“The major constitutional problem with Social Security is this. The states have never delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate, tax and spend for programs like Social Security and Medicare.”
What you say is absolutely true.
However, Congress has the absolute right under Amendment XVI to take your income - 5 percent, 7.65 percent or even 90 percent.
If Congress continues to choose to give it back you after age 65, I doubt you would refuse your monthly refunds.
It is Constitutional for Congress to take your money (and then give it back to you 20 to 40 years later).
That’s fine.
But it remains that previous generations of state sovereignty-respecting justices had clarified that Congress is prohibited from appropriating taxes for anything that it cannot justify under its constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers, and other constitutionally enumerated justifications.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
”State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress [emphases added].” —Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.
When Congress appropriates taxes for things that it cannot constitutionally justify, Congress is basically stealing state revenues imo. And the founders had noted that taking care of citizens is the job of the states, not the feds.
"Our citizens have wisely formed themselves into one nation as to others and several States as among themselves. To the united nation belong our external and mutual relations; to each State, severally, the care of our persons, our property, our reputation and religious freedom [emphasis added]." --Thomas Jefferson: To Rhode Island Assembly, 1801.
In fact, the major constitutional problem with many federal social spending programs is the following.
When Congress established programs like Social Security (SS) for example, low-information members of the post-17th Amendment ratification Congress unthinkingly based SS on the General Welfare Clause (GWC; 1.8.1). The problem with doing so is that President James Madison, Madison generally regarded as the father of the Constitution, had clarified that the drafters of the Constitution had not intended for the GWC to be regarded as a specific delegation of power, but merely an introductory clause for the clauses in Section 8 that followed it, those clauses specific delegations of power.
Note that Madison had clarified the humble purpose of the GWC in the constitutionally required veto explanation when he vetoed Congress’s public works bill of 1817.
”To refer the power in question to the clause "to provide for common defense and general welfare" would be contrary to the established and consistent rules of interpretation, as rendering the special and careful enumeration of powers which follow the clause nugatory and improper. Such a view of the Constitution would have the effect of giving to Congress a general power of legislation instead of the defined and limited one hitherto understood to belong to them, the terms "common defense and general welfare" embracing every object and act within the purview of a legislative trust.” —James Madison, Veto of federal public works bill, 1817
Consider the following explanation as to what the annual federal budget should probably look like.
From a related thread …
Once again, it’s time for "Federal Government Annual Budget 101,” the constitutionally limited power federal government's annual budget as the Founding States had likely intended for the budget to be understood.
Note that regardless what FDR’s state sovereignty-ignoring activist justices wanted everybody to think about the scope of Congress’s Commerce Clause powers (1.8.3), a previous generation of state sovereignty-respecting justices had clarified the following. Congress is prohibited from appropriating taxes in the name of state power issues, essentially any issue that Congress cannot justify under its constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers. This is evidenced by the excerpt below.
”State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress [emphases added].” —Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
In fact, based on the Court’s statements above, here is a rough estimate of how much taxpayers should be paying Congress annually to perform its Section 8-limited power duties.
Given that the plurality of clauses in Section 8 deal with defense, and given that the Department of Defense budget for 2015 was $500+ billion, I will generously round up the $500+ billion figure to $1 trillion (but probably much less) as the annual price tag of the federal government to the taxpayers.
In other words, the corrupt media, including Obama guard dog Fx Noise, should not be reporting multi-trillion dollar annual federal budgets without mentioning the Supreme Court’s clarification of Congress’s limited power to appropriate taxes in budget discussions.
In fact, noting that I voted for Trump and do not regret it, Constitution-savvy patriots need to get constitutionally low-information Trump up to speed with the idea that much of the federal taxes that he and his rich friends have always been paying are unconstitutional.
The bottom line is that the corrupt Washington cartel exists to steal 10th Amendment-protected state powers, state revenues and citizens' hard-earned dollars uniquely associate with those powers.