The General Welfare Clause: The Two Most Abused Words in the Constitution

Mark Levin inspired me yesterday. I have long wanted to shoot down the liberal view of the general welfare clause in the Constitution. No two words have taken greater abuse in our country, and it has become a ticket for federal politicians to exceed the limits placed upon them by the very Constitution these words are found.

The federal government, especially the Democrats, have been successful in redefining welfare over the last 60 years. They have discovered welfare is a vote machine that encourages minorities to stay down on their luck in exchange for a vote. I ask what have the Democrats really done for blacks in this country other than encourage them not to lift themselves out of their tragic conditions that welfare created. Do you really believe this is what our proud founding fathers believed the general welfare of the people should be—crumbling housing projects in bad neighborhoods with bad schools incapable of lifting most out of the conditions they face? There’s no welfare in that.

I had to endure Senator Claire McCaskill tell a group at a town hall meeting in September, that she believed the general welfare clause gave her the right to provide welfare to the people. She’s another politician obviously brainwashed by the Democratic party over the last 60 years with no real knowledge of what the founding fathers meant by general welfare.

General welfare doesn’t mean make the people dependent on a government. That creates oppression. Any fool should be able to see that, but then again we are speaking about Senator McCaskill. I just hate when these politicians feel like they are obedient to the Constitution by redefining the general welfare clause. If the idea of the Constitution is to limit government and keep the government from being intrusive into a citizen’s life, which is one of the earliest facts you learn about the Constitution, how to politicians like McCaskill with any honestly believe the general welfare clause provides enough elasticity to rob freedom of the people by providing federal babysitting services.

You can’t simply have a government program for every pain Americans face from healthcare costs to food safety without giving the federal government power beyond the limits placed in the Constitution. Our founding fathers were smart enough to look across the pond and realize with power comes corruption and oppression. Knowing the simple but proven philosophies of the founding fathers, it’s hard to make the McCaskill and Democrat’s case the general welfare clause gives them the power to continue creating welfare program after welfare program. If they know anything about the creation of the Constitution, they are intellectually dishonest if they tell you otherwise. It’s not just Democrats who are playing word games either. There are many Republicans who have grown to love the power of the abuse of these two words.

The general welfare clause has more to do with government getting out of the way to create real freedom for Americans to make something better than it has for government holding out a hand and providing a handout. These two words have been redefined by those who want power, and they gain their power by creating dependence. Don’t be mistaken by their smiles. Ronald Reagan said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”

Those nine words almost always show the breakdown of the limits of the Constitution. The Constitution gives the federal government such a limited role, and yet almost every politicians who heads to Washington and becomes part of the federal machine quickly forget those limits, and they hide behind the general welfare clause believing it gives the federal government some elastic power with unlimited stretch. It’s simply not so.

Let’s review the general welfare clause: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

First, notice it says PROMOTE. It doesn’t say provide. There is clearly a difference between promote and provide. If politicians in Washington had the keys to the case the Constitution sits in, they would have already gotten the White Out out and reworded it for their convenience. Remember, it’s promote.

Promoting the general welfare doesn’t mean bogging down the people of this country with taxes that slow down the economy and makes it harder to achieve happiness, especially taxes that redistribute those who work for their American dream over those who sit and complain they are incapable of the American dream. Promoting the general welfare is about getting out of the way and giving each person the opportunity to do it on their own. That’s what freedom is about. You can’t have true freedom if the government is a part of nearly every element of your life—and our government has come to that point. Do you realize in 2009, the federal government has labeled half of your breath as a dangerous pollutant—nearly every element of your life. You can’t be free when a government has this much power.

Remember, Thomas Jefferson, who had a little to do with the creation of this country once said, a government that is powerful enough to give you everything is also powerful enough to take everything from you. Knowing this very quote alone, should be enough for the McCaskills who work from Capitol Hill knowledge the general welfare clause isn’t permission by the founding fathers to provide every service they can to get people through their lives.

The sad thing is all these federal programs have robbed the rights of the states and provided more power to the federal government. When you read the Constitution, you should realize each state is just a small country, that agreed to the Constitution to provide limited services for the state. With each federal program, the states have been asked to give up this part of their identity. With each right a sovereign state sacrificed, the lower the quality of the entity that federal government has taken over. Look at education for example. The Constitution doesn’t provide for the power of the Department of Education. Now where in the Constitution will you find it’s the job of the federal government to provide education to the states. Yet, the general welfare clause was stretched with the promises of better education through more federal funds to the states (it’s always sacrificed with the promise of federal dollars), but what has happened. Thanks to the abuse of the general welfare clause, education has gone downhill, and you can even make the argument the federal government has steered education away from children learning concepts that allow them to question the federal government.

Let’s look at the next part of the language associated with the general welfare clause. It appears again in the Constitution: 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; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;”

Notice we have some insight to what the general welfare is supposed to promote. It doesn’t say people. It says the states. Remember, when the Constitution was ratified and the United States was formed, the states were supposed to function as individual little countries that through the Constitution worked together for economical purposes while providing one military to protect all 13 original states. Once again I remind you the union was set up to promote the general welfare of the states. It does this by regulating interstate commerce and defense. It doesn’t do this by providing big federal government programs which hand out billions of dollars. The federal government has reached well beyond the limits given to it by the Constitution. We aren’t supposed to be one entity as united states for anything other than defense, justice between two or more states, and to promote commerce between states.

All these things I just mentioned do promote the general welfare for the states which all people will benefit from. As you know stretching the general welfare clause into something that it is not have hurt the states. All I have to do is look to the golden state which once offered so many promises of the American dream to see what the lies of the general welfare program have caused. Massive amounts of debt, less jobs, and a society that has come to rely on an illegal federal government that continues to play with words to gain power over the people. It’s really a shame Americans have allowed this.

We all should be Missourians, Illinoisans, Californians, New Yorkers, Arkansans, Texans, before we are Americans. Too many have bought into the general welfare clause into something it isn’t; therefore, we have become slaves to the American federal machine.

Originally posted at Bungalow Bill’s Conservative Wisdom © Clay Bowler

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