powers voted down during the constitutional convention was the power to charter a bank, the powers to direct funds toward internal improvements, roads, canals, schools, and etcetera. And yet, the federal government of today in involved in all of this and more.

I'm a bit puzzled by your remarks, so rather than answering tit-for-tat, let me start with the question you posed above. My understanding of the mainstream view of enumerated powers and their relationship to the Tenth Amendment and the "general welfare" and "enabling" clauses is that the general welfare clause was intended to be a savings clause anticipating that changing circumstances would make some enumerated powers (like granting letters of marque and reprisal) moot issues an that new powers would be needed. While you note that a proposal to give Congress an enumerated power to fund roads was considered and declined, Article I explicitly gives Congress the power to fund "post roads". I often wondered why Ike went to a "National Defense Highway Act" to establish the Interstate system when we could make a reasonable argument for the need of expanded post roads. The Tenth Amendment was intended as a counterweight to this line of reasoning, and courts developed "balancing tests" to determine when changing circumstances justified a modification in what qualified under the "general welfare" and "enacting" clauses.

Now I realize that this is tantamount to a rejection of strict construction based on original intent. But without it, the enumerated power of providing post offices and post roads could not be extended to measures to facilitate air mail. Nowhere in the enumerated powers is there any provision for the federal government to purchase or lease airplanes to fly mail, nor for that matter to use trucks or railroads to transport mail, but everyone seems to hold that these are logical extensions of enumerated powers. Similarly
Article I gives Congress the authority to raise, fund, and regulate an army and a navy, but not an air force, nor a Coast Guard (although that agency grew out of Hamilton's revenue cutters of the Treasury when there was no US Navy!), nor any intelligence services; all of which are now deemed necessary parts of national defense and not to have required a constitutional amendment to add them as enumerated powers.

I think a fair reading of Madison would confirm that he anticipated that if the Constitution survived more than a generation (quite a few founders anticipated the project would have to be re-worked every fifty years or so), it would need to be tweaked, and he realized that the amendment process was too cumbersome to be often used. By his presidency the first twelve amendments had been adopted; the Bill of Rights in the first rush, the Eleventh to reverse Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. 419 (1793), and the Twelfth to fix the electoral college problem that almost elected Aaron Burr president. It took a full sixty years and a ruinous civil war before there would be another.

In short, I believe that the "general welfare" clause was intended primarily as a preamble to the enumerated powers, and secondarily as a saving clause to lend flexibility to extend the enumerated powers without amendment when there was substantial consensus that evolving circumstances made such flexibility logical. The Tenth Amendment, the judicial balancing tests, and the political process working through elections would provide the checks and balances to correct any over-enthusiasms.

When strict constructionism first made a modern appearance, one scholar suggested that if the Founding Fathers intended that degree of rigidity, they probably would have required a constitutional convention to be called after every census to propose amendments!

Pay attention Wry Catcher. Oldfart is demonstrating how you make an argument.

I've heard the Air Force argument before. If your that caught up over a name perhaps we should change it back to the "Army Air Corps?" Does it make the Air Force any less of an Army since the name change? Intelligence services? We could easily place them under the authority of the Department of Defense or State Department, both of which were used as intelligence services before the CIA.

Madison and Jefferson, not that Jefferson had a hand in writing the Constitution, together with George Washington's attorney general ((Edmund Randolph) who did play a hand in writing the Constitution), all asserted that the term "general welfare" was meant so as to limit the enumerated powers of congress. In other words, when enforcing the enumerated powers you must do so in a manner that effects everyone generally for their benefit. Likewise the law must be necessary and proper so as to carry out the enumerated powers. In the end they were ignored and Hamilton's, who spent more time away from the constitutional convention huffing and puffing than he did at the convention, advice became law.

