Ben Carson Claims Obamacare Violates Constitution’s General Welfare Clause
[su_right_ad]Conservative icon Ben Carson says Obamacare is illegal because it violates the general welfare clause of the Constitution.
The likely GOP presidential candidate explained that the law helps some people while hurting others, so is therefore unconstitutional: “Your solution should be something that represents all the people. The Constitution says one of the purposes, in the preamble, it says is for the ‘promote the general welfare.’ What that means is that we do things that help everybody, we don’t pick this group and say, ‘We’re going to help you at the expense of this group over here.’ That’s not promoting the general welfare so we’re actually violating the Constitution in that sense.”
In that case, a whole host of laws could be considered unconstitutional since nearly everyone can point to a law that they think affects them negatively while helping others. “It wasn’t really about health care, it’s about control,” Carson said of the health care law.
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OldLefty December 21st, 2014 at 7:57 am
Why would we think this guy knows anything about the US Constitution?
Tommy6860 December 21st, 2014 at 8:40 am
Exactly! Besides, SCOTUS already ruled against his claim back in June of 2012.
Taxing and Spending Clause
Excerpt:
The Taxing and Spending Clause (which contains provisions known as the General Welfare Clause and the Uniformity Clause), Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution, grants the federal government of the United States its power of taxation.While authorizing Congress to levy taxes, this clause permits the levying of taxes for two purposes only: to pay the debts of the United States, and to provide for the common defense and general welfare of the
United States. Taken together, these purposes have traditionally been
held to imply and constitute federal government’s the taxing and
spending power.
arc99 December 21st, 2014 at 10:59 am
Since an overwhelmingly large majority of right wingers demonstrate they know nothing about the US Constitution, not even the first amendment, your point is well taken.
http://archive.tennessean.com/article/20130731/NEWS06/307310123/Murfreesboro-mosque-leader-says-enough-s-enough
Murfreesboro mosque leader says enough’s enough
Foes of the center in Murfreesboro file request to appeal
Suzanne McFly December 21st, 2014 at 9:23 am
So that means we can quit protecting tax cheats and tax billionaires the same as we tax the middle class, good job Carson your almost making sense.
mea_mark December 21st, 2014 at 9:24 am
Does that mean that Tax breaks and incentives for the big corporations are unconstitutional in his mind? Is he ready to get rid of them?
ExPFCWintergreen December 21st, 2014 at 11:13 am
Teahadists are inordinately fond of declaring that which is and isn’t Constitutional, because they have this bizarre, Everyman-Can-Do-It view of the Founding and because so many of them share the Evangelical mindset in which “the text” is self-evident and needs no interpretation or explanation by, say, priests and cardinals in the latter case or scholars and lawyers in the former. Teahadists are also quite notorious for being very, very bad at English grammar and usage. Were it not so, Carson would understand that something “general” is not synonymous with something “universal;” so when he refers to “things that help everybody,” he’s referring to a *universal* welfare and not a general one.
William December 21st, 2014 at 11:39 am
‘We’re going to help you at the expense of this group over here.’
Agreed, please remit a check to the U.S. Treasury….unless you’re just another
“I got mine, f*ck everyone else, bagger”
.
Dwendt44 December 21st, 2014 at 1:39 pm
Promoted to ‘chief of surgery’ in order to get him out of the operating room.
Tim Coolio December 21st, 2014 at 12:54 pm
The idea of the ACA was originally crafted by the
Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and
was established as a state plan by Mitt Romney when
he was governor of Massachusetts, it only became
fashionable as something to detest by republicans
when it was adopted and became national law under a
Democratic president, also remember-
don’t listen to the rightwing negative spin,
the ACA has woven into the fabric of American
culture and the republican dream of repealing
or unwinding it is fading, the ACA is joining
Social Security and Medicare as an unassailable
feature of the American safety net, next step is
single payer with affordable healthcare for all,
a public healthcare system and not one that is
privatized, the ACA is a great start toward
greater coverage for all Americans, we need
healthcare for people, not for profit!
Dwendt44 December 21st, 2014 at 1:37 pm
Another right wing self styled constitutional expert comments.
Bunya December 21st, 2014 at 2:09 pm
…”we don’t pick this group and say, ‘We’re going to help you at the expense of this group over here….”
Yeah well, we’re getting tired of supporting the filthy rich at the expense of the poor and middle class. Perhaps it’s about time we start helping those less fortunate, for a change.
veggiedude December 21st, 2014 at 2:19 pm
By his definition, vegans have a strong case against meat eaters, as the biggest corporate welfare scheme is the meat industry, bar none. It uses more taxes, more resources such as petroleum and water – all at the expense of a minority that has no benefit of the end product, a product that increases health costs for all as it causes cancer, heart disease, and a whole range of others maladies in society.
Dwendt44 December 21st, 2014 at 10:53 pm
It’s almost every time Carson opens his mouth he puts both his feet in it.
mmaynard119 December 22nd, 2014 at 9:33 pm
It’s also not what the General Welfare clause in the Constitution is:
In United States v. Butler, 56 S. Ct. 312, 297 U.S. 1, 80 L. Ed. 477 (1936), the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a federal agricultural spendingprogram because a specific congressional power over agricultural production appeared nowhere in the Constitution. According to the Court inButler, the spending program invaded a right reserved to the states by the Tenth Amendment.
Though the Court decided that Butler was consistent with Madison’s philosophy of limited federal government, it adopted Hamilton’sinterpretation of the General Welfare Clause, which gave Congress broad powers to spend federal money. It also established thatdetermination of the general welfare would be left to the discretion of Congress. In its opinion, the Court warned that to challenge a federalexpense on the ground that it did not promote the general welfare would “naturally require a showing that by no reasonable possibility can thechallenged legislation fall within the wide range of discretion permitted to the Congress.” The Court then obliquely confided,”[H]ow great is theextent of that range … we need hardly remark.” “[D]espite the breadth of the legislative discretion,” the Court continued, “our duty to hear andto render judgment remains.” The Court then rendered the federal agricultural spending program at issue invalid under the Tenth Amendment.
With Butler as precedent, the Supreme Court’s interest in determining whether congressional spending promotes the general welfare haswithered. In South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203, 107 S. Ct. 2793, 97 L. Ed. 2d 171 (1987), the Court reviewed legislation allowing thesecretary of transportation to withhold a percentage of federal highway funds from states that did not raise their legal drinking age to twenty-one. In holding that the statute was a valid use of congressional spending power, the Court in Dole questioned “whether ‘general welfare’ is ajudicially enforceable restriction at all.”
Congress appropriates money for a seemingly endless number of national interests, ranging from federal courts, policing, imprisonment, andnational security to social programs, environmental protection, and education. No federal court has struck down a spending program on theground that it failed to promote the general welfare. However, federal spending programs have been struck down on other constitutional grounds.
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/General+Welfare
mmaynard119 December 22nd, 2014 at 9:34 pm
But knowing the facts and reality in government and politics is not what Dr. Carson is about.