"All of these (entitlement) programs involve some people spending other people's money for objectives that are determined by still a third group of people. Nobody spends somebody else's money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody has the same dedication to achieving somebody else's objectives that he displays when he pursues his own."
Free to Choose, Part 4
These are some poignant words to keep in mind as the government spending controversy comes to a head.
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4 comments:
Programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act come under the general welfare clause. As such, they are constitutional rights--not entitlements.
Hempy, you are using the most frequently exploited clause on behalf of federal government power. The federal government has only those powers expressly delegated to it..as Madison wrote, "For what purpose could the enumeration of particulars be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in a preceding general power?" He's more direct in this quote, "In its fair and consistent meaning the general welfare clause cannot enlarge the enumerated powers vested in Congress." -1800 The general welfare clause has been interpreted in a way that is far removed from its original intention and that has been done for the sake of a concentrated power.
Lady:
Before you go spouting off unfounded right wing rhetoric on this subject, you ought to read what Alexander Hamilton said about the general welfare in his 1796 report to Congress on manufactures:
The terms “general welfare” were doubtless intended to signify more than was expressed or imported in those that preceded otherwise, numerous exigencies incident to the affairs of a nation would have been left without a provision. The phrase is as comprehensive as any that could have been used; because it was not fit that the constitutional authority of the Union to appropriate its revenues should have been restricted within narrower limits than the “general welfare” and because this necessarily embraces a vast variety of particulars, which are susceptible neither of specification nor of definition.
Jefferson also supported Hamilton’s view.
And Hempy - what size of federal bureaucracy did Alexander Hamilton and Jefferson fund and employ to support your generous programs that you so adamantly support and encourage?
Do you think the mindset of their day was total dependence on the government or do you think the people of those times worked their rear ends off to support themselves the best they could?
Your ideology will only be satisfied when there are no workers to support your programs - constitutional rights or entitlements - because everyone will be sucking off the government and will be accountable for nothing themselves. Then the programs will crash and burn because the bureaucrats will be out of OTHER people's money to spend.
Only educators and people living off OUR tax dollars could believe in unlimited handouts for general welfare because they cannot relate to individual accountability.
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