Great Post!
Thanks and here is some excellent commentary sent to me by a lurker:
Re: Am I way off base regarding federalized health care or insurance plans being unconstitutional?
From [redeacted] 03/17/2017 1:17:27 PM PDT
According to James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution,” no.
As James Madison explained in Federalist #45, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite…”
Even though Congress has the power to tax, Congress is limited to those few and defined articles (enumerated powers) on which it can spend the proceeds of those taxes.
Of course, those “few and defined” powers are found in Article I Section 8.
And not one clause contained therein serves a “redistributive,” or “charitable purpose” to take money from those that earned it to give it to those that did not. Healthcare is a commodity, not a “right”
And Thomas Jefferson wrote: “To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, ‘the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it.”
“We have the right as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to appropriate a dollar of the public money.” — Davy Crockett, Speech in the US House of Representatives
“There is nothing more arrogant than a self-righteous income redistributor.” — Dick Armey
“Since this is an era when many people are concerned about “fairness” and “social justice,” what is your “fair share” of what someone else has worked for?” — Thomas Sowell
“Do not consider Collectivists as “sincere but deluded idealists”. The proposal to enslave some men for the sake of others is not an ideal; brutality is not “idealistic,” no matter what its purpose. Do not ever say that the desire to “do good” by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives.” — Ayn Rand
A MINORITY VIEW
BY WALTER WILLIAMS
RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 12, 2011
What Our Constitution Permits
Here’s the House of Representatives new rule: “A bill or joint resolution may not be introduced unless the sponsor has submitted for printing in the Congressional Record a statement citing as specifically as practicable the power or powers granted to Congress in the Constitution to enact the bill or joint resolution.” Unless a congressional bill or resolution meets this requirement, it cannot be introduced.
If the House of Representatives had the courage to follow through on this rule, their ability to spend and confer legislative favors would be virtually eliminated. Also, if the rule were to be applied to existing law, they’d wind up repealing at least two-thirds to three-quarters of congressional spending.
You might think, for example, that there’s constitutional authority for Congress to spend for highway construction and bridges. President James Madison on March 3, 1817 vetoed a public works bill saying: “Having considered the bill this day presented to me entitled ‘An act to set apart and pledge certain funds for internal improvements,’ and which sets apart and pledges funds ‘for constructing roads and canals, and improving the navigation of water courses, in order to facilitate, promote, and give security to internal commerce among the several States, and to render more easy and less expensive the means and provisions for the common defense,’ I am constrained by the insuperable difficulty I feel in reconciling the bill with the Constitution of the United States and to return it with that objection to the House of Representatives, in which it originated.”
Madison, who is sometimes referred to as the father of our Constitution, added to his veto statement, “The legislative powers vested in Congress are specified and enumerated in the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, and it does not appear that the power proposed to be exercised by the bill is among the enumerated powers.”
Here’s my question to any member of the House who might vote for funds for “constructing roads and canals, and improving the navigation of water courses”: Was Madison just plain constitutionally ignorant or has the Constitution been amended to permit such spending?
What about handouts to poor people, businesses, senior citizens and foreigners?
Madison said, “Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.”
In 1854, President Franklin Piece vetoed a bill to help the mentally ill, saying, “I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity. (To approve the measure) would be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded.”
President Grover Cleveland vetoed a bill for charity relief, saying, “I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit.”
Again, my question to House members who’d vote for handouts is: Were these leaders just plain constitutionally ignorant or mean-spirited, or has our Constitution been amended to authorize charity?
Suppose a congressman attempts to comply with the new rule by asserting that his measure is authorized by the Constitution’s general welfare clause. Here’s what Thomas Jefferson said: “Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.”
Madison added, “With respect to the two 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.”
John Adams warned, “A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.” I am all too afraid that’s where our nation stands today and the blame lies with the American people.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2011 CREATORS.COM
Thanks, Jim.
Thanks for posting the article from Walter E. Williams.
He is spot on!
So much clarity in his article!
Great Post!
In reading article 1, section 8 many liberals and judges take General Welfare as a blank check to do any thing. They do not apply it to the list of powers following that phrase and do not see any of sections 8 a restrictive.
Obama's America was/is a Socialist/light Communism for Social Justice (redistribution of wealth). (U.S. Gave Palestinians $221 Million on Obama's Last Day in Office) why was this not investigated....who gave him the right to send taxpayers dollars to Palestine...?
