Posted on 01/01/2005 2:21:20 AM PST by Exton1
Come on, give me a laugh, back it up instead of relying on your "living constitution" theory.
It's all about getting elected and nothing more.
They have to get the black vote so they vote for welfare.
They have to get the Hispanic vote so they are for amnesty and worker permits.
Etc etc etc, ad infinitum.
That's why I have always felt that these bills should be by national vote, once a year, not by some "representative" or "senator."
BTTT
I can answer that. None of the spineless congresscritters have the courage to stand up and say that it wasn't their role. I mean, who could be against those benefits except mean people like you and I or the enemy themselves, right?
As you accurately point out, the people can, will, and should be the ones to decide if their money goes to 'charity' of any kind. Anything else is legalized theft.
Are you a liberal woman?
You argue like one.
You made a claim. Back it up or shut up.
I have made no claim. I merely asked for proof of your claim.
And shove the living constitutionist crap back where it belongs.
When is one of you going to back up your claim that all the Founders were wrong?
Never.
Was that before or after he supported Jefferson on the massive national roads project? Is that an "object of benevolence?" I admit, I can't find much about JM supporting government funded almshouses---but then again, I haven't done a whole lot of primary source research into JM. But he did go from being a Federalist to being a "Republican" then back to being, in terms of his policies, a Federalist, so it wouldn't surprise me if he had voted for Virginia laws supporting public almshouses. Indeed, at the time, HIS OWN politicies toward "disestablishing" churches (the primary source of charities0 argued that it had to be the state's job.
If only we had such decency today!
bump for later read....
In another sentence it says Congress has the power "To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;"
Now, I will agree that a strict reading of these does not contain the words "offer humanitarian assistance," but neither is it prohibited, and under "providing" for the "general welfare of the United States," it can be argued that limiting the spread of disease and buidling international alliances through aid easily falls under either category. For example, "providing for the common defense" does not strictly allow us to sell or give weapons to another country; but common sense tells us that Washington or Adams would have no trouble arming Indian tribes who would fight the British---or other Indians, and indeed, that is exactly what we did under MADISON and MONROE.
As part of the enabling acts to make the territories states they were required to sell some of their land to pay for the roads.
So it was the states it went through paying for it- not the feds.
President Madison vetoed an internal improvement bill that was heavily weighted in favor of Virginia in the hopes of getting his signature (it's funding of a Virginia canal to the Ohio river would have tied the west to Virginia instead of through the Erie Canal to New York and prevented the Civil War IMHO- but, alas, that is neither here nor there).
Well, it was far more than a "national road." The project as drawn up by Gallatin was $10 m., more than the entire Fed. budget at the time, and much of it was canals, not roads, to be built at federal expense. See my book, "The Entrepreneurial Adventure: A History of Business in the United States."
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