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To: Mojave
"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;"

Taxes on imports are known as "Duties" and the congress is explicitly empowered to collect them "to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States," ie, to support the government. Nowhere in the constitution will you find the power to mandate the people to purchase any kind of insurance whether it be health, employment or retirement, etc. Social engineering, spread the wealth around, safety nets, etc, are not enumerated powers of the congress.

52 posted on 12/13/2010 3:40:30 PM PST by Jim Robinson (Rebellion is brewing!! Nuke the corrupt commie bastards to HELL!!)
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To: Jim Robinson
Taxes on imports are known as "Duties" and the congress is explicitly empowered to collect them "to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States," ie, to support the government.

The power to provide for the general Welfare is explicit in the taxing powers delegated to Congress, as you have just quoted. The Constitution provides no power to the federal courts to decide which tax policies advance the common good and which do not. It is the usurpation of legislative functions by the federal judiciary that is unsupported by the language of the Constitution.

"We have no power per se to review and annul acts of Congress on the ground that they are unconstitutional." -- Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U.S. 447 (1923)
The basis for judicial activism is not found in the Constitution. That is the power that is not enumerated, while the power to provide for the general welfare as part of the taxing powers of Congress is explicitly istated.

Nowhere in the constitution will you find the power to mandate the people to purchase any kind of insurance

"The conception of the spending power advocated by Hamilton and strongly reinforced by Story has prevailed over that of Madison, which has not been lacking in adherents. Yet difficulties are left when the power is conceded. The line must still be drawn between one welfare and another, between particular and general. Where this shall be placed cannot be known through a formula in advance of the event. There is a middle ground, or certainly a penumbra, in which discretion is at large. The discretion, however, is not confided to the courts. The discretion belongs to Congress, unless the choice is clearly wrong, a display of arbitrary power, not an exercise of judgment. This is now familiar law." --Helvering v. Davis, 301 U.S. 619 (1937)
If Henry E. Hudson wants to make federal law he should step down from the bench and run for Congress.
55 posted on 12/13/2010 5:06:14 PM PST by Mojave (Ignorant and stoned - Obama's natural constituency.)
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