Here is how Hamilton got around the question I posed above. The Necessary and Proper Clause states that in caring out the foregoing powers congress has the authority to make all laws necessary and proper for their enactment. What Hamilton did after consulting a lawyer in Philadelphia was assert that the words "necessary" and "proper" simply meant "convenient." Indeed, they put a lot of weight into the word "necessary." However, Hamilton included the words "general welfare" as an enumerated power. Ergo, congress has the authority to enact laws that are necessary and proper for carrying out the general welfare, and thus, necessary and proper no longer mean necessary and proper, but, simply convenient. Still confused? Look at the term "general welfare" as Madison and Jefferson put it and the confusion will melt away.

There is plenty of evidence that most of those at the constitutional convention with a written record on the issue of the meaning of the words "general welfare" sided with Madison. This is not an issue of strict constructionism as there is more than one area of the constitution where strict constructionism applies more, and others, where it applies less. "Cruel and Unusual," for example, obviously cannot be interpreted via strict constructionism.

In any case, many, like Hamilton, believed that there was no need for a bill of rights because no one's rights would be violated if the government stuck to the enumerated powers. In any view of the Constitution, aside from the areas of which are written as the one previously mentioned, the idea of the "living and magically changing document" flies in the face of everyone who believed and Bill of Rights was not necessary. So how then can we assert that the founders wanted a magically changing document, specifically one that can be amended? Indeed, they purposely made the amendment process hard, and not because they wanted frequent change.

I enjoy this conversation and if you feel that your argument has not been properly addressed kindly point out the areas of which you want addressed and I will gladly do so.

 

[Publius1787]

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

I guess I would wonder how one would ensure that these rights are enforced. I mean, a right by virtue of it's nature is something you are entitled to just for being an individual. Take the last one for example. How do you ensure/enforce my right to a good education? To just play a logical thought-game, what if there are no teachers or what if all the teachers providing a good education live on the west coast and I live on the east coast? Who decides what is a good education and how do they decide it?

How do you ensure/enforce my right to a decent home? Who decides what is a decent home and how do they decide it?

How do we ensure that a farmer sells his product at a decent return? What if nobody wants to buy his product?

It's a leftist lawyers wet dream and all other countries that have some or all of these rights that aren't totalitarian either cannot enforce these rights, or, these rights are gumming up the legal works and they are well on the path to destruction and devolution.

 

[Publius1787]

As usual, you ask a loaded question. If you want a survey, stop asking "push questions". The constitutions and laws of most developed representative democracies contain similar language, not just Stalinist and Nazi regimes.

What is the population and cultural diversity of the most successful country of which you can point to as an example of the above?

 

[oldfart]

As usual, you ask a loaded question. If you want a survey, stop asking "push questions". The constitutions and laws of most developed representative democracies contain similar language, not just Stalinist and Nazi regimes.

What is the population and cultural diversity of the most successful country of which you can point to as an example of the above?

Most nations, including democracies, are not as culturally diverse as the United States or the former Soviet Union. I think that you are referring to the fact that many successful societies such as Norway, Finland, and Iceland are not very diverse while countries that are more diverse, such as France, Belgium, and the former Yugoslavia have major problems coping with that diversity.

My point was that used a "push question" in the OP which you did, and that push questions are intended as a way of influencing poll participants rather than actually conducting a valid poll. My objection stands. You have offered no refutation, only diversion. I will cheerfully agree to the position implied by your follow up question to me and have answered it. But it is irrelevant to your "poll". Would you care to state a proposition to discuss based on your questions and my answer?

 

[rdean]

...wealth is not creates by creating but created by holding wealth...

Having trouble following your thinking, but if we're talking monetary wealth --net worth-- what it amounts to is assets minus debts, so we're talking making assets (say, building houses creating a business) and paying off debts. This is where the hard work comes in.

Almost all wealth is created by just hard work --but hey, hard work is fun!

Or the old fashioned way - inherited.

 

[rdean]

As usual, you ask a loaded question. If you want a survey, stop asking "push questions". The constitutions and laws of most developed representative democracies contain similar language, not just Stalinist and Nazi regimes.

What is the population and cultural diversity of the most successful country of which you can point to as an example of the above?

Most nations, including democracies, are not as culturally diverse as the United States or the former Soviet Union. I think that you are referring to the fact that many successful societies such as Norway, Finland, and Iceland are not very diverse while countries that are more diverse, such as France, Belgium, and the former Yugoslavia have major problems coping with that diversity.

