The Constitution -- all of it -- was formulated to set up a mechanism for: (1) making laws; (2) implementing/executing laws; and (3) judging conformance to, or Constitutionality of, a law.
I think one of us is confused.
You are taking me to say that the Constitution empowers Congress to address only the general Welfare, and have no power to address other concerns. That is not correct.
I am saying that the Constitution empowers Congress alone to make laws (legislate); the Constitution does not give Congress any power to put its laws into effect (execute them), nor is Congress to decide whether a law passed and signed is allowable (judge its Constitutionality).
That is, basically:
Congress => makes a law
Executive branch/Presidency => Executes a law
Federal courts => decides a law's Constitutionality and/or whether the mode of executing it is a Constitutionally empowered process
It seems to me that you are confusing the construction of my sentence. Only Congress (supposedly) can make laws regarding any of the concerns listed in the Preamble. Making laws is not a function (supposedly) of the Presidency or of the Federal Courts.
If Congress has the "enumerated Power to make laws regarding promoting and providing for the general welfare", then what limit would exist aside from whatever any particular Congressman might think is beneficial?
None. He just has to get a majority of both houses to agree with him. (However, fellow legislators may evaluare his proposal vis-a-vis Constitutionality and say 'No, don't waste our time.') But the President may refuse to enforce it, and/or the Federal courts may decide that it is neither enforceable nor Constitutionally within the purview of Congress.
Unfortunately we have gotten into the situation where, if Congress refuses to make a law the President wants, he issues an Executive Order to make the law; or if a Federal court wants its concept of a law to be put into play, it does so through a judicial reinterpretation to extend the reach of a law which no legislator intended the law (or the Constitution) to mean. Thus the Original Intent is perverted and the Constitution subverted.
Are you suggesting that the Supreme Court need only concern itself with whether a law "promotes or provides for the general welfare" in order to decide whether such law is Constitutional?
Of course not. The grammar of the sentence does not have that intent or interpretation.
I don't think so.
Neither do I, and I will not permit you to rearrange my words to put that thought into the reader's mind. Or yours.
Neither am I so confused as to think that I am an expert in Constitutional Law. I am not; but I do form opinions on what I read there, and am willing to expose them.
You are implying, if not outright stating, that Congress can pass whatever the hell it wants under the guise of "general welfare" and damn the Constitutions limits...
How very... Democrat... of you.
With: "None. He just has to get a majority of both houses to agree with him."
I think we are talking past each other because you are talking about what the government has been doing, and I am talking about what the Constitution says and what our Founder intended when they wrote it.
It was obediance to the Constitution which was intended to "promote the general welfare", not the arbitrary actions of Congress despite their best intentions.