You seem to assume that 'welfare' in this context means 'welfare' in the Rooseveltian hand-out sense. I submit that this is an error.
What is now called 'welfare' was once called 'charity', or 'relief'.
The use of 'welfare' in this regard is the consequence of distorting the Constitution for a political purpose. IOW, you've got it back to front. We call it 'welfare' because of the legal fiction.
It is an extraordinary stretch, even a reductio ad absurdum, to claim that the clause in question gives unbounded powers to Congress to enact whatever laws they please, so long as they can be construed as beneficial to some national 'purpose' or 'general welfare'. If one construes the meaning so broadly, then we might as well have NO Constitution, since Congress would be limited only by their powers of rhetoric.
Exactly, the founders knew not socialism. Else they would have eloborated on this. Their concerns regarding pilage, justified by votes cast, was addressed by requiring certain qualifications to vote. The quals were removed by the con artists and thieves that twisted the meaning of welfare. This new meaning of what welfare is, requires Freedom and responsibility are cast out and authoritarian rule and nannyism establish.
Welfare was transformed into ruin. In reality, the clause now reads, "and for the general Ruin of the United States."