We are again gearing up for a budget fight, a now semi-annual by-product of Congress' inability to pass a budget as they are supposed to do. In this fight there is a simmering confrontation over unemployment benefits and food stamps. The Republicans are being cast, per one WSJ article, as heartless and gutless, while Democrats are idiot spendthrifts. That there is truth in both these characterizations obscures what for me is a fundamental question.
'You can't just go around shooting people!'
'Why?'
'Because you can't!'
Why?'
From Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Embedded within the argument over extent of unemployment benefits, result of their extension, etc, is a fundamental question. WHY are we paying them at all? Since when did individual unemployment become a Federal problem? Sort of like making a local drainage problem an issue for the EPA (wait, that's happened too).
Our Constitution gives limited, and sharply limited, powers to the Federal government. Federal power has been expanded within the vagaries of two statements. One is the phrase 'to promote the general welfare', and the other the power to 'regulate commerce between the several states'. Federal laws flow from the powers delegated in the Constitution. Laws are made under these powers, and agencies created in order to enact and enforce these laws. And so it is in the name of the interstate commerce that we have the EPA, the FBI, the ATF and numerous other agencies. And in the name of general welfare we have Welfare, Social Security, Food Stamps and Unemployment.
I agree with the first interpretation. Interstate commerce has broadened and changed with time. Pollution is an involuntary form of commerce. Radio and TV broadcasts are interstate. The Internet is interstate. Regulatory power has taken various forms to avoid the chaos of individual regulation that occurred under the Confederation.
I disagree, however, with the second. There is no general welfare that is improved by attending to the needs of individuals. This makes neither individual or general sense. The betterment of one person makes only a tiny dent in overall welfare. Worse, the particalization of general welfare into individual wellbeing creates the very thing our Constitution was made to prevent- an intrusive and powerful Federal government.
Our Constitution reserves to the People and the several states all powers not specifically enumerated within the Constitution. The Federal government is given neither specific nor general power or authority to further individual wellbeing. Rather it is to create a broad framework within which individuals can pursue their own welfare. Whether they succeed or not is not the business or even the proper concern of the Federal government.
The very idea that a government can improve individual wellbeing is antithetical to a capitalist and democratic country, and it is not simply contrary to our Constitution, it is false in theory and failed in execution. Collective prosperity does not increase when individuals are placed on Unemployment. Collective productivity does not increase when individuals are subsidized. Collective wellbeing is maximized when government enacts policies conducive to the collective, not the specific. To further this point, consider that we make rules that apply to banks, not one bank, to pollutants as a class rather than pollutants of one company.
To quote Mississippi Burning, this can of worms only opens from the inside. We can not effect collective benefit by assisting individuals. We can not mandate the behavior of the can by mandating the welfare of the worms.
As I see it, all Federal programs which issue checks with individual persons names' on them are unconstitutional. This includes Welfare, Food Stamps, Social Security and Medicare. Block grants to states might have some tie to general welfare, but nothing else.
We kid ourselves that we live in a democracy, a federated republic (not that anyone remembers what that is), while we cloak our socialism in an electoral format. We have strayed so far from our definition that we now forget to even ask the basic questions. Until those questions are asked and answered we are just like George Bernard Shaw, who asked a woman if she would sleep with him for 10,000 pounds. She said yes, and he asked if she would for a shilling. She asked what kind of woman he thought she was. He replied he already knew that, he was merely haggling price.
As long as we cut checks to individuals we are not a republic or a democracy. We are merely arguing over the price of our socialism.
Ted
'You can't just go around shooting people!'
'Why?'
'Because you can't!'
Why?'
From Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Embedded within the argument over extent of unemployment benefits, result of their extension, etc, is a fundamental question. WHY are we paying them at all? Since when did individual unemployment become a Federal problem? Sort of like making a local drainage problem an issue for the EPA (wait, that's happened too).
Our Constitution gives limited, and sharply limited, powers to the Federal government. Federal power has been expanded within the vagaries of two statements. One is the phrase 'to promote the general welfare', and the other the power to 'regulate commerce between the several states'. Federal laws flow from the powers delegated in the Constitution. Laws are made under these powers, and agencies created in order to enact and enforce these laws. And so it is in the name of the interstate commerce that we have the EPA, the FBI, the ATF and numerous other agencies. And in the name of general welfare we have Welfare, Social Security, Food Stamps and Unemployment.
I agree with the first interpretation. Interstate commerce has broadened and changed with time. Pollution is an involuntary form of commerce. Radio and TV broadcasts are interstate. The Internet is interstate. Regulatory power has taken various forms to avoid the chaos of individual regulation that occurred under the Confederation.
I disagree, however, with the second. There is no general welfare that is improved by attending to the needs of individuals. This makes neither individual or general sense. The betterment of one person makes only a tiny dent in overall welfare. Worse, the particalization of general welfare into individual wellbeing creates the very thing our Constitution was made to prevent- an intrusive and powerful Federal government.
Our Constitution reserves to the People and the several states all powers not specifically enumerated within the Constitution. The Federal government is given neither specific nor general power or authority to further individual wellbeing. Rather it is to create a broad framework within which individuals can pursue their own welfare. Whether they succeed or not is not the business or even the proper concern of the Federal government.
The very idea that a government can improve individual wellbeing is antithetical to a capitalist and democratic country, and it is not simply contrary to our Constitution, it is false in theory and failed in execution. Collective prosperity does not increase when individuals are placed on Unemployment. Collective productivity does not increase when individuals are subsidized. Collective wellbeing is maximized when government enacts policies conducive to the collective, not the specific. To further this point, consider that we make rules that apply to banks, not one bank, to pollutants as a class rather than pollutants of one company.
To quote Mississippi Burning, this can of worms only opens from the inside. We can not effect collective benefit by assisting individuals. We can not mandate the behavior of the can by mandating the welfare of the worms.
As I see it, all Federal programs which issue checks with individual persons names' on them are unconstitutional. This includes Welfare, Food Stamps, Social Security and Medicare. Block grants to states might have some tie to general welfare, but nothing else.
We kid ourselves that we live in a democracy, a federated republic (not that anyone remembers what that is), while we cloak our socialism in an electoral format. We have strayed so far from our definition that we now forget to even ask the basic questions. Until those questions are asked and answered we are just like George Bernard Shaw, who asked a woman if she would sleep with him for 10,000 pounds. She said yes, and he asked if she would for a shilling. She asked what kind of woman he thought she was. He replied he already knew that, he was merely haggling price.
As long as we cut checks to individuals we are not a republic or a democracy. We are merely arguing over the price of our socialism.
Ted
A perceptive essay. Of course, if the federal government didn't issue food stamps, medicaid, social security, etc. then these would still be issues that would come up at the state level. If each state still voted for these items, on a federal level we would be a republic, but the effect nationwide would be socialism. Would we be any better or worse off?
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