AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

Fox has dodged the issue entirely. Joe, of course, can correct me if i have not correctly stated the case.

Thomas, please post, or provide a link to, the actual Supreme Court's rejection of "Madison's view of the Welfare Clause in favor of Hamilton's!"

The Congress is expressly empowered to lay taxes to provide for the general welfare. Funds in the Treasury as a result of taxation may be expended only through appropriation. Article 1, 9, cl. 7. They can never accomplish the objects for which they were collected, unless the power to appropriate is as broad as the power to tax. The necessary implication from the terms of the grant is that the public funds may be appropriated 'to provide for the general welfare of the United States.' These words cannot be meaningless, else they would not have been used. The conclusion must be that they were intended to limit and define the granted power to raise and to expend money. How shall they be construed to effectuate the intent of the instrument?

Since the foundation of the nation, sharp differences of opinion have persisted as to the true interpretation of the phrase. Madison asserted it amounted to no more than a reference to the other powers enumerated in the subsequent clauses of the same section; that, as the United States is a government of limited and enumerated powers, the grant of power to tax and spend for the general national welfare must be confined to the enumerated legislative fields committed to the Congress. In this view the phrase is mere tautology, for taxation and appropriation are or may be necessary incidents of the exercise of any of the enumerated legislative powers. Hamilton, on the other hand, maintained the 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 ap- [297 U.S. 1, 66] propriate, limited only by the requirement that it shall be exercised to provide for the general welfare of the United States. Each contention has had the support of those whose views are entitled to weight. This court has noticed the question, but has never found it necessary to decide which is the true construction. Mr. Justice Story, in his Commentaries, espouses the Hamiltonian position. 12 We shall not review the writings of public men and commentators or discuss the legislative practice. Study of all these leads us to conclude that the reading advocated by Mr. Justice Story is the correct one. While, therefore, the power to tax is not unlimited, its confines are set in the clause which confers it, and not in those of section 8 which bestow and define the legislative powers of the Congress. 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.

You used my name with a pejorative spin

I happen to disagree with MM that political correctness is an appropriate measure of acceptability. At the very least I will give a person opportunity to apologize or to explain their rationale for their opinion before I write them off. But I see no reason to criticize MM because he disagrees with me.

I'm happy that MM gave you the exact answer you think is the only appropriate answer. Good for him. He gets to be a member of the club I guess.... So I probably won't ever be acceptable in your group. But I like where I am just the same.

Jewish World Review May 14, 2009 20 Iyar 5769

Tincture of Lawlessness: Obama's Overreaching Economic Policies

By George Will

Anyone, said T.S. Eliot, could carve a goose, were it not for the bones. And anyone could govern as boldly as his whims decreed, were it not for the skeletal structure that keeps civil society civil " the rule of law. The Obama administration is bold. It also is careless regarding constitutional values and is acquiring a tincture of lawlessness.


In February, California's Democratic-controlled Legislature, faced with a $42 billion budget deficit, trimmed $74 million (1.4 percent) from one of the state's fastest-growing programs, which provides care for low-income and incapacitated elderly people and which cost the state $5.42 billion last year. The Los Angeles Times reports that "loose oversight and bureaucratic inertia have allowed fraud to fester."


But the Service Employees International Union collects nearly $5 million a month from 223,000 caregivers who are members. And the Obama administration has told California that unless the $74 million in cuts are rescinded, it will deny the state $6.8 billion in stimulus money.


Such a federal ukase (the word derives from czarist Russia; how appropriate) to a state legislature is a sign of the administration's dependency agenda " maximizing the number of people and institutions dependent on the federal government. For the first time, neither sales nor property nor income taxes are the largest source of money for state and local governments. The federal government is.


The SEIU says the cuts violate contracts negotiated with counties. California officials say the state required the contracts to contain clauses allowing pay to be reduced if state funding is.

