tweakabelle
Posts: 7522
Joined: 10/16/2007
From: Sydney Australia
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quote:
ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri
quote:
ORIGINAL: dcnovice
quote:
The War on Poverty hasn't ended, though.
Ended completely? No. Curtailed? I believe so.
quote:
I'm sure recessions haven't had any part in spikes, though, right?
Of course, they have. That's true for the current hard times as well.
All that said, we've probably reached the point where the most fruitful path is agreeing to disagree. The idea that the government actually helped folks can be, I realize, a bridge too far. 
lol
No, it's not a bridge too far.
Should it have is a bit further. Did it go about it efficiently, is also further. Was there a better way is likely to also be further. Who did it help, might also be further.
Government certainly can help folks. In the process, it usually also hurts other folks. The question isn't just about who it helps and who it hurts, but if it's within the Constitutional authorities of government. There is that pesky equal protection thingy.
It appears that SCOTUS has considered this issue. SCOTUS held that Congress does have the authority to legislate in this area:
"Prior to 1936, the United States Supreme Court had imposed a narrow interpretation on the Clause, as demonstrated by the holding in Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co.,[21] in which a tax on child labor was an impermissible attempt to regulate commerce beyond that Court's equally narrow interpretation of the Commerce Clause. This narrow view was later overturned in United States v. Butler. There, the Court agreed with Associate Justice Joseph Story's construction in Story's 1833 Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States. Story had concluded that the General Welfare Clause was not a general grant of legislative power, but also dismissed Madison's narrow construction requiring its use be dependent upon the other enumerated powers. Consequently, the Supreme Court held the power to tax and spend is an independent power and that the General Welfare Clause gives Congress power it might not derive anywhere else. However, the Court did limit the power to spending for matters affecting only the national welfare.
Shortly after Butler, in Helvering v. Davis,[22] the Supreme Court interpreted the clause even more expansively, disavowing almost entirely any role for judicial review of Congressional spending policies, thereby conferring upon Congress a plenary power to impose taxes and to spend money for the general welfare subject almost entirely to Congress's own discretion. Even more recently, in South Dakota v. Dole[23] the Court held Congress possessed power to indirectly influence the states into adopting national standards by withholding, to a limited extent, federal funds. To date, the Hamiltonian view of the General Welfare Clause predominates in case law."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Welfare_clause
While you are certainly free to disagree with the above ruling, until SCOTUS rules otherwise, it appears that the contitutionality of the broad interpretation (the "Hamiltonian view") has been upheld by SCOTUS, and that the narrow interpretation advanced by you has been rejected definitively by SCOTUS.
< Message edited by tweakabelle -- 2/10/2014 6:04:51 PM >
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