Does the US Constitution Say "Provide for the General Welfare""?

[TurtleDude]

The 16th amendment provides the power to lay direct taxes on income.
Where does it provide the power to create the SocSec program?

doesn't exist

its a legal fiction created by FDR's administration and ratified by his lap dog judges

 

[Goobieman]

"To promote the general welfare"

Oh.
Well then, contrary to your statement, the 16th amendment does NOT give Congress the power to create Social Security.
So, agian, where is that power given?

 

[Goobieman]

Well, in that case let's remove the interstate highways, tear down the hoover dam, take away the pensions of government workers and politicians, shut down the libraries, abolish the FCC (let anyone who wants to operate a tv or raido station), withdraw medical and scientific research grants, close the public schools, close all the country's water works, close the sewers and flood controls, abolish fire departments, police forces, abolish the air force (not in constitution), get rid of animal control, slose all public parks, fire smokey the bear, abolish the FDA, DEA, FFA, CIA, FBI, Border Patrol, Coast Guard, abolish all state corporation commisions and/or regulatory agencies, and rename this country Somalia II.

You realize, of course, that all of this is red herring, and does nothing to address, much less dispute, the post you responded to.

I say that you realize this because we both know you dont have anything with which you CAN address or dispute the post you responded to.

 

[teamosil]

doesn't exist

its a legal fiction created by FDR's administration and ratified by his lap dog judges

Oh.
Well then, contrary to your statement, the 16th amendment does NOT give Congress the power to create Social Security.
So, agian, where is that power given?

If you guys' "legal" argument actually carried any water, why wouldn't you just sue the government to make it stop trying to do anything useful? The majority of federal judges and the majority on the supreme court are both conservative... Should be an easy win for you, right? You could make the country a third world country overnight! Woo hoo!

Except of course that your arguments are nonsense because the constitution explicitly grants the federal government the ability to tax and spend to promote the general welfare... But whatever, if you prefer to believe that only evil powers were granted the government and just ignore that parts of the constitution you don't like, good luck with that in court. Otherwise, quit wasting everybody's time with your silly conspiracy theories.

 

[Goobieman]

If you guys' "legal" argument actually carried any water...

If your argument was factually and logically sound, you'd be able to give supportable answers to the issues put to you.

 

[LiberalAvenger]

You realize, of course, that all of this is red herring, and does nothing to address, much less dispute, the post you responded to.

I say that you realize this because we both know you dont have anything with which you CAN address or dispute the post you responded to.

I don't recall what post you are talking about.

 

[teamosil]

If your argument was factually and logically sound, you'd be able to give supportable answers to the issues put to you.

The only argument you had left was the bit about surplussage, but I gave you several answers to it that you were unable to counter... But, whatever, if you don't get it, go ahead and sue. See how far you get.

 

[TurtleDude]

If you guys' "legal" argument actually carried any water, why wouldn't you just sue the government to make it stop trying to do anything useful? The majority of federal judges and the majority on the supreme court are both conservative... Should be an easy win for you, right? You could make the country a third world country overnight! Woo hoo!

Except of course that your arguments are nonsense because the constitution explicitly grants the federal government the ability to tax and spend to promote the general welfare... But whatever, if you prefer to believe that only evil powers were granted the government and just ignore that parts of the constitution you don't like, good luck with that in court. Otherwise, quit wasting everybody's time with your silly conspiracy theories.

FDR's lapdog judges pretty much cemented alot of unconstitutional nonsense into the stare decisis concrete.

tell me wise one, do you really think the commerce clause was intended to impose a 200 dollar tax on machine guns or to justify the idiotic war on drugss?

 

[TurtleDude]

If your argument was factually and logically sound, you'd be able to give supportable answers to the issues put to you.

you have a better chance of seeing Obama bowl a 300 game

 

[Goobieman]

The only argument you had left was the bit about surplussage, but I gave you several answers to it that you were unable to counter...

