tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4468664660833170893.post5325142343927039327..comments2024-01-08T14:53:19.838-05:00Comments on Bluegrass Policy Blog: Don't miss BIPPS' ad on the Constitution in The Lane ReportKelly Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17249335217299732224noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4468664660833170893.post-43041244890816453402011-04-18T19:51:22.373-04:002011-04-18T19:51:22.373-04:00Obviously you haven’t bothered to read what our fo...Obviously you haven’t bothered to read what our founders said about the general welfare clause. In Alexander Hamilton’s <i>1791 report to Congress on manufactures,</i> Hamilton wrote:<br /><br /><i>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;” [Art. 1, §8, Clause 1] and because this necessarily embraces a vast variety of particulars, which are susceptible neither of specification nor of definition.</i><br /><br />And if you’d bother to read Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, you’ll find an all-embracing affirmation of promoting the progress of science and useful arts.<br /><br />Presumably you don’t consider medical advances as qualifying as a progress of science. Too, the very word “progress” should clue you in to the fact that the clause was intended to be an all-embracing provision. It’s not the idyllic limited government fantasy that you’re so fond of promoting.<br /><br />It was written broadly so as to be all embracing, as a study of the history of this clause will reveal.<br /><br />Thomas Jefferson affirmed this concept when he wrote: “The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.”Hempyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02813467704115452311noreply@blogger.com