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Old 07-21-2007, 07:15 AM   #75 (permalink)
dc_dux
 
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Location: Washington DC
Your self-righteous insistence that you know the Constitution better than many Supreme Court justices and any other citizens who disagree with you on a particular interpretation is tiresome, baseless and insulting.

Quote:
SPENDING FOR THE GENERAL WELFARE
Scope of the Power

The grant of power to “provide ... for the general welfare” raises a two-fold question: how may Congress provide for “the general welfare” and what is “the general welfare” that it is authorized to promote? The first half of this question was answered by Thomas Jefferson in his opinion on the Bank as follows: “[T]he laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They [Congress] are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union. In like manner, they are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose.” The clause, in short, is not an independent grant of power, but a qualification of the taxing power. Although a broader view has been occasionally asserted, Congress has not acted upon it and the Court has had no occasion to adjudicate the point.

With respect to the meaning of “the general welfare” the pages of The Federalist itself disclose a sharp divergence of views between its two principal authors. Hamilton adopted the literal, broad meaning of the clause; Madison contended that the powers of taxation and appropriation of the proposed government should be regarded as merely instrumental to its remaining powers, in other words, as little more than a power of self-support.

From an early date Congress has acted upon the interpretation espoused by Hamilton. Appropriations for subsidies and for an ever increasing variety of “internal improvements” constructed by the Federal Government, had their beginnings in the administrations of Washington and Jefferson. (dk...contrary to your assertion that it started with the New Deal)
...
By and large, it is for Congress to determine what constitutes the “general welfare.” The Court accords great deference to Congress’s decision that a spending program advances the general welfare, and has even questioned whether the restriction is judicially enforceable.

http://supreme.justia.com/constituti...l-welfare.html
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Last edited by dc_dux; 07-21-2007 at 07:58 AM..
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