The Contrasting Psychologies OWS and the Tea Party

[Andrew D]

… with a man who has made himself an embarrassing, intellectually dishonest troll ….

Oh, that’s rich. Really, perversely rich.

In the conversation about prosecutors, Lord Jim began his vacuous diatribe by lying about what I had posted.

And I’m the one who supposedly is intellectually dishonest.

Go figure.

Lord Jim started a thread about posters whom we miss. Unable to contain his defeat-driven spite even for a moment, he launched immediately into casting false aspersions on me.

(Why did he start that thread in the first place? Readers will have to make their own judgments.)

And I’m the one who supposedly is trolling him.

Go figure.

But what else should we expect from someone who lives a lie every minute of every day?

Anyway, leaving Lord Jim, as usual, far, far behind, on to matters of substance ....

[Andrew D]

dgs49:

You wrote:

The Supreme Court of the United States has NEVER cited either instance of that expression (Preamble or Article I) to justify Congressional spending outside Article I, Section 8.

The problem with that assertion is that it is false. I recognize that reading the cases people cite to you is not exactly your thing, so here is the salient portion:

Congress may spend money in aid of the “general welfare”. There have been great statesmen in our history who have stood for other views. We will not resurrect the contest. It is now settled by decision. The conception of the spending power advocated by Hamilton and strongly reinforced by Story has prevailed over that of Madison, which has not been lacking in adherents. Yet difficulties are left when the power is conceded. The line must still be drawn between one welfare and another, between particular and general. Where this shall be placed cannot be known through a formula in advance of the event. There is a middle ground or certainly a penumbra in which discretion is at large. The discretion, however, is not confided to the courts. The discretion belongs to Congress, unless the choice is clearly wrong, a display of arbitrary power, not an exercise of judgment. This is now familiar law.

(Helvering v. Davis (1937) 301 U.S. 619, 640 (citations omitted).)

Your position, dgs49, has a venerable lineage: “great statesmen in our history … have stood for” it. The debate is not over. Perhaps it never will be. But you do your position no service by making assertions which anyone with access to judicial opinions can easily prove untrue.

[Andrew D]

dgs49:

You wrote:

… if you want to understand what a document means, do you look to the document, or to what a group of partisans decided it meant in the 1930’s despite a hundred and-some-odd years of contrary understanding?

And you refer to “much of what has been read into the Constitution over the past 80 years ….”

Your problem there is that your side of the argument has ALWAYS lost. You lost during the presidency of George Washington – and it doesn’t get much earlier than that – and you are still losing.

I realize that it is politically convenient to blame it all on the New Deal. But historically, that claim is going nowhere.

The truth of the matter is that although your side of the argument has some merit – otherwise, it wouldn’t have been taken seriously for centuries, as it has been – it has been the losing side right from the get-go. Even Madison, one of its most famous expounders, threw it overboard when he signed into law the charter of the second national bank.

If you want to make the argument, go ahead and make it.

But misstating the readily obtainable facts about what the Supreme Court has decided – whether one agrees with them or not, the decisions are out there for anyone and everyone to read – is not advancing your cause. And ignoring historical facts which date back far beyond the New Deal – and which, again, are out there for anyone and everyone to see – is not advancing your cause either.

As it happens, I have somewhat more sympathy with your position than you might think. (It is not an accident that I have repeatedly inveighed against the hyper-expansion of the commerce power.)

But if those of us who want to restrain the central government to its constitutionally proper powers are going to make any headway, we will have to do so by confronting what really confronts us. And that requires describing the truth of what confronts us, not pressing points that are demonstrably false.

[Scooter]

Jefferson also contended that:

For the laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. [Congress] are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union. In like manner, they are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose.

(Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank, 15 February 1791 (italics omitted).)

That is a rather a bizarre argument: It amounts to saying that even if Congress has the power to lay and collect taxes for the general welfare, it does not have the power to spend for the general welfare the taxes which it has collected for the general welfare. What else is Congress supposed to do with those taxes once it has collected them?

I think it is implied in his argument that money which is raised by taxes is intended to be spent; otherwise, as you say, it makes no sense to say that Congress has the power to lay taxes tout court, without the power to do anything with them.

[Andrew D]

But then what does the "only" mean?

Was Jefferson arguing that Congress can provide for the general welfare only by such means as involve taxation -- that Congress can tax and spend as it pleases to provide for the general welfare, but cannot provide for the general welfare in any other way than taxing and spending?

Would that be at all meaningful as a limit on Congress's power? Couldn't Congress, if it felt like doing something that did not involve taxing and spending, simply attach some taxing and spending provision? Any regulation necessarily requires enforcement if it is to be effective, enforcing any regulation necessarily requires spending money, spending money necessarily requires having money to spend, and the government's having money necessarily requires some form of taxation.

So what does it mean to say that Congress "are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare," and then turn around and say that Congress can "lay taxes for that purpose"? Where in that do we discern some distinction between what Congress can do and what Congress cannot do?