"You ain't no daisy..."
Posted on 10/21/2009 7:56:56 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
Hoyer Says Constitution’s ‘General Welfare’ Clause Empowers Congress to Order Americans to Buy Health Insurance Wednesday, October 21, 2009 By Matt Cover
(CNSNews.com) – House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said that the individual health insurance mandates included in every health reform bill, which require Americans to have insurance, were “like paying taxes.” He added that Congress has “broad authority” to force Americans to purchase other things as well, so long as it was trying to promote “the general welfare.”
The Congressional Budget Office, however, has stated in the past that a mandate forcing Americans to buy health insurance would be an “unprecedented form of federal action,” and that the “government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States.”
Hoyer, speaking to reporters at his weekly press briefing on Tuesday, was asked by CNSNews.com where in the Constitution was Congress granted the power to mandate that a person must by a health insurance policy. Hoyer said that, in providing for the general welfare, Congress had “broad authority.”
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
Hoyer is wrong. The Constitution in that section says Congress has the power to lay and collect TAXES, etc., in order to provide for the common welfare. TAXES, not insurance requirements.
However, IMO that section does not empower Congress to tax the people for NOT taking a particular action, only for taking a particular action. But I suppose that is debatable.
I will never be a peasant to any government. NEVER!
Is Hoyer already smoking Nancy’s free medical pot?
"Section 8 - Powers of Congress
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;"
Hank
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
According to every idiot who has never read the Constitution nor studied its foundings, they think ANYTHING is lawful, hence, we had best be ready with the 2nd.
Hey Steny suck on...not that history, perscription, or original intent means anything to these d-bags.
“If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish
and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union;
they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation
down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress.... Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America.”
James Madison
“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.”
James Madison
Some, who have not denied the necessity of the power of taxation, have grounded a very fierce attack against the Constitution, on the language in which it is defined. It has been urged and echoed, that the power “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,” amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction.
Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases. A power to destroy the freedom of the press, the trial by jury, or even to regulate the course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly expressed by the terms “to raise money for the general welfare.”
But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which, as we are reduced to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the objection or on the authors of the Constitution, we must take the liberty of supposing, had not its origin with the latter.
James Madison – Federalist 41
[Bill of Rights]
The conventions of a number of the States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added.
More from the asylum of our era.
Since when does the US Constitution empower congress to force citizens to buy things? Where does it claim that our lawless congress may destroy our health care system? that they are even qualified to create a new one?
“Agreed - Health care was not delegated to the US government in the Constitution. This is a state issue.”
NO! Health, education, individual wealth, etc. are NOT any government issue at any level, Federal, State, or local.
Hank
Hey, I know, can the bill and just require every one to get their own insurance. Very simple
Conceptually, you’re right,
but Constitutionally, the states would have the right to govern in those areas unless their own Constitutions or the US Constitution forbade it.
The idea is that you can hold your legislators more accountable than Congress, and you can move as a last resort.
The left doesn’t want you to be able to avoid their control,
so they make all laws centrally to prevent you from using the moving box of liberty.
"You ain't no daisy..."
Not the first time big brother’s twisted the Constitution to fit its ends.
“James Madison says House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is a f*****g idiot*.
ML/NJ
* Federalist #41 (excerpt)”
Excellent post. I was trying to find this part of the Federalist Papers when I saw you beat me to it. Madison makes very clear that the General Welfare language (it’s not really a “clause”) is in no way intended to expand the limited enumerated powers of the Constitution.
If it were - there would be no need to continue writing the constitution. I could just say, General Welfare - whatever it takes.
Since when has a Democrat ever needed an artificial stimulant to say something stupid?
Considering the level of comprehension among the citizenry regarding the founding docs, the literal history of this nation, I vote knowing manipulator as well.
Yeah, the BOR, just more words to misconstrue. First amendment? McCain Feingold and "separation of church and state" has the government PROHIBITING the exercise of religion, in direct conflict with the words of the 1st. Second amendment? Small arms, if kept at home. No military grade stuff for the public - again in direct conflict with the BOR.
At bottom, the guard against misconstruction can only be an informed, freedom-loving (i.e., personally independent), demanding populace.
That isn't going to magically appear, and I believe the republic is beyond salvage. I see about three people in Congress (out of 535) who might, maybe, be serious about giving the people their freedom back. The others just disagree on exactly how the feds might implement action to best "help."
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