My point was that used a "push question" in the OP which you did, and that push questions are intended as a way of influencing poll participants rather than actually conducting a valid poll. My objection stands. You have offered no refutation, only diversion. I will cheerfully agree to the position implied by your follow up question to me and have answered it. But it is irrelevant to your "poll". Would you care to state a proposition to discuss based on your questions and my answer?

Only half of the US is diverse. Republicans are 90% white and nearly all Christian.

 

[Publius1787]

As usual, you ask a loaded question. If you want a survey, stop asking "push questions". The constitutions and laws of most developed representative democracies contain similar language, not just Stalinist and Nazi regimes.

What is the population and cultural diversity of the most successful country of which you can point to as an example of the above?

Most nations, including democracies, are not as culturally diverse as the United States or the former Soviet Union. I think that you are referring to the fact that many successful societies such as Norway, Finland, and Iceland are not very diverse while countries that are more diverse, such as France, Belgium, and the former Yugoslavia have major problems coping with that diversity.

My point was that used a "push question" in the OP which you did, and that push questions are intended as a way of influencing poll participants rather than actually conducting a valid poll. My objection stands. You have offered no refutation, only diversion. I will cheerfully agree to the position implied by your follow up question to me and have answered it. But it is irrelevant to your "poll". Would you care to state a proposition to discuss based on your questions and my answer?

If I was a professional pollster I would have not asked the question with the subsequent information provided. Nevertheless, everyone here almost has all of their minds made up and when you to assume that I think that I can influence the poll in any way in a politically informed message board you do more to insult me than make a critique. I've posted other polls with no opinion at all and got harassed for it. I've posted polls with substance only for them to go ignored. If there is anything I learned of getting the cattle to the trough it is to make it somewhat provocative. That is indeed what I did.

 

[oldfart]

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

I guess I would wonder how one would ensure that these rights are enforced. I mean, a right by virtue of it's nature is something you are entitled to just for being an individual. Take the last one for example. How do you ensure/enforce my right to a good education? To just play a logical thought-game, what if there are no teachers or what if all the teachers providing a good education live on the west coast and I live on the east coast? Who decides what is a good education and how do they decide it?

How do you ensure/enforce my right to a decent home? Who decides what is a decent home and how do they decide it?

How do we ensure that a farmer sells his product at a decent return? What if nobody wants to buy his product?

I hate to rain on everybody's parade, but in FDR's time every reasonable person understood that FDRs "Rights" were not rights in the enforceable legal sense, but were rhetorical devices to establish aspirational goals, much like the Gettysburg Address and Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address. Nobody was going to be forced to "bind up the nation's wounds" or care for "his widow and his orphan", the goal that society should was set forth.

Reasonably intelligent folks in the 1860s or the 1930s understood this and aspirational statements abound in "statements of purpose" of organizations and companies. I find it discouraging that this phenomena has to be pointed out so often.

In short, you have been debating a straw man without knowing it.

 

[Publius1787]

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

I guess I would wonder how one would ensure that these rights are enforced. I mean, a right by virtue of it's nature is something you are entitled to just for being an individual. Take the last one for example. How do you ensure/enforce my right to a good education? To just play a logical thought-game, what if there are no teachers or what if all the teachers providing a good education live on the west coast and I live on the east coast? Who decides what is a good education and how do they decide it?

How do you ensure/enforce my right to a decent home? Who decides what is a decent home and how do they decide it?

How do we ensure that a farmer sells his product at a decent return? What if nobody wants to buy his product?

I hate to rain on everybody's parade, but in FDR's time every reasonable person understood that FDRs "Rights" were not rights in the enforceable legal sense, but were rhetorical devices to establish aspirational goals, much like the Gettysburg Address and Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address. Nobody was going to be forced to "bind up the nation's wounds" or care for "his widow and his orphan", the goal that society should was set forth.

Reasonably intelligent folks in the 1860s or the 1930s understood this and aspirational statements abound in "statements of purpose" of organizations and companies. I find it discouraging that this phenomena has to be pointed out so often.

