Posted on 10/12/2010 5:57:56 AM PDT by ChrisBoundsTX
Well, saying Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky tried may be a bit of a stretch.
Schakowsky was mixing with the crowd after the forum she attended between herself and her Republican challenger Joel Pollak concluded. It was during this time that Adam Sharp took the chance to ask her where in the Constitution does it give Congress the authority to force Americans to purchase health insurance.
The Congresswoman clearly was not ready for that question. At first she tried to shrug the question off and her aide attempted to pull her away. Then she decided to take a stab at it. Her answer was more of an excuse than an answer:
"I dont see where it says it is in the Constitution that we can build a national highway system. I dont see where it says we can do civil rights legislation. I dont see where it says we can do medicare and social security. If we can do medicare, if we can do medicaid, I say it is pretty well established that the United States of America address health care."
Schakowsky may not have been familiar with the Constitutional authority of Congress to establish post roads, which Sharp pointed out. Her mentioning of civil rights legislation did not hold up either, since they were merely enforcement laws to uphold the Constitution. Though she did have a point about Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. I am not forced to participate in Medicare or Medicaid, but neither of them are constitutional. Social Security demands required participation, which is also unconstitutional. Her point was merely if we can defy the constitution with those programs, then why not with health care. Do I need to go into how those other problems have failed, are duped with fraud, and are sucking our federal budget dry?
Here’s the direct link to the video, independent of the blog:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfKXw__P89w&feature=player_embedded
This is why they need to be drug tested and drunk tested before they vote.
I would settle for a 5th grade test on the Constitution.
How can you pledge to protect something when you are ignorant of the content?
AMEN.
If they can’t name the enumerated powers - and know what that means, they fail and have to go home.
I second that.
They are unconstitutional, regardless of whether or not the programs are managed competently, and regardless of their impact on the budget.
Easy, you just lie.
I’d settle for the dunk tank...
“Constitution? What’s that?”
Problem is, the definition of the word "welfare" as set forth by the Founders is not interpreted the same way today....as evidenced by marxists like this anti-free enterprise, ignorant congresswombat.
Leni
Constitutional Scholar John Conyers opined that it was justified in the Good & Plenty clause.
The problem is that they're reading from "The communist manifesto", not the Constitution.
I love how these idiot socialists spout off about their HORRIBLY FLAWED/FAILED programs of the past like Social (IN)Security and Medicare.
Exactly the point, crazy beeeeyotch...those programs weren’t constitutional either. Let’s tuck the repeal of Social (IN)Security on page 993 of the bill to kill Obozocare.
If only we had some way of telling what one of the primary authors of the Constitution meant when referring to "general welfare". Oh wait, we have these quotes from James Madison:
I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.---------------
The government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.
---------------
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.
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