tjcmd
Retired
The amendment would not even have been sent out to the states for ratification if the conservatives in Congress had not made a stupid mistake. That is why it is in the fucking Constitution.
The World Health Organization calls for decriminalization of most drugs
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The amendment would not even have been sent out to the states for ratification if the conservatives in Congress had not made a stupid mistake. That is why it is in the fucking Constitution.
tjcmd
Retired
Does it promote the general welfare?
BeachBumDeac
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does the Constitution govern what local municipal governments can do?
TownieDeac
words are futile devices
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I sincerely suggest tj move to a country without income taxes. Here are a few suggestions:
Oman
UAE
Kuwait
Bahrain
Saudi Arabia
Brunei
Oman
UAE
Kuwait
Bahrain
Saudi Arabia
Brunei
RChildress107
Well-known member
Which makes it constitutional. Which is all that matters. If you don't like it write your representative and ask them to propose a constitutional amendment to change it.
tjcmd
Retired
Does the Constitution allow the feds to bail out local governments who "promote general welfare" until they are bankrupt?
If you told the people who approved the Bill of Rights the following they wouldn't have believed you:
330,000,000 Americans
250,000,000 vehicles owned ordinary Americans that can take you from NY to LA in less than 48 hours
You can send mail to people in space in seconds
Airplanes fly at 500+MPH
The average income of an American is over $44.000 per year
We have sent a vehicle to Mars and it sent back live pictures
America has the biggest economy in the world
The US Army is the biggest and best equipped army the world has ever seen
There's a black POTUS
You can hold something in your hand and talk to someone on Mt. Everest
Our economy is $18TRILION
You can sell products from your living room to a person in New Zealand instantaneously
Those are just a few things that would freak them out and change their opinions on many subjects. To think they would act today the way they did in the 1780s is totally insane.
RChildress107
Well-known member
The elected officials of Detroit seem to think so. Assuming they are wrong (maybe), and assuming the U.S. Constitution was applicable (it's not), it still probably wouldn't be ruled unconstitutional. The legislature gets wide leeway on what it spends money on (absent conflict with other terms in the Constitution) as long as it is even arguably rational.
RChildress107
Well-known member
Yup. Unless you can point to a provision suggesting otherwise.
tjcmd
Retired
TownieDeac
words are futile devices
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Or the Caymans:
"In 2003, the Cayman Islands became the first country in the world to mandate health insurance for all residents."
tjcmd
Retired
You seem to interpret the Constitution as allowing the government to do anything the Constitution does not specifically prohibit while I believe it allows the government to do only those things specifically authorized in the Constitution. If you are correct there is no limit on what the government can do to its citizens.
TownieDeac
words are futile devices
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Precisely my point. There is no libertarian fantasyland that would satisfy his fantasyland requirements. The fact is, our marginal tax rates are unbelievably favorable, perhaps the best in the world for people like him who hate taxes.
tjcmd
Retired
Caymans sounds pretty good, though. Maybe I am there now.
People like TJ forget Jefferson, Adams, Monroe,Madison, Franklin were the progressive thinkers of their age. Overthrowing a king to put everyday people in charge of the government was unthinkable. It would make Bernie sanders of today look like Ronald Reagan.
TownieDeac
words are futile devices
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Great place to vacation (or for your $ to live). They are taxing you 25% to leave the country via plane, and do have massive duties on imported goods, and the hotels you're staying in, etc, as well as a lot of socialized infrastructure.
RChildress107
Well-known member
such as the "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"?
I get that for some reason you think the term "general welfare" should be narrowly tailored, but that hasn't been the case for over 200 years. If something can arguably be considered to provide for the general welfare, and it doesn't conflict with other restrictions in the Constitution, then it will be considered Constitutional.
Wakeforest22890
Snowpom
Not to defend TJCMD, but Madison actually was of the view that "general welfare" need to be at least tied to an enumerated power - a very narrow construction of the Taxing and Spending Clause. Similarly, Jefferson was not particularly a big proponent of Hamilton's broad view of the taxing power.
Of course, this doesn't really matter much unless you're a literalist who is adamant that the previous century (back to 1936 at least) of jurisprudence on the topic just didn't happen or was so incorrectly decided that we need to re-litigate it in 2014. Since at least the 1930's it's been clear that the courts have taken the more expansive view of the topic, not merely a coincidence in my opinion that it came around the same time that the Commerce Clause began to be expanded.
Ironically enough (I suppose this is irony, might just be an interesting side comment though) I think the expansion of the Commerce Clause between the New Deal Era up through the Lopez case is not particularly rooted in the Constitution at all, but I do not have a problem with the interpretation of the Taxing and Spending Clause. Interesting dissonance there I suppose - maybe someone else can explain why I feel that way because I don't have a good answer off the top of my head/
Of course, this doesn't really matter much unless you're a literalist who is adamant that the previous century (back to 1936 at least) of jurisprudence on the topic just didn't happen or was so incorrectly decided that we need to re-litigate it in 2014. Since at least the 1930's it's been clear that the courts have taken the more expansive view of the topic, not merely a coincidence in my opinion that it came around the same time that the Commerce Clause began to be expanded.
Ironically enough (I suppose this is irony, might just be an interesting side comment though) I think the expansion of the Commerce Clause between the New Deal Era up through the Lopez case is not particularly rooted in the Constitution at all, but I do not have a problem with the interpretation of the Taxing and Spending Clause. Interesting dissonance there I suppose - maybe someone else can explain why I feel that way because I don't have a good answer off the top of my head/
Wakeforest22890
Snowpom
See my last post, but the term "general welfare" actually was pretty narrowly confined for the first 150 years or so IMO. At least to the extent that it required some basis in another enumerated power.
United States v. Butler shot that down pretty handily with the following language:
"[T]he [General Welfare] clause confers a power separate and distinct from those later enumerated, is not restricted in meaning by the grant of them, and Congress consequently has a substantive power to tax and to appropriate, limited only by the requirement that it shall be exercised to provide for the general welfare of the United States. … It results that the power of Congress to authorize expenditure of public moneys for public purposes is not limited by the direct grants of legislative power found in the Constitution. … But the adoption of the broader construction leaves the power to spend subject to limitations. … [T]he powers of taxation and appropriation extend only to matters of national, as distinguished from local, welfare."