Pull out your pocket Constitution, or check it online.
Where, exactly, does it permit the Federal Government to force a minimum wage on the entire nation?
Here… let me help you. Take a peek at the 10th amendment:
Amendment 10 – Powers of the States and People. Ratified 12/15/1791. Note
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Basically, if something isn’t specified as something permitted to the Federal Government, it is reserved to the states.
Isn’t it bad enough that the minimum wage kills jobs? Why must we violate the Constitution to do it? And where, exactly, are the heads of the Supreme Court justices that say something like this is Constitutional?
Why should I believe any other thing they claim is or isn’t Constitutional?
July 27th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
Article I Section 8 “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States”
“provide for the general Welfare” is a broad area of authority with no restricting definitions in the Constitution that would prohibit minimum wage laws.
July 27th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
That makes no sense. It sounds like something Sotomayor might say.
The sentence means they can take money to promote the general welfare of the US. So , using that tortured logic, THEY should pay the minimum wage, not force me to. But even then, money to specific people is hardly the “general welfare”. Defending our borders is – but they don’t do that.
Your interpretation means they can do anything. Even lock up liberal commenters, for the General Welfare. How would you feel about that?
July 27th, 2009 at 11:26 pm
dictionary.com:
“general”:
applying to all or most members of a category or group; “the general public”; “general assistance”; “a general rule”; “in general terms …
Paying 1 million out of 350 million hardly qualifies as “all or most” members of the general public.
I’m impressed with the mental gymnasitcs that has that line from Article 1 allowing anything but somehow the 2nd amendment doesn’t allow the keeping and bearing of arms.
July 28th, 2009 at 5:42 am
Do you enjoy living in St George, which would be a dusty isolated desert town without all the “general Welfare” work that went to building highways and airports and Hoover Dam and corralling the Colorado River to enable Las Vegas?
“lock up liberal commenters” is specifically treated in other parts of the Constitution under individual liberties. “bearing arms” is also treated elsewhere, and considering how you are able to buy, hold, and shoot guns, and boast about it openly, you’ll have a hard time convincing anyone you are being unduly restricted.
I suppose you also think that invading Iraq qualified under “provide for the common Defence”.
July 28th, 2009 at 7:33 am
Highways are “general welfare” mostly…. I15, is. I295 around Salt Lake, I’m not so sure about.
I wasn’t referring to what I can do now WRT firearms but what I believed you interpreted the 2nd amendment as from many discussions.I figured tortured logic could work in all parts of the Constitution.
WRT Iraq… you will remember that my view of it was that Iran was the real threat (to the common defence). Encircling it meets that test for me. Turning Iraq into a 3rd rate corrupt Democracy doesn’t. I wasn’t particularly happy with that part of Bush’s plans. I can grant them, however, that it would be useful if we had an ally encircling Iran for us and so I give them leeway on methods.
July 28th, 2009 at 9:17 am
Isn’t the Constitution a great instrument? We can find in it support for the policies we support and opposition to polices we oppose. BTW: the debate over the propriety of “internal improvements” is about as old as the Constitution itself.
July 28th, 2009 at 9:26 am
[...] Carl opined a definition of the “general welfare†clause so broad as to essentially gut the entire idea behind the Constitution (a Federal government with [...]
July 28th, 2009 at 9:28 am
That is not it at all. My definition was pretty precise – help EVERYBODY. A major highway can do that. A local beltway, not so much.
Yes there will be some disagreement, but around the edges of General, not some population that is a decimal point of the total public.
This is obvious. Those in the “it can do it all” are the ones following policy preferences. There are things I think are good ideas that aren’t enumerated in the Constitution. I’d like an amendment, not an invention.
August 28th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Thomas Jefferson explicitly explains the term “general welfare” to be of the union, not of the people. And that the powers the federal government can wield for the general welfare of the union are specified in Article 8. If it is not in there, it doesn’t exist and requires an amendment. He also stated that to find the ability to just do any old good thing you want in the words ‘general welfare’ would render the entire article meaningless and pointless.
August 28th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Also, the use of the term in the preamble is virtually meaningless as it is an introduction to the Constitution, not a legal part of the Constitution.
August 28th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Hi John… I agree, right now they interpret it as pretty much anything.