Posted on 01/19/2017 9:48:08 AM PST by TigerClaws
A lot of science fiction has been funded by the government. I guess your novel wasn't about climate change...
Agreed. Kill the NEA, or, more accurately, call on liberals to fund it voluntarily with their own money. My children and grandchildren are far too deep in debt for us to force this borrowing on them too.
The unemployment and labor slice, along with medicare and health, are much bigger problems, and far less defendable from a constitutional sense, than the defense appropriations.
Dumbest statement of 2017...
But the year is still young, and Obama seems determined to keep holding on to that title...
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
You'll never get an NEA grant and all that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!.
Good post!
Beware of trying to interpret the general welfare clause (GWC; 1.8.1) apart from its context in Congress’s constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers.
It is important to consider that James Madison, Madison generally regarded as the father of the Constitution, and Thomas Jefferson, had gotten into probably the first official argument with traitor Alexander Hamilton over the scope of Congress’s Section 8-limited powers in connection with Hamilton’s national bank.
More specifically, Jefferson had explained in an official report to President Washington that that the scope of Congress’s powers concerning the GWC was limited by the clauses that followed it in that section, no specific power to establish a national bank listed among those powers.
“A proposition was made to them to authorize Congress to open canals, and an amendatory one to empower them to incorporate. But the whole was rejected, and one of the reasons for rejection urged in debate was, that then they would have a power to erect a bank, which would render the great cities, where there were prejudices and jealousies on the subject, adverse to the reception of the Constitution [emphasis added].” —Jefferson’s Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank : 1791.
"1. To lay taxes to provide for the general welfare of the United States, that is to say, "to lay taxes for the purpose of providing for the general welfare." For the laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They 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. To consider the latter phrase, not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please, which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless [emphasis added].
It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please." —Jefferson's Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank : 1791.
In fact, compare Jefferson’s comments about the GWC as it concerned Hamilton’s bank with what President James Madison later wrote about that clause when he vetoed the public works bill of 1817. Madison noted in the constitutionally required veto explanation (1.7.2) that there were no clauses in Section 8 that authorized Congress to appropriate taxes to build roads and canals in the name of the GWC, regardless of the wide interpretation of the GWC by a rookie constitutional Congress.
”To refer the power in question to the clause "to provide for common defense and general welfare" would be contrary to the established and consistent rules of interpretation, as rendering the special and careful enumeration of powers which follow the clause nugatory and improper. Such a view of the Constitution would have the effect of giving to Congress a general power of legislation instead of the defined and limited one hitherto understood to belong to them, the terms "common defense and general welfare" embracing every object and act within the purview of a legislative trust.” —James Madison, Veto of federal public works bill, 1817
Also consider the following clarifications of Congress’s constitutionally limited powers and likewise limited power to appropriate taxes despite not only naively wide interpretations of the GWC, but also the tortured interpretation of that clause by FDR’s state sovereignty-ignoring, outcome-driven justices..
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
”State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress [emphases added].” —Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.
Finally, note that there has never been anything stopping the states from amending the Constitution to grant Congress the specific powers to tax and spend for many social spending programs. The problem is that, especially since the time of FDR, state sovereignty-ignoring justices have been letting the post-17th Amendment, state sovereignty-ignoring Congress get away with doing the following. Corrupt lawmakers have been winning votes from low-information voters by promising such voters all kinds of federal social spending programs, programs that corrupt Congress cannot justify under the limited powers that the states have expressly delegated to Congress.
Drain the swamp! Drain the swamp!
Remember in November ’18 !
Since Trump entered the ’16 presidential race too late for patriots to make sure that there were state sovereignty-respecting candidates on the primary ballots, patriots need make sure that such candidates are on the ’18 primary ballots so that they can be elected to support Trump in draining the unconstitutionally big federal government swamp.
Such a Congress will also be able to finish draining the swamp with respect to getting the remaining state sovereignty-ignoring, activist justices off of the bench.
Noting that the primaries start in Iowa and New Hampshire in February ‘18, patriots need to challenge candidates for federal office in the following way.
Patriots need to qualify candidates by asking them why the Founding States made the Constitution’s Section 8 of Article I; to limit (cripple) the federal government’s powers.
Patriots also need to find candidates that are knowledgeable of the Supreme Court's clarifications of the federal government’s limited powers listed above.
I think Trump needs to announce that nothing has been decided about anything and that all of these executive orders and defunding stories are rumors. Announce they will meet with leaders to discuss options for all of these groups, PBS, NPR, NEA, EPA, etc... Tell them he really wants to bring everybody together and try and keep the inauguration peaceful.
Then next week, when they have all gone home hold a press conference. Start going through the EO’s one by one. NEA - gone. NPR - gone. PBS - gone, etc... and don’t invite CNN.
Profits from Sesame Street can fund the whole operation. Capitalism, dude.
Artists might actually have to start producing art that’s beautiful and appealing to... human beings. Maybe only the truly talented will succeed.
It’ll be anarchy!
Seriously. It’s time for the rich people to restart the art and museum foundations and charities. If one of them truly loves an artist’s work, they can buy it. Or even become a patron.
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