Is Stimulus Spending Unconstitutional? Your Answer May Depend On What You Think The "General Welfare" Clause Of The Constitution Means.
Nation is on the wrong path with stimulus spending
By JOHN DAVID DYCHE
Lyndon is getting a new walking path between Whipps Mill Road and North Hurstbourne Lane. Lucy, a black Labrador-mix who loves walking there, will be tail-wagging happy. She, like most Americans, enjoys such seemingly free government gifts without worrying about their perilous implications for the country's fiscal and political prospects.
Federal stimulus money to the tune of $616,000 will fund the path. The $787 billion stimulus passed by congressional Democrats and signed into law by President Obama is, according to this newspaper, "aimed at jump-starting 'shovel-ready' projects." But Metro Parks has not mapped the path's precise location, may take until March to get permits and bids, and will likely not begin work until later in 2010.
Perhaps such procrastination partially explains why the administration recently admitted its rosy projections that passing the stimulus would keep unemployment below 8 percent were "clearly too optimistic." Unemployment is now 9.4 percent.
Presidential economic advisers also claimed the stimulus would create 3 to 4 million jobs by 2010's end. Obama, who eloquently orates about accountability, now puts primary emphasis on the elusive concept of "jobs saved."
Lyndon's new path and stimulus projects like it are obviously not performing as promised. Even more disturbing is how they are being paid for. Obama and the Democratic Congress are borrowing sums that dwarf even the excesses of former President George W. Bush and his Republican Congresses.
This fiscal year's deficit is projected at a record $1.84 trillion — more than four times last year's. Obama estimates that deficits will total $7.1 trillion over the next decade, but the Congressional Budget Office more realistically predicts $9.3 trillion. The national debt is $63.8 trillion. Federal obligations for debt, retirement benefits and other government promises total a staggering $545,668 per household.
Lacking sufficient funds, the U.S. will borrow from China and other increasingly skeptical lenders to pay for luxuries like Lyndon's little walkway. Our children and grandchildren will have to pay back the unimaginable debt with which we are saddling them. Of course, the fallout from their forebears' financial irresponsibility could first consume them in revolution, ruin or tyranny, as happened to several other once-great societies past.
Obama and congressional Democrats are making an already awful situation exponentially worse. But their reckless borrowing and spending begs a much bigger question that most politicians of both parties prefer to ignore. By what constitutional authority does the federal government build paths in Lyndon and other such purely local projects in the first place?
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The answer is that there is no such legitimate legal power. Forgetting about this fundamental principle is one reason we have brought our government to the brink of disaster.
The stimulus drafters did not bother to include any statement of constitutional grounds in its interminable and impenetrable text. Congress cannot credibly contend that building a path in Lyndon is an exercise of its power to regulate commerce among the several states. It must therefore undertake such ill-advised actions under Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 of the Constitution which empowers Congress to tax and spend to "provide for the … general welfare of the United States."
Alexander Hamilton and James Madison disagreed about the original meaning of this "general welfare" clause. Hamilton thought it allowed Congress to spend on essentially anything, but Madison believed it limited the legislature to the specific powers enumerated in other constitutional clauses.
Since 1936, when another charismatic Democrat was spending wildly to stimulate the economy, the Supreme Court has sided with Hamilton. "The power of Congress to authorize expenditure of public moneys for public purposes is not limited by the direct grants of legislative power found in the Constitution."
Quoting from that decision, former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor correctly observed in 1987, "If the spending power is to be limited only by Congress' notion of the general welfare … [it] 'gives power to the Congress to tear down the barriers, to invade the states' jurisdiction, and to become a parliament of the whole people, subject to no restrictions save such as are self-imposed.'"
Borrowing from foreigners to build paths in Lyndon is not only bad policy, but ought to also be unconstitutional. Returning to the original ideals of a limited national government would do more to put America back on a sound economic footing than the stimulus ever will. Both political and constitutional resistance are required to secure American liberty from Obama-style statism.
Lucy may like Lyndon's new path, but the country is clearly on the wrong one.
John David Dyche is a Louisville attorney who writes an occasional political column in Forum. His biography of U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, "The Leader," appears in bookstores this week. His views are his own, not those of the law firm in which he practices. Read him on-line at www.courier-journal.com; e-mail: jddyche@yahoo.com.
Editor's comment: While at first glance it looks like Congress' power to spend is limitless, as Founding Father Alexander Hamilton sees it, I take the view that another Founding Father James Madison may have the correct view that such power is limited.
