http://www.greatamericanjournal.com/editor/archives/ForTheGeneralWelfare.htm
For The General Welfare Of The Country
by JR Dieckmann
For far too long, Congress has been violating the Constitution by passing
legislation that gives them powers that were never authorized by the
Constitution. In every case, those powers represent rights that were
intended to be reserved to the states and to the people.
How has Congress committed these grievous violations and gotten away with
it? By claiming that "to provide for the common defense and general welfare"
is an enumerated power granted to Congress under Article 1, Section 8 of the
Constitution. It is not. It is a general statement describing the section
content and justifying the need to levy taxes.
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties,
imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and
general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises
shall be uniform throughout the United States;"
If "[to] provide for the general welfare" were intended to be an enumerated
power, just that one statement alone would render the rest of the article
unnecessary. It would allow Congress to do whatever it wanted, so long as it
could be explained as being for the general welfare of the country. The
framers' intent in writing the Constitution was to limit the power of
government, not to grant it unlimited power.
The belief by some - that providing for the general welfare is an enumerated
power - goes against everything the framers of the Constitution intended. It
would completely undermine the foundation of limited government and the
intent of the framers to retain as much power as possible to the states and
to the people.
The framers knew the dangers of concentrating too much power in a big,
central government and so they made that clear with the adoption of the 10th
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.
This amendment specifically states that all powers not specifically granted
to the federal government shall be reserved to the states and to the people.
There are no such restrictions on the states. The states are free to make
laws and spend their state taxpayers' money any way they choose within their
respective constitutions, providing they do not violate laws already defined
by the U.S. Constitution.
This is why such things as health, welfare and education were historically
regulated and financed by the states and local governments, until recently.
There is no mandate in the U.S. Constitution to provide for federal tax
money to be spent on health, welfare and education. There is also no mandate
in the Constitution for federal tax money to be given to companies engaged
in alternative energy development, or given to anyone else including gifts
as foreign aid.
Article 1, Section 8 describes the things that Congress is authorized to
spend tax money on. The government cannot operate without tax money, so the
framers listed, item by item, those things that Congress is empowered to use
tax money for.
If [to provide for] "the general welfare" were an enumerated power, then so
would be "to provide for the common defense." If this clause were an
enumerated power also, then that would be all that would be necessary for
Congress to create and regulate an army, navy, and other divisions needed
for the national defense.
Therefore, there would be no need to specify the powers to create and
maintain armies and navies in the sentences that follow.
"To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make
rules concerning captures on land and water;
To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that
use shall be for a longer term than two years;
To provide and maintain a navy;
To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and
naval forces;
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the
union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia,
and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the
United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the
officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the
discipline prescribed by Congress;"
Why would the above items even have to be mentioned if "to provide for the
common defense" in the first statement was an enumerated power? The powers
to provide for "the common defense" are specified in the above 6 sentences.
Providing for "the general welfare" includes the following enumerated
powers:
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several
states, and with the Indian tribes;
To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on
the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and
fix the standard of weights and measures;
To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and
current coin of the United States;
To establish post offices and post roads;
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for
limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their
respective writings and discoveries;
To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;
To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high
seas, and offenses against the law of nations."
"The general welfare" and "the common defense" are general terms used in a
preamble that refer to the itemized powers that follow them. They are not
enumerated powers. The enumerated power in the first sentence is "taxation",
ie: the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises [for the
purpose of] providing for the common defense and general welfare of the
United States.
Notice what follows the common defense and general welfare clause:
"but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the
United States;"
It doesn't say "but all duties, imposts and excises, common defense and
general welfare, shall be uniform throughout the United States." It refers
specifically to the power of taxation at the beginning of the statement.
Taxation is what this statement is all about. It is not about granting broad
powers to Congress to do whatever they want as long as they call it "for the
general welfare of the country."
The final statement in Section 8 grants Congress the power to make laws
necessary to enforce and execute the powers granted above.
"To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into
execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this
Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or
officer thereof."
This means just what it says; that Congress is empowered to make laws
necessary to execute the powers granted above, and all articles and
amendments contained within the Constitution. Therefore, any law made by
Congress should comply, and be justified by the articles specified in the
Constitution. That is to say, that any law made by Congress must be
necessary in order to comply with the enumerated powers assigned to them.
For Example; since Congress has the power to use tax money to build roads,
it will then be necessary to also make laws to authorize the installation of
road signs and traffic control on interstate highways. Or to operate a
postal service it will be necessary to have laws to regulate that
department.
You might be wondering how the government can do everything it has to do and
meet the needs of the people with so few powers granted to Congress. The
answer is it was never intended to do that. The Constitution leaves those
powers to the states and grants the federal government only the powers
necessary to deal with foreign and interstate affairs. The federal
government has no constitutional authority to regulate domestic affairs that
affect the free will, or the progress of society. It has no constitutional
authority to interfere in the affairs of the people, except where explicitly
enumerated in the Constitution.
The use of federal tax money is authorized by the Constitution to support
federal government functions and nothing else! Without these constitutional
limits on federal government, there would be no limit to tax increases on
the citizens and federal regulation of every aspect of our lives - much as
we are seeing today. There would be little or no use for individual states.
In Article 1, Section 9, we find this:
No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of
appropriations made by law; and a regular statement and account of receipts
and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time.
Congress is continually passing laws to spend money because of this
requirement. But what we should be asking is - are those laws in compliance
with Article 8? Are the expenditures authorized by one or more enumerations
of power contained in the Constitution? Are they necessary to carry out
government functions? If not, then they are unconstitutional and illegal,
and Congress is guilty of abuse and misuse of taxpayers' money.
Politicians today have found ways to tax everything we do and are still
looking for more sources of tax money, to provide themselves with all the
money they need to do whatever they want to do, without regard for the
limitations placed on them by the Constitution. Isn't it time we take back
our country from corrupt politicians who, for decades, have been stealing
our freedom and liberties, and constitutional rights, to say nothing of our
money? What we have today is not the limited government that the framers
intended in the Constitution.
Corruption and disregard for the Constitution has become the status quo in
Congress. It has become acceptable practice by most politicians, therefore
they are rarely called on it by others. Politicians in Congress have gotten
used to the idea that their job is to provide for the general welfare of the
people by any means necessary.
By assuming that the general welfare clause is an enumeration of power, they
have turned our federal government into exactly what the founders of the
country and the framers of the Constitution tried to prevent when they
crafted the document and in doing so, have stolen the rights and freedom of
the individual states and those of the people. Only by electing those who
show a willingness to restore the limits placed on government by the
Constitution, can these injustices be corrected.
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