This is absolutely false.
Every argument you put up was addressed and demonstrated as unsound.

 

[drz-400]

doesn't exist

its a legal fiction created by FDR's administration and ratified by his lap dog judges

A legal fiction?

Legal positivism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Goobieman]

I don't recall what post you are talking about.

That's why there are links provided in the quote box.

 

[American]

Even if you just ignore all the arguments I keep making, as you are, and even if I were to grant you that there is nothing more to having an army than spending, and even if you ignore my arguments about why they might have included it, it still doesn't matter.. You're making a shakey argument claiming that they could have saved some ink by leaving out stuff that in your opinion could be considered to have already been granted elsewhere. That isn't an argument against the powers granted elsewhere, it's just a critique of the efficiency with which they wrote the constitution, not an excuse to disregard the constitution... You're applying a standard that they never would have included both a broad power and a narrow power which could arguably have fallen within the broad power, but that's just an arbitrary assumption you are making. And, as I demonstrated, if you applied that standard to the whole document you'd run into a ton of that sort of situation like the example you skipped replying to in my last post. This standard you created isn't sensible. Besides, if it were sensible, don't you think somebody could have convinced a court of that at some point?

Arbitrary? Well let's see below.

"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." – James Madison in letter to James Robertson

"[Congressional jurisdiction of power] is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any." - James Madison, Federalist 14

"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined . . . to be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce." - James Madison, Federalist 45

"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions." - James Madison, 1792

“The Constitution allows only the means which are ‘necessary,’ not those which are merely ‘convenient,’ for effecting the enumerated powers. If such a latitude of construction be allowed to this phrase as to give any non-enumerated power, it will go to every one, for there is not one which ingenuity may not torture into a convenience in some instance or other, to some one of so long a list of enumerated powers. It would swallow up all the delegated powers, and reduce the whole to one power, as before observed" - Thomas Jefferson, 1791

"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated." - Thomas Jefferson, 1798

"This specification of particulars [the 18 enumerated powers of Article I, Section 8] evidently excludes all pretension to a general legislative authority, because an affirmative grant of special powers would be absurd as well as useless if a general authority was intended." - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist 83

"No legislative act … contrary to the Constitution can be valid. To deny this would be to affirm that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid." - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist 78

If you don't believe that the Constitution is limited, then you believe that the federal govt can do anything and everything.

 

[teamosil]

If you don't believe that the Constitution is limited, then you believe that the federal govt can do anything and everything.

Of course it's limited. It's limited to the ennumerated powers. The first of those powers is to tax and spend to promote the general welfare.

 

[Goobieman]

Of course it's limited. It's limited to the ennumerated powers. The first of those powers is to tax and spend to [provide for] the [common defense and the] general welfare.

And in order to create the laws that do this, it was granted, and thus limited to, the remaining 17 powers found in the section; the inclusion of these powers negates any argument that the power to spend on the CD/GW confers the power to create the legislation thru which said spendng is affected.

 

[teamosil]

And in order to create the laws that do this, it was granted, and thus limited to, the remaining 17 powers found in the section; the inclusion of these powers negates any argument that the power to spend on the CD/GW confers the power to create the legislation thru which said spendng is affected.

That's just an arbitrary assumption you're making. There is nothing in there that says that the first power only works in combination with another power. That's just what you wish it said...

Thank god it doesn't though of course... We'd be a third world country. Or, more likely, we would have had a revolution a long time ago... No country has ever survived that wasn't allowed to do anything useful...

 

[The_Patriot]

That's just an arbitrary assumption you're making. There is nothing in there that says that the first power only works in combination with another power. That's just what you wish it said...

Thank god it doesn't though of course... We'd be a third world country. Or, more likely, we would have had a revolution a long time ago... No country has ever survived that wasn't allowed to do anything useful...

The Tenth Amendment:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Hyperbole

 

[Goobieman]

That's just an arbitrary assumption you're making.