What do you think?
By JOHN DAVID DYCHE
Lyndon is getting a new walking path between Whipps Mill Road and North Hurstbourne Lane. Lucy, a black Labrador-mix who loves walking there, will be tail-wagging happy. She, like most Americans, enjoys such seemingly free government gifts without worrying about their perilous implications for the country's fiscal and political prospects.
Federal stimulus money to the tune of $616,000 will fund the path. The $787 billion stimulus passed by congressional Democrats and signed into law by President Obama is, according to this newspaper, "aimed at jump-starting 'shovel-ready' projects." But Metro Parks has not mapped the path's precise location, may take until March to get permits and bids, and will likely not begin work until later in 2010.
Perhaps such procrastination partially explains why the administration recently admitted its rosy projections that passing the stimulus would keep unemployment below 8 percent were "clearly too optimistic." Unemployment is now 9.4 percent.
Presidential economic advisers also claimed the stimulus would create 3 to 4 million jobs by 2010's end. Obama, who eloquently orates about accountability, now puts primary emphasis on the elusive concept of "jobs saved."
Lyndon's new path and stimulus projects like it are obviously not performing as promised. Even more disturbing is how they are being paid for. Obama and the Democratic Congress are borrowing sums that dwarf even the excesses of former President George W. Bush and his Republican Congresses.
This fiscal year's deficit is projected at a record $1.84 trillion — more than four times last year's. Obama estimates that deficits will total $7.1 trillion over the next decade, but the Congressional Budget Office more realistically predicts $9.3 trillion. The national debt is $63.8 trillion. Federal obligations for debt, retirement benefits and other government promises total a staggering $545,668 per household.
Lacking sufficient funds, the U.S. will borrow from China and other increasingly skeptical lenders to pay for luxuries like Lyndon's little walkway. Our children and grandchildren will have to pay back the unimaginable debt with which we are saddling them. Of course, the fallout from their forebears' financial irresponsibility could first consume them in revolution, ruin or tyranny, as happened to several other once-great societies past.
Obama and congressional Democrats are making an already awful situation exponentially worse. But their reckless borrowing and spending begs a much bigger question that most politicians of both parties prefer to ignore. By what constitutional authority does the federal government build paths in Lyndon and other such purely local projects in the first place?
Advertisement
The answer is that there is no such legitimate legal power. Forgetting about this fundamental principle is one reason we have brought our government to the brink of disaster.
The stimulus drafters did not bother to include any statement of constitutional grounds in its interminable and impenetrable text. Congress cannot credibly contend that building a path in Lyndon is an exercise of its power to regulate commerce among the several states. It must therefore undertake such ill-advised actions under Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 of the Constitution which empowers Congress to tax and spend to "provide for the … general welfare of the United States."
Alexander Hamilton and James Madison disagreed about the original meaning of this "general welfare" clause. Hamilton thought it allowed Congress to spend on essentially anything, but Madison believed it limited the legislature to the specific powers enumerated in other constitutional clauses.
Since 1936, when another charismatic Democrat was spending wildly to stimulate the economy, the Supreme Court has sided with Hamilton. "The power of Congress to authorize expenditure of public moneys for public purposes is not limited by the direct grants of legislative power found in the Constitution."
Quoting from that decision, former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor correctly observed in 1987, "If the spending power is to be limited only by Congress' notion of the general welfare … [it] 'gives power to the Congress to tear down the barriers, to invade the states' jurisdiction, and to become a parliament of the whole people, subject to no restrictions save such as are self-imposed.'"
Borrowing from foreigners to build paths in Lyndon is not only bad policy, but ought to also be unconstitutional. Returning to the original ideals of a limited national government would do more to put America back on a sound economic footing than the stimulus ever will. Both political and constitutional resistance are required to secure American liberty from Obama-style statism.
Lucy may like Lyndon's new path, but the country is clearly on the wrong one.
John David Dyche is a Louisville attorney who writes an occasional political column in Forum. His biography of U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, "The Leader," appears in bookstores this week. His views are his own, not those of the law firm in which he practices. Read him on-line at www.courier-journal.com; e-mail: jddyche@yahoo.com.
Editor's comment: While at first glance it looks like Congress' power to spend is limitless, as Founding Father Alexander Hamilton sees it, I take the view that another Founding Father James Madison may have the correct view that such power is limited.
What do you think?
Labels: Political economics, The Constitution
posted by KYJurisDoctor at 8:40 AM
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