what the general welfare clause means

Art. I, Sec. 8, Cl. 1:

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

From Dumbauld's commentary:

As indicated by its genesis, the true interpretation of the "general welfare" clause is that it designates the purpose for which taxes may be imposed; however, it does not constitute a separate substantive power to provide for the general welfare by measures other than taxation.

The "general welfare" clause originated in an attempt to made sure that payment of old debts incurred under the Confederation, as well as current expenses, was a legitimate occasion for exercise of the taxing power of the new government. Regardless of punctuation, the words "to provide for . . . the general welfare" do not constitute a substantive power but merely specify the purposes for which taxes may be imposed. The worlds were first used, in this connection, when speaking of assumption of state debts, and amounted to a declaration that those debts incurred for prosecution of the Revolutionary War were indeed incurred for the general welfare of the United States, and not merely for the local benefit of individual welfare of the particular debtor state. If the words were interpreted as a substantive power to legislate for the general welfare of the nation and people, the consequent enumeration of specific power granted in Article I, section 8, of the Constitution as adopted would be superfluous. Moreover, the federal government would then for all practical purposes be one of unlimited general legislative power, contrary to the general understanding of the time that it was one of enumerated and limited powers.

What a divided country looks like

Picture A:

Picture B:

Picture C:

Open Letter to the Nobel Prize Committee: Prizes for Promises

Dear Nobel Prize Committee,


I promise to bring world peace. May I have a Nobel Prize for this promise?


Sincerely,
--------------
Texas, USA

[Sent to: postmaster@nobel.no]

Outrageous Revelation

Prothero writes in the WSJ:

Any claim of revelation is outrageous. It presumes that God exists, that God speaks and that all is not lost when human beings translate that speech into ordinary language. But time mutes the outrage, or muffles it. Many of us greet the miracles of Jesus with a shrug, and there is little scandal any more in claiming that the Bible is the word of God.

I think we need to recover a sense of how outrageous revelation is.

A Sporting Metaphysics

In his dissent in Martin vs. PGA TOUR, Scalia argues that the handicapped golfer Martin does not fall under the American Disabilities Act since Martin is an "independent contractor," not a "customer," of the PGA TOUR (and the ADA does not apply to independent contractors).

Then he responds to the Court:

If one assumes, however, that the PGA TOUR has some legal obligation to play classic, Platonic golf–and if one assumes the correctness of all the other wrong turns the Court has made to get to this point–then we Justices must confront what is indeed an awesome responsibility. It has been rendered the solemn duty of the Supreme Court of the United States, laid upon it by Congress in pursuance of the Federal Government’s power “[t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States,” U.S. Const., Art. I, §8, cl. 3, to decide What Is Golf. I am sure that the Framers of the Constitution, aware of the 1457 edict of King James II of Scotland prohibiting golf because it interfered with the practice of archery, fully expected that sooner or later the paths of golf and government, the law and the links, would once again cross, and that the judges of this august Court would some day have to wrestle with that age-old jurisprudential question, for which their years of study in the law have so well prepared them: Is someone riding around a golf course from shot to shot really a golfer? The answer, we learn, is yes. The Court ultimately concludes, and it will henceforth be the Law of the Land, that walking is not a “fundamental” aspect of golf.

Either out of humility or out of self-respect (one or the other) the Court should decline to answer this incredibly difficult and incredibly silly question. To say that something is “essential” is ordinarily to say that it is necessary to the achievement of a certain object. But since it is the very nature of a game to have no object except amusement (that is what distinguishes games from productive activity), it is quite impossible to say that any of a game’s arbitrary rules is “essential.” Eighteen-hole golf courses, 10-foot-high basketball hoops, 90-foot baselines, 100-yard football fields–all are arbitrary and none is essential. The only support for any of them is tradition and (in more modern times) insistence by what has come to be regarded as the ruling body of the sport–both of which factors support the PGA TOUR’s position in the present case. (Many, indeed, consider walking to be the central feature of the game of golf–hence Mark Twain’s classic criticism of the sport: “a good walk spoiled.”) I suppose there is some point at which the rules of a well-known game are changed to such a degree that no reasonable person would call it the same game. If the PGA TOUR competitors were required to dribble a large, inflated ball and put it through a round hoop, the game could no longer reasonably be called golf. But this criterion–destroying recognizability as the same generic game–is surely not the test of “essentialness” or “fundamentalness” that the Court applies, since it apparently thinks that merely changing the diameter of the cup might “fundamentally alter” the game of golf, ante, at 20.

