I see what you did there. You should realize that the US has the best healthcare system in the world. We know this with our guts. We don’t need data to figure that out. We ain’t sissies.
Lets not talk about the Trayel of Teers.
The problem with all of these Tenthers, or Constitutional Originalists, or Tea Baggers is that they’re too cowardly to stand up and say “FUCK the Founding Fathers! That was over 200 fucking years ago! Things change! I don’t give one shit whether Washington thought we should do things one way or another. Things change! People change! To force the mores of white land-owning males onto a diverse and expanded country such as ours now is idiotic, short-sighted, and dangerous. General welfare can mean whatever the hell we want it to mean. Congress and vote itself whatever powers it thinks it can get away with. I’d rather have the possibility of change and the possibility of mistakes than a static, unchanging set of laws from 200+ years ago.”
We have the possibility of mistakes and change aplenty. That’s what Congress is for.
I don’t feel that it is too much to ask, though, that Congress and the rest of government operate within a constitutional framework, and whatever flaws our Constitution has it provides an admirable institutional stability that it would be unwise to mess with overmuch, IMHO.
Not to mention “Running on Empty.”
The keyword you have there is “overmuch”. What is overmuch to you is not enough for me, and too little for someone else. What I find silly is that these Tenthers are like history’s other losers, “Change is great, but it should stop here now because any more change is bad! We have just the right amount of change right now!”
I’m not asking people to agree with me in the amount or type of change that I want, which is what Tenthers and their ilk want to force others to adhere to. What I want is simply an admission by them stating that neither they nor anyone else can objectively say what “too much” or “too little” change is, and the amendment is therefore a bad place to draw the line at since nobody fucking knows. Its not like I’m saying we should replace the Presidency with a king. There is obvious wording to prevent that. But with something more vague like the 10th, then it is open to interpretation. And my interpretation should not be seen as wrong from the point of view of the Tenthers
Can’t agree. Our Constitution is designed to strictly be of enumerated powers. This was implicit when the Constitution was ratified and was made explicit when the Bill of Rights was ratified. The law is that Congress can only take their lawmaking so far.
Now, admittedly, the notion of how far is too far may have changed over the years, but it has never been abandoned. States are still sovereign in many respects, the people more so, and there are lines that the federal government cannot cross. I do not want to scrap that notion entirely, and I suspect that this is a majority view were people asked about it.
After all, those particular amendments passed at one time, right?
Enumerated powers are exactly what we are talking about. On one hand, rational people can believe that the term “general welfare” can include things that weren’t even dreamed of my the FF’s. Irrational people would believe that unless the Constitution mentions things like the Internet, then it must not be an industry the Feds can have any control over and must be left to the states. All laws of men are subject to change, because men change and times change. Hell, maybe someone we won’t even have a president, but that is a significantly bigger step than what we’re talking about here.
I don’t believe anything’s been abandoned if we refuse to take the Tenthers’ arguments at face value. Enumerated powers of Congress cannot and by definition will not ever cover everything it needs to because time stops for no man or country. You see it as scrapping the consistent government of this country by accepting my standard but without change, this country cannot continue to exist. Holding it static to some archaic notion of government, while brilliant in its inception, cannot ever be a stance reasonable people take.
Populist appeals mean nothing. Our government has radically changed to be possibly unrecognizable should Zombie Madison brave through our streets. My standard of government is consistent, despite what Tenthers want to believe, because it makes allowances for people like that. It can consider such an idea without accepting it, which is what Aristotle once said of an educated mind. No good can come from rejecting that
Yes, but even the most fevered advocates of expanding federal power have to contend with the fact that the General Welfare clause in all case law is interpreted only as a limitation of the federal right to tax and spend money. And while that power is great indeed, it is not absolute.
For instance, I cannot imagine how this clause can allow the federal government to require that citizens purchase health insurance from private companies.
That’s why they also have the Commerce Clause. As quoted earlier: "“Health care and the means of paying for it are “quintessentially economic” in a way that possessing guns near schools, see Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, and domestic violence, see Morrison, 529 U.S. 598, are not. No one must “pile inference upon inference,” Lopez, 514 U.S. at 567, to recognize that the national regulation of a $2.5 trillion industry, much of which is financed through “health insurance . . . sold by national or regional health insurance companies,” 42 U.S.C. § 18091(a)(2)(B), is economic in nature.”
Again, the Commerce Clause permits regulation of commerce that is present. Can you find me an instance where it is used to compel commerce that is not present?
Well, Wickard did. It let the feds limit the amount of wheat Filburn could grow, even though he was growing the wheat for his own use as chicken feed.
“Not present”? Health care is 17.6% of our national economy to the tune of $2.5 trillion (with a T) dollars. How is that “not present”?
I know of no one in the US who doesn’t use health care at some time or another in their life. In 1783, perhaps you would have a point, but now, not so much. At some point, everyone will see a doctor, go to an ER, get prescription, need end of life care, or will die. People may be able to escape it for a few years in their primes, but by and large, most everybody will use it at some point in their lives, and the cost can vary greatly from year to year. When free riders cost the system $43 billion (with a B) dollars a year, I think that certainly is “present”.
And Wickard is another example of course.
I’m not talking about using health care - I’m talking specifically about purchasing health insurance.
Purchasing health insurance is one way of being able to afford “using health care”, and not “purchasing health insurance” has a huge impact on the health care industry and the economy. As the court said: “No matter how you slice the relevant market—as obtaining health care, as paying for health care, as insuring for health care—all of these activities affect interstate commerce, in a substantial way.” Just as in Wickard, not buying health insurance has a substantial effect on the national economy, an effect that can be regulated by Congress. Since “using health care” is something 99.9% of the American population is going to do at sometime in their lives, regulating how and who pays for it is certainly within the power of Congress.
Let me ask you this: spend money on what?
If you were a Tenther, you’d have to honestly answer: “Only things I agree with”
I am not a Tenther. I know the government has the power to spend on things I don’t like. I don’t try to take away that power with a narrow-minded interpretation of the law, I try to create less dependence on such things
“People not buying cars has a substantial effect on the national economy, an effect that can be regulated by Congress.” Do you think it’s constitutional for Congress to mandate that every taxpayer buys a car at least one every 8 years?
Yes, it is. That’s the inevitable result of Wickard and its progeny.
I don’t think it’s wise or good, but it’s most certainly Constitutional.
We will see what the SC decides. I have a feeling that they will decide otherwise. If that reverses Wickard and progeny, so much the better.
And if they don’t? Will you admit that its perfectly Constitutional and a correct assertion of Congressional and governmental power?