On the contrary.

The people that wrote the Constution argued for the inclusion of certain necessary powers stating that if these powers were not included, then the government would have no power to understake said actions. All of these powers, both in whole and in part, deal with spending money on the general welfare and/or the common defense.

IN specific, the power to raise and maintain an army and navy - actiuons that deal -entirelt- with spending money - were necessary to include so that the federal government woud have the power to raise and maintain an army and navy.

UNder your argument, these powers are included in the power to spend revenue to provide for the common defenese; that it was necessary to include these specific powers in order for the government to undertake the actions in question negates your argument.

 

[Goobieman]

The Tenth Amendment:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Hyperbole

Yes... and under his argument, there are is power not delegated to the federal government.,

 

[drz-400]

On the contrary.

The people that wrote the Constution argued for the inclusion of certain necessary powers stating that if these powers were not included, then the government would have no power to understake said actions. All of these powers, both in whole and in part, deal with spending money on the general welfare and/or the common defense.

IN specific, the power to raise and maintain an army and navy - actiuons that deal -entirelt- with spending money - were necessary to include so that the federal government woud have the power to raise and maintain an army and navy.

UNder your argument, these powers are included in the power to spend revenue to provide for the common defenese; that it was necessary to include these specific powers in order for the government to undertake the actions in question negates your argument.

The powers listed below the general welfare clause are not mutually exclusive and independent themselves.

For example:

"To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;"

is not mutually exclusive and independent to:

"To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;"

or

"To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;"

The intersection of either power would certainly include some of each power, but not all of either.

 

[Goobieman]

The powers listed below the general welfare clause are not mutually exclusive and independent themselves.

And so...?
The fact is that:
-These powers do provide for the general welfare
-These powers do require the expenditure of revenue

As such, if the 'general welfare clause', when coupled with the elastic clause, is interpreted as in and of themselves conferring the government the power to create the programs thru which the general welfare was provided, these powers are then already granted to the federal government.

Their inclusion into the powers of Congress negates this argument as the inclusion of each of them were cited as necessary so that the federal government could take action within the relevant context.

 

[drz-400]

And so...?
The fact is that:
-These powers do provide for the general welfare
-These powers do require the expenditure of revenue

As such, if the 'general welfare clause', when coupled with the elastic clause, is interpreted as in and of themselves conferring the government the power to create the programs thru which the general welfare was provided, these powers are then already granted to the federal government.

Their inclusion into the powers of Congress negates this argument as the inclusion of each of them were cited as necessary so that the federal government could take action within the relevant context.

The inclusion of the commerce clause does not negate the power:
"To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;"

This gives the power to congress to regulate commerce and to establish an uniform rule....etc. Under your argument, the latter would be uneccesary, because this power is already granted to the fed gov under the commerce clause, however, it does not follow then that the government cannot regulate commerce.

Now, you have made a new argument, that the general welfare clause was made so the government should take action within the relevant context, however, why then would it follow that it is not then limited to the general welfare of the US, but further, only those provided within the list below. Flipping your argument on its head, why then is the general welfare clause included if the only powers to be granted were those listed below?

 

[teamosil]

The Tenth Amendment:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Hyperbole

Right. The power to tax and spend to promote the general welfare WAS delegted to the US by the constitution...

 

[The_Patriot]

Right. The power to tax and spend to promote the general welfare WAS delegted to the US by the constitution...

Not in the unlimited way you implied. It has the power to tax and spend by enumeration of powers delegated in the Constitution. If it's not listed then the power falls to the states or the people respectively.

 

[teamosil]

Not in the unlimited way you implied. It has the power to tax and spend by enumeration of powers delegated in the Constitution. If it's not listed then the power falls to the states or the people respectively.

Show me where in the constitution it say that that particular power- to tax and spend to promote the general welfare- is limited only to areas where it overlaps another power?