Having concluded that dispensing with the walking rule would not violate federal-Platonic “golf” (and, implicitly, that it is federal-Platonic golf, and no other, that the PGA TOUR can insist upon) the Court moves on to the second part of its test: the competitive effects of waiving this nonessential rule. In this part of its analysis, the Court first finds that the effects of the change are “mitigated” by the fact that in the game of golf weather, a “lucky bounce,” and “pure chance” provide different conditions for each competitor and individual ability may not “be the sole determinant of the outcome.” Ante, at 25. I guess that is why those who follow professional golfing consider Jack Nicklaus the luckiest golfer of all time, only to be challenged of late by the phenomenal luck of Tiger Woods. The Court’s empiricism is unpersuasive. “Pure chance” is randomly distributed among the players, but allowing respondent to use a cart gives him a “lucky” break every time he plays. Pure chance also only matters at the margin–a stroke here or there; the cart substantially improves this respondent’s competitive prospects beyond a couple of strokes. But even granting that there are significant nonhuman variables affecting competition, that fact does not justify adding another variable that always favors one player.

In an apparent effort to make its opinion as narrow as possible, the Court relies upon the District Court’s finding that even with a cart, respondent will be at least as fatigued as everyone else. Ante, at 28. This, the Court says, proves that competition will not be affected. Far from thinking that reliance on this finding cabins the effect of today’s opinion, I think it will prove to be its most expansive and destructive feature. Because step one of the Court’s two-part inquiry into whether a requested change in a sport will “fundamentally alter [its] nature,” §12182(b)(2)(A)(ii), consists of an utterly unprincipled ontology of sports (pursuant to which the Court is not even sure whether golf’s “essence” requires a 3-inch hole), there is every reason to think that in future cases involving requests for special treatment by would-be athletes the second step of the analysis will be determinative. In resolving that second step–determining whether waiver of the “nonessential” rule will have an impermissible “competitive effect”–by measuring the athletic capacity of the requesting individual, and asking whether the special dispensation would do no more than place him on a par (so to speak) with other competitors, the Court guarantees that future cases of this sort will have to be decided on the basis of individualized factual findings. Which means that future cases of this sort will be numerous, and a rich source of lucrative litigation. One can envision the parents of a Little League player with attention deficit disorder trying to convince a judge that their son’s disability makes it at least 25% more difficult to hit a pitched ball. (If they are successful, the only thing that could prevent a court order giving the kid four strikes would be a judicial determination that, in baseball, three strikes are metaphysically necessary, which is quite absurd.)

Fantastic.

Presidential Tax Evasions

Common Sense would like to ask the President this question (among others):

You indicated in your interview with George Stephanpolus that if people did not buy insurance that they would be fined a penalty fee but you insisted that it is not a tax. However, on page 29 of the Senate bill that Mr. Stephanopoulus refers to, it states that the fee will be an "excise TAX." How do you expect Americans to believe you have a grasp and knowlege of the healthcare legislation and are able to run it, when it is apparent that you had not even read the bill? Not even 29 pages of it.

From a Letter to a Classmate

After she linked to Krugman's blog:

Paul Krugman's point is a good one -- Medicare is already "socialized medicine" -- but he incorrectly cites Medicare as an example of socialized medicine working well in America. Both President Obama and the Congressional Budget Office have called the Medicare budget "unsustainable," saying the program will bankrupt America by eventually consuming all U.S. revenues unless it is reformed. Obviously, budgets become unsustainable when they fail, not when they succeed, to work well. If Medicare shows anything, therefore, it is that this particular kind of socialized medicine is a huge, though not complete, failure.

Scary Numbers

AP:

In a chilling forecast, the White House is predicting a 10-year federal deficit of $9 trillion — more than the sum of all previous deficits since America's founding. And it says by the next decade's end the national debt will equal three-quarters of the entire U.S. economy.

And this:

Both budget offices [White House and CBO] see the national debt — the accumulation of annual budget deficits — as more than doubling over the next decade. The public national debt, made up of amounts the government owes to the public, including foreign governments, stood Tuesday at a staggering $7.4 trillion. White House budget officials predicted it would reach $17.5 trillion in 2019, or 76.5 percent of the gross domestic product. That would be the highest proportion in six decades.

Where Power Belongs

From David Goldhill in The Atlantic:

I’m a Democrat, and have long been concerned about America’s lack of a health safety net. But based on my own work experience, I also believe that unless we fix the problems at the foundation of our health system—largely problems of incentives—our reforms won’t do much good, and may do harm. To achieve maximum coverage at acceptable cost with acceptable quality, health care will need to become subject to the same forces that have boosted efficiency and value throughout the economy. We will need to reduce, rather than expand, the role of insurance; focus the government’s role exclusively on things that only government can do (protect the poor, cover us against true catastrophe, enforce safety standards, and ensure provider competition); overcome our addiction to Ponzi-scheme financing, hidden subsidies, manipulated prices, and undisclosed results; and rely more on ourselves, the consumers, as the ultimate guarantors of good service, reasonable prices, and sensible trade-offs between health-care spending and spending on all the other good things money can buy.