In short, you have been debating a straw man without knowing it.

Lets, as to not go into some weeds, grant you that point. The question is: "FDR's Economic Bill of Rights: A Good or Bad Idea?" At face value, you think this question is a straw man?

 

[oldfart]

Nothing you posted above discredits Madison's legal theory. However, you can start by addressing this question: If the words "general welfare" are a grant of general power (And not an understanding that the enumerated powers must be carried out in a manner that promotes the general welfare), then why did the Founding Framers bother enumerating any powers at all? No one in the history of the United States as been able to answer this question.

Among the enumerated powers voted down during the constitutional convention was the power to charter a bank, the powers to direct funds toward internal improvements, roads, canals, schools, and etcetera. And yet, the federal government of today in involved in all of this and more.

In short, I believe that the "general welfare" clause was intended primarily as a preamble to the enumerated powers, and secondarily as a saving clause to lend flexibility to extend the enumerated powers without amendment when there was substantial consensus that evolving circumstances made such flexibility logical. The Tenth Amendment, the judicial balancing tests, and the political process working through elections would provide the checks and balances to correct any over-enthusiasms.

I've heard the Air Force argument before. If your that caught up over a name perhaps we should change it back to the "Army Air Corps?" Does it make the Air Force any less of an Army since the name change? Intelligence services? We could easily place them under the authority of the Department of Defense or State Department, both of which were used as intelligence services before the CIA.

Good arguments all, but it seems you are trying to have your cake and eat it too. There is absolutely no mention in the Constitution of an intelligence service, and if you argue that it is implicit in the concept of other government agencies, where does it end? Where does the authority to prescribe weights and measures end? Is "No child left behind" testing derived from that clause? Does that give the federal government full authority to regulate education, because it can be measured?

It seems that you have adopted a far looser construction than I use, for your argument for "implied powers" is much broader than mine.

Madison and Jefferson, not that Jefferson had a hand in writing the Constitution, together with George Washington's attorney general ((Edmund Randolph) who did play a hand in writing the Constitution), all asserted that the term "general welfare" was meant so as to limit the enumerated powers of congress. In other words, when enforcing the enumerated powers you must do so in a manner that effects everyone generally for their benefit. Likewise the law must be necessary and proper so as to carry out the enumerated powers. In the end they were ignored and Hamilton's, who spent more time away from the constitutional convention huffing and puffing than he did at the convention, advice became law.

Here is how Hamilton got around the question I posed above. The Necessary and Proper Clause states that in caring out the foregoing powers congress has the authority to make all laws necessary and proper for their enactment. What Hamilton did after consulting a lawyer in Philadelphia was assert that the words "necessary" and "proper" simply meant "convenient." Indeed, they put a lot of weight into the word "necessary." However, Hamilton included the words "general welfare" as an enumerated power. Ergo, congress has the authority to enact laws that are necessary and proper for carrying out the general welfare, and thus, necessary and proper no longer mean necessary and proper, but, simply convenient. Still confused? Look at the term "general welfare" as Madison and Jefferson put it and the confusion will melt away.

You might want to consult Blackstone which is the original source of Hamilton's position, but it's still a cute story. Legal terms often have meanings different from common usage, and "necessary", "proper", and "useful" are related terms with a history traced to the Statutes of Edward I.

There is plenty of evidence that most of those at the constitutional convention with a written record on the issue of the meaning of the words "general welfare" sided with Madison. This is not an issue of strict constructionism as there is more than one area of the constitution where strict constructionism applies more, and others, where it applies less. "Cruel and Unusual," for example, obviously cannot be interpreted via strict constructionism.

I agree with you, but that insight seems to contradict your position. Who decides and on what basis which portions of the Constitution are to be strictly constructed and which not? It seems to me that you have talked yourself into exactly my position as I discussed the Founders' attitudes toward the amendment process and flexibility in applying the Constitution.

But if we end up having essentially arrived at the same spot by different roads, there is no difference of principle and no harm in that.