Anyway, the Obama administration, judging by its cavalier disregard of contracts between Chrysler and some of the lenders it sought money from, thinks contracts are written on water. The administration proposes that Chrysler's secured creditors get 28 cents per dollar on the $7 billion owed to them but that the United Auto Workers union get 43 cents per dollar on its $11 billion in claims " and 55 percent of the company. This, even though the secured creditors' contracts supposedly guaranteed them better standing than the union.


Among Chrysler's lenders, some servile banks that are now dependent on the administration for capital infusions tugged their forelocks and agreed. Some hedge funds among Chrysler's lenders that are not dependent were vilified by the president because they dared to resist his demand that they violate their fiduciary duties to their investors, who include individuals and institutional pension funds.


The Economist says the administration has "ridden roughshod over [creditors'] legitimate claims over the [automobile companies'] assets. . . . Bankruptcies involve dividing a shrunken pie. But not all claims are equal: some lenders provide cheaper funds to firms in return for a more secure claim over the assets should things go wrong. They rank above other stakeholders, including shareholders and employees. This principle is now being trashed." Tom Lauria, a lawyer representing hedge fund people trashed by the president as the cause of Chrysler's bankruptcy, asked that his clients' names not be published for fear of violence threatened in e-mails to them.


The Troubled Assets Relief Program, which has not yet been used for its supposed purpose (to purchase such assets from banks), has been the instrument of the administration's adventure in the automobile industry. TARP's $700 billion, like much of the supposed "stimulus" money, is a slush fund the executive branch can use as it pleases. This is as lawless as it would be for Congress to say to the IRS: We need $3.5 trillion to run the government next year, so raise it however you wish " from whomever, at whatever rates you think suitable. Don't bother us with details.


This is not gross, unambiguous lawlessness of the Nixonian sort " burglaries, abuse of the IRS and FBI, etc. " but it is uncomfortably close to an abuse of power that perhaps gave Nixon ideas: When in 1962 the steel industry raised prices, President John F. Kennedy had a tantrum and his administration leaked rumors that the IRS would conduct audits of steel executives, and sent FBI agents on predawn visits to the homes of journalists who covered the steel industry, ostensibly to further a legitimate investigation.


The Obama administration's agenda of maximizing dependency involves political favoritism cloaked in the raiment of "economic planning" and "social justice" that somehow produce results superior to what markets produce when freedom allows merit to manifest itself, and incompetence to fail. The administration's central activity " the political allocation of wealth and opportunity " is not merely susceptible to corruption, it is corruption.

http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/will051409.php3

Quote:

I happen to disagree with MM that political correctness is an appropriate measure of acceptability. At the very least I will give a person opportunity to apologize or to explain their rationale for their opinion before I write them off. But I see no reason to criticize MM because he disagrees with me.

If thats what you think I was saying, then I guess I wasnt clear enough.
I am the last person to agree with or think that being "PC" is a measure of anything.
I have opposed PC for years.

However, people that are racist, and use threats and intimidation or violence to get their message out are beneath contempt and do not deserve respect or the chance to explain their rationale at all.
If someone makes a stupid IMHO comment, then I will not hold that against them.
We have all made stupid comments, at least I know I have.

However, if they have an established history of that, or if they advocate violence, or if they advocate bigotry or hatred, then I ant no part of them and dont want them around me at all.

If you think thats being "PC", then there is nothing I can do.

If someone makes a stupid IMHO comment, then I will not hold that against them.
We have all made stupid comments, at least I know I have.

However, if they have an established history of that, or if they advocate violence, or if they advocate bigotry or hatred, then I ant no part of them and dont want them around me at all.

If you think thats being "PC", then there is nothing I can do.

I think I was zeroing in on your criticism of Ican calling the current administration 'gangsters'. He has very clearly explained why he uses that term. It bugs me too, but I understand why he uses the term and he is not out of line with his rationale.

mystery is his own person. that's why i like him.

it is his First Amendment as much as mine. If I want the right to call it as I see it and be allowed to use my own way of expressing myself, I have to afford others the same courtesy and accommodation even if it sounds abrasive to me.