And later:

The housing bubble offers some important lessons for health-care policy. The claim that something—whether housing or health care—is an undersupplied social good is commonly used to justify government intervention, and policy makers have long striven to make housing more affordable. But by making housing investments eligible for special tax benefits and subsidized borrowing rates, the government has stimulated not only the construction of more houses but also the willingness of people to borrow and spend more on houses than they otherwise would have. The result is now tragically clear.

A Wonderful Entry

In the Oxford Companion to English Literature:

Zeuxis, a celebrated Greek painter, born at Heraclea in S. Italy, who flourished in the latter part of the 5th cent. B.C. His most famous work was a picture of Helen of Troy. He was a skillful painter of still life; it is said that birds came to peck at his picture of a bunch of grapes. But in this branch of art he is said to have been excelled by Parrhasius. The latter, with whom he was engaged in a trial of skill, bade him draw back a curtain to reveal his picture, and when Zeuxis attempted to do so, it appeared that the curtain was itself the picture by Parrhasius which Zeuxis had mistaken for the reality. Zeuxis is said to have died from laughing at a comical picture he had made of an old woman.

Beware of State Parks

The marijuana guards might get you:

The propane tanks, stoves and trash left behind by pot farmers pose fire risks; such a camp is believed to have sparked a fire last month that burned 88,000 acres in California's Los Padres National Forest. And many pot patches are watched over by armed guards or booby-trapped. Some are remote, but others are near popular tourist sites, such as a pot farm discovered late last month in California's Sequoia National Park, a half-mile from a cave famed for its crystal formations.

Operators of RV parks and campgrounds near public land have taken to warning vacationers to be cautious in the woods. Stockpiled food or trash of any type might be an indication of a prolonged campout linked to a pot farm, officials said. They advise hikers who spot such signs to retreat and call authorities.

The pot farms are not fly-by-night operations. Growers cut down trees and terrace canyons to create plantations big enough for tens of thousands of plants. They apply pesticides and herbicides -- some not approved for U.S. use. They dam or divert streams and hook together miles of PVC piping to build irrigation systems, some rigged to sophisticated timers.

Each camp is typically tended around the clock by guards who may be equipped with assault rifles, night-vision goggles, walkie-talkies and radios to monitor law-enforcement chatter.

And also from the WSJ's "Pot 'Plantations' on the Rise" is this disturbing graph:

A Bright Idea

From Howard M. Brandston's WSJ article "Save the Light Bulb!"

Here's my modest proposal to determine whether the legislation actually serves people. Satisfy the proposed power limits in all public buildings, from museums, houses of worship and hospitals to the White House and the homes of all elected officials. Of course, this will include replacing all incandescents with CFLs. At the end of 18 months, we would check to be certain that the former lighting had not been reinstalled, and survey all users to determine satisfaction with the resulting lighting.

How Many Children Left Behind?

Reason tears into NCLB:

Consider No Child Left Behind. In the guise of giving students and parents the ability to opt out of objectively failing schools, it instead ramped up federal education spending (by more than 40 percent) to unprecedented levels; additionally, it has imposed significant costs on state and local budgets. More than that, it has mired public education in even more bureaucratic rigaramole. At the same time, it has accomplished nothing toward its stated goal of "closing the achievement gap" between lower-income minorities and white students.

Follow the link above for further links.

Surprised by Taxes

From James M. Peaslee's "Tax Penalties and the Health-Care Bill" (WSJ):

Last June, the Small Business Council of America sent some compelling tales of woe to Congress, including one in which a 72-year-old owner of a coin operated car wash set up retirement plans for his seven employees and got socked for his good deed with a $900,000 penalty for not reporting the plans properly. The company and its owner are now headed for bankruptcy. In another case, a penalty of $100,000 each was imposed on the six minor children of an owner of a small business in Utah for not filing the right tax forms.

In response, some members of Congress sent a letter to the IRS asking it to suspend collecting the penalties in similar cases while Congress debated what to do.

However, Congress should not be surprised by these stories. The IRS was only enforcing the law exactly as Congress wrote it.

They were surprised, though, because no one in Congress had read that bill either.

Clarity in Government

From the WSJ's "Pull the Plug on ObamaCare":

Every big idea that works is marked by simplicity, by clarity. You can understand it when you hear it, and you can explain it to people. Social Security: Retired workers receive a public pension to help them through old age. Medicare: People over 65 can receive taxpayer-funded health care. Welfare: If you have no money and cannot support yourself, we will help as you get back on your feet.

These things are clear. I understand them. You understand them. The president's health-care plan is not clear, and I mean that not only in the sense of "he hasn't told us his plan." I mean it in terms of the voodoo phrases, this gobbledygook, this secret language of government that no one understands—"single payer," "public option," "insurance marketplace exchange." No one understands what this stuff means, nobody normal.

And when normal people don't know what the words mean, they don't say to themselves, "I may not understand, but my trusty government surely does, and will treat me and mine with respect." They think, "I can't get what these people are talking about. They must be trying to get one past me. So I'll vote no."