Welfare Reform Extension Act

[A18]

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.1160:

It's been extended, like, twelve times now. Why don't they just hurry up and make the thing permanent?

[David S]

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.1160:

It's been extended, like, twelve times now. Why don't they just hurry up and make the thing permanent?

Don't know if its just me or what, but that link gets me to a blank page. 

[Bandit3 the Worker]

It's been extended, like, twelve times now. Why don't they just hurry up and make the thing permanent?

Because it sucks, perhaps?

[A18]

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.1160:

It's been extended, like, twelve times now. Why don't they just hurry up and make the thing permanent?

Don't know if its just me or what, but that link gets me to a blank page. 

Fixed; the forum didn't include the ':' in the link.

[John Dibble]

It's been extended, like, twelve times now. Why don't they just hurry up and make the thing permanent?

Because it sucks, perhaps?

If that's the case, why has it been extended like twelve times?

[Bandit3 the Worker]

If that's the case, why has it been extended like twelve times?

Because Congress is full of a bunch of right-wing screw-ups.

[The Duke]

I wish they had done welfare reform differently, but it should be made permanent now.

[Moooooo]

I wish they had done welfare reform differently

Explain...?

[The Duke]

Instead of abolishing AFDC and turning it into a grant program, they should have reformed it to place time limits on benefits and add a job training program with the money saved by time limits.  Many states did this anyway once they had control.  I just never saw the point of making it a grant program.  I was closer to the Clinton position than the Gingrich position on welfare reform.

[A18]

Because federal welfare is unconstitutional, and making it a grant program at least puts some of the power where it belongs: the state level.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Because federal welfare is unconstitutional,

No it isn't.

[A18]

Because federal welfare is unconstitutional,

No it isn't.

This should be a good laugh. Find me the part of the Constitution that authorizes it.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Find me the part of the Constitution that authorizes it.

Find me the part that prohibits it.

[A18]

The powers of the federal government are only those specified. But since you probably think Kerry won Kentucky, I wouldn't expect you to understand this.

Amendment 10

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.

[The Duke]

Aside from te obvious "general welfare" part of the preamble:

"Section 8, Clause 18: To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."

"Section 9, Clause 7: No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time."

So the government can appropriate money from the treasury to support the cahrged duties of the various departments with the approval of the legislature.  Most government functions fall under this category.  A perfect example is the Treasury Department, whose largest single expenditure is interest on our debt.  Nowhere in the Constitution does it say we have the power to pay off our debts, or to borrow to finance debts.  But it would be ludicrous to say we can't spend money for such a thing.  The founders did not intend to make the Constitution a straight jacket.

[A18]

I didn't say spending money on constitutional things was unconstitutional, so your second example is irrelevant.

I have no clue how the first comes into this, since you haven't shown me that it's one of the foregoing powers in the first place.

[The Duke]

Its when they're combined that they authorize welfare spending, not alone.  Through these two sections, the government is authorized to spend money to support that purpose of the departments of the government.  That is "appropriations made by law (S9, C7)" that are "necessary and proper (S8, C18)" for "carrying into excecution the foregoing powers (S8, C18)", one of those powers being "provide for the... general welfare (S8, C1)" are Constitutional.

[Moooooo]

The Constiution confuses me. 

[A18]

The 'general welfare' clause is qualified only by the following enumerated powers.

http://thomas.loc.gov/home/fedpapers/fed_41.html

It has been urged and echoed, that the power ``to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,'' amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction. Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases. A power to destroy the freedom of the press, the trial by jury, or even to regulate the course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly expressed by the terms ``to raise money for the general welfare. ''But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which, as we are reduced to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the objection or on the authors of the Constitution, we must take the liberty of supposing, had not its origin with the latter.

[The Duke]

You do realize that the Federalist Papers were a sales pitch to anti-Federalists who opposed the Constitution to begin with, and is not a legitimate intellectual explaination of the Constitution's purpose?

[A18]

Madison and other Republicans consistently upheld this point until the day he died, but whatever; respond to his argument, then. He basically called you an idiot.

[The Duke]

His argument is self-invalidating.  He says that without clauses 2-18 of Article I Section 8, the government could have, for example, "A power to destroy the freedom of the press, the trial by jury, or even to regulate the course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly expressed by the terms..."  But these things are not endangered by Clause 1 being interpreted too broadly, since these things are protected rights in the Bill of Rights.  No one seriously believed that Clause 1 could be used to defame a free press after the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791.

Furthermore, Madison does not address those who say that Clause 1 enables social welfare programs, he addresses thoe who say that the enumerated right are jeopardized.  That is very different indeed.  I never said that Clause 1 could be used to invalidate the enumerated rights, I said it could be used to justify social welfare spending.  So Madison didn't call me an idiot, he in fact does not even directly address my point.

[A18]

He addresses, quite specifically, those who think the general welfare clause amounts to an 'unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare.'

"If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning;"

He's not talking, there, about other enumerated powers being disqualified by the general welfare clause, but rather, he's saying that the general welfare clause itself has to be viewed in the context of what follows. That is, what follows is part of the meaning of the overall powers.

How often, in the English language, do we make a vague reference to something that we later qualify by specific points?

What he's saying is, just because the general welfare clause if there, doesn't mean we can ignore the rest of it.

For example. If Congress could spend money on anything it regards as serving the "general welfare," why would the document go on to say that Congress can establish post roads?

Thus, the meaning is clear. Had nothing else been there, you'd have a point, but because the later text follows, it has its share of the meaning.

[The Duke]

One of the qualifiers that follows the semicolon is that very "necessary and proper" clause.  The notion of necessary and proper is thrown in with the specific provisions like posting roads.

If nothing more than a semicolon means that posting roads is included in the general welfare clause, why don't you accept the necessary and proper clause?

[A18]

I do, but it specifically makes reference to the "foregoing powers;" the enumerated powers by which the general welfare clause is to be interpreted.