Its simpler than all that. Contrary to Fed. outlaw creation, the US Constitution created a nation gov. of limited power. All powers not enumerated therein, were left to the states and or the people. Of COURSE those seeking gov. takeover of our republic used the General Welfare clause to create HealthCare and many other unlaws in the past hundred years.
The General Welfare clause dictates how any acts from the enumerated Fed. powers are to be implimented, not a grand usurpation of the limits of Fed. power. Duh.
“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
Also, Article 1 Section 8 is one sentence, one concept, one complete thought, where the enumerated powers detail how the new federal government is to provide for the common defense and general welfare.
From 1607 to 1937 the meaning was uncontested. By that time, FDR has sufficiently badgered Scotus into compliance with his New Deal Utopia.
Amazingly we have a lot of people in this country who are convinced that THEY are smarter than the founders. Most of them wouldn’t qualify to shine Madison’s shoes.