General Welfare and the Fiscal Cliff

by: jb williams | published: 12 30, 2012

The leftist push to bludgeon “the rich” with targeted excessive taxes is not only a fiscally unsound strategy for solving our massive spending crisis, it will be a direct violation of the general welfare clause found in both the preamble and Article I – Section VIII of the U.S. Constitution regarding the enumerated powers of congress.

“WE THE PEOPLE of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Affirmed in Article I – Section VIII, the enumerated powers of congress and/or the Federal Government, congress shall make no law which singles out any individual or group for treatment different than any other individual or group. All acts of the Federal Government must “promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

By general welfare, the founders were not referring to food stamps, Medicaid or any other form of government assistance. Affirming Tenth Amendment powers, Thomas Jefferson wrote –

“I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That ‘all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people. To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.”

In short, the general welfare clause found in our U.S. Constitution is not a blank check for elected servants of the people. One of the many limits placed upon our Federal Government is the general welfare clause, which requires that all laws treat all citizens of the United States equally, prohibiting the government from singling out any individual group, targeting certain individuals for special treatment. Positive special treatment for one group is an unconstitutional offense to another group.

Such a legislative act by congress is a bill of attainder, “A legislative act that singles out an individual or group for punishment without a trial.”

Democrats demand to “punish” the rich with excessive taxation in an effort to deal with the fiscal catastrophe created by excessive federal spending, is yet another illegal [Bill of Attainder] wholly unconstitutional act by Democrats and the Obama administration.

As Jefferson wrote many years ago, “The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.” But it was Samuel Adams who told us what to do about it – “If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.”

Although many in America seeking access to the earnings of others couldn’t care less about whether or not their actions are constitutional or legal, much less moral or ethical, even a French Court put a stop on the French governments effort to pass a 75% tax upon its wealthiest members of society and in France too, such an act is illegal.

American taxpayers have endured poor fiscal spending policies for decades now. But it is Barack Obama and Democrats who own the distinction of growing the federal government by 33% in four short years while driving the national public debt up by over 60% in one term, outspending all prior U.S. Administrations since George Washington.

Jefferson stated unequivocally in 1798 – “Resolved, that the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government . . . whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.”

This is the foundation for modern state initiatives to place the federal government back in check via Tenth Amendment efforts like The Balance of Powers Act. The federal government exists at the pleasure of the states and the people. The constitution greatly restricts federal powers and although the federal government has been acting well beyond its constitutional authority for many years, legally and constitutionally speaking, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.

As our nation speeds toward the fiscal cliff created and caused by the federal government, specifically the U.S. Congress which holds all constitutional powers of the purse strings, it is vital that American patriots prevent the nations ruin by stopping the unconstitutional acts of a runaway tyrannical Fed.

Equally as important is the fact that Barack Obama has presided over the most fiscally catastrophic administration in American history and that his strategy for a second term is even more unsound than that of his first term.

This is not rocket science… Spending money you don’t have and can no longer borrow is unsustainable. Targeting “the rich” as is currently proposed by Democrats, won’t solve the spending problem or even buy any time to solve the spending problem.

If American millionaires allow themselves to be targeted for more excessive taxation, which many will not as some have already moved to foreign markets in anticipation of Obama taxes, the revenue generated by the increased tax rates on the wealthy would only fund the federal government for THREE DAYS at the current rate of spending.

In fact, if Obama taxed all American millionaires at a 100% rate, it would only fund the federal government for little more than a week. It’s the spending stupid!

Last, when you over-tax the rich, you remove the resources from the private sector once used to invest and create private sector jobs. This explains why over 70% of the dismal jobs “created” during the Obama administration have been government jobs, increasing the size of the federal government by 33% in four years, driving the nation an additional $6 Trillion in debt, all at unsustainable taxpayer expense.

There is but one way to solve America’s financial crisis and that is to slash the size and expense of the federal government to live within it means and constitutional scope or authority.

Obama and Democrats won’t do it and will in fact fight to the death against it, as they have demonstrated for decades.

That means the congressional Republicans will have to block Obama’s tyrannical tax plan aimed at punishing America’s most successful citizens, mostly for benefit of labor unions and democrat politicians.

Since the American people cannot count on congressional Republicans to do anything in the way of keeping their oath of office these days, the people themselves will have to block it at the state lines using a broad base solution like The Balance of Powers Act to protect state and individual rights, not only of the “target rich,” but of every citizen that the federal government wants to target to suit its own agenda.

“Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. When the people give way, their deceivers, betrayers, and destroyers press upon them so fast, that there is no resisting afterwards. The nature of the encroachment upon the American constitution is such, as to grow every day more and more encroaching. Like a cancer, it eats faster and faster every hour. The revenue creates pensioners, and the pensioners urge for more revenue. The people grow less steady, spirited, and virtuous, the seekers more numerous and more corrupt, and every day increases the circles of their dependents and expectants, until virtue, integrity, public spirit, simplicity, and frugality, become the objects of ridicule and scorn, and vanity, luxury, foppery, selfishness, meanness, and downright venality swallow up the whole society.”- John Adams, 1774

Our Founders gave us the wisdom, but the current American generation will have to muster the courage. 

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  ShaneC

  I fear that the current several generations for the most part want it for free and do not want to be accountable for anything, and if they can get pleasure from it for the moment they will sell all to get it including our freedom.

  The moral discintagration of America is dew to the fact that the Nation has turned it's back on GOD whom the founders relied on to set this Nation on track.
  And all those who are political representitives have sold out to the EVIL in the White house by the very fact that they would not Stand and hold that ABOMINATION accountable in the electorial vote count and challange his in eligability.

  
  

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