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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 ...
“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.”
Actually most state constitutions are very similar to the US Constitution, not that any politician pays any attention to any of them.
If everything is moved back to the state level you’ll just have all the politicians take root there. Many state governments are already as, or more, oppressive than Federal. Massachusetts, for example, is tantamount to a totalitarian socialist state.
I understand what you are saying, but I think people need to start thinking in terms of the original principles this country is founded on. We got where we are today by compromising, over and over again, those principles.
Hank
Exactly! Why the need to enumerate specifics if the simple clause is sufficient authority??
More example of intellectual dishonesty from a politician -- the arrogance is infuriating!
The ‘general welfare’ clause cannot be used to force somebody to to work for someone else’s benefit. Like all forms of government-imposed redistribution (welfare), it is a form of slavery.
Thanks for that excerpt. I have been thinking a great deal lately about the very problem that Hamilton describes. In modern times, some might describe this problem in a form of shorthand: “SHTF”, as in “what if the SHTF?” What recourse would even the most well-armed citizens have against a highly planned and organized Federal military deployment, “without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair”?
Some people refer to the reference to "general welfare" in the preamble as the general welfare clause. The problem for Hoyer, if he had the preamble in mind, is that it is sort of settled law that the preamble "conveys no law."
ML/NJ
Which is why it is necessary to have all medical personnel under the government-umbrella, the Fed will be the employer and thus, no slavery, those employees will simply be carrying out the duties and responsibilities of their jobs.
True for today, this week. But the new unConstitutional judges are younger. Those seats will be safe leftist votes for decades. We'll be trapped in the same hell we live in now forever. We need at least one more vote swung reliably our way, so we can stop worrying so much about what Kennedy thinks, and eventually we'll need our guys replaced with younger ones so we don't lose THOSE votes.
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;
It is this clause to which Hoyer refers, not the Preamble.
It doesn't matter if one is a homeless bum, Joe the Plumber, or Bill Gates - they cannot morally be enslaved for the benefit of others.
Gee. Thanks.
(WTF do you think the Federalist #41 excerpt I posted was about? Hint: It wasn't the preamble.)
ML/NJ
You are correct. One way or the other it wikk end badly. Either for us or them. Time will tell which one it will end badly for.
This is how democrats think. Hoyer doesn’t realize what is so astonishing in his proclamations. The criminal enterprise party brand of fascism is deemed ‘for your own good’ ... if I could find it, I once watched Dick Gephardt tell the Washington JOurnal guy on C-Span that citizens should be allowed to have a percentaqge of their retirement funds invested in privately held financial vehicles, but because we the people are not smart enough to handle such things, the government should be in charge of the privately invested funds!
It is already ending for the ‘us’ ... you live in a federal oligarchy now, not a Constitutional Republic functioning on rule of law ... the law is what the federal oligarchs say it is, not what the Constitution says.
No, I believe that’s covered by “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”
FWIW, methinks - in a nation built on liberty & freedom - that one should be able to get by (however humbly) with paying _no_ taxes. Basic (and I do mean basic) food, water, real estate, transportation, business, speech, arms, etc. should all be tax-free at the most fundamental levels; otherwise, one must pay tribute & beg permission from other people (gov't) just to exist.
To require purchase of a product (smoke & mirrors notwithstanding), as enforced by police powers, is anathema to this concept.
Oh, and BTW guys: gov't-controlled health care is a violation of the 4th Amendment - they have no right to your private medical records, and they can't control your health care without them. Tell 'em to get a warrant.
Only if you think the Constitution is a "living document". The Framers original intent had everything to do with enumerated powers and limited government.
Screw you Hoyer!
“promote the general welfare” is a GOAL of the constitution, not a power granted to congress. The founders knew that a limited government was the best way to promote the general welfare, so they explicitly restricted the powers of the federal government.
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