Patriotic Perspective: 3

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September 6, 2020

Patriotic Perspective: 3
We talked about Federal abuse of power as it pertains to the commerce clause of the Constitution but there is also the abuse of power when it comes to the General Welfare clause. Our Founding Fathers envisioned a system of government that had at it’s core the welfare of ALL the people as a basic tenant. They expressly forbade the inclusion of any language in the Constitution that granted special favor to any specific entity. They empowered Congress to write laws that were designed to benefit the entire country and not just a specific person or corporation. You do not have to be a Constitutional expert to recognize how out of control our elected representatives were and are when it comes to taking care of special interests. Just look at all the laws enacted over railroads when they were the chief means of transportation in the latter half of the 19 th century. The Federal government used both the Commerce Clause and the General Welfare Clause to regulate every aspect of the railroads from construction to the price of a ticket and it still does to this day. If the first question asked when a bill is introduced into Congress was “Is this bill supported by the Constitution?” can you imagine how many bills would never make it to Committee? Better yet, if we went back and struck down all the laws that conflict with the Constitution, how would that reduce the size of our government? Congress has the authority to raise and spend money (taxes) but only for the general welfare of all the people!