"I Hope Obama Fails"

[OldGreyEagle]

GWD, health care is still based in the US, hospitals that is, unless you discount the number of hospitals that is letting tele-medicine networks have Radiologists in India and environs read the CT and Sonograms that occur after hours along with other films. The good news, they still need humans in the US to move the patients around, so far

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Hey TheScout, where does the constitution prohibit the federal government from financing organizations that, among other things, provide abortions?

[TheScout]

10th Amendment.

 

Believe it or not it actually was meant to mean something.

[Narraticong]

Prohibited, or not, now is the time to put the UN, WHO and other countries on notice. Things are a little tight at our house right now. We love you, but we have to cut back until we get ourselves in order. So, until we can make that happen, some of the other neighbors are going to have to step up to the plate.

 

It's time to focus on our own budget. Every dollar going across the border needs to be reconsidered. We'll just have to sit out the next couple of sunamis. China can surely take the lead for a while. We can not continue to carry the world while our own nation is sinking.

[TheScout]

Silly. We can just print more money. Its free.

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Well, as soon as the supreme court gets around to declaring foreign aid unconstitutional, it'll stop. That is, unless congress and the president agree with you that supreme court rulings can be ignored.

[TheScout]

I missed the part of the Constitution that authorizes foreign aid.

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

And I missed where the supreme court ruled that foreign aid was unconstitutional. You know, that group where, when they rule against congress doing something, congress stops doing it? They haven't done that yet.

 

Congress apparently considers the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to be constitutional, as it supposedly promotes the foreign policy, security, and general welfare of the United States.

[TheScout]

Congress can only do whats in the Constitution.

 

Where does the Constitution authorize foreign aid?

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

I just told you; congress considers the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to be constitutional under their powers of foreign policy, security, and general welfare.

[TheScout]

I don't see Congress having the power to give foreign aid. Why isn't it on the list?

 

 

Article I. Section 8:

 

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

 

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

 

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

 

To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;

 

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

 

To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;

 

To establish post offices and post roads;

 

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

 

To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;

 

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;

 

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

 

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

 

To provide and maintain a navy;

 

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

 

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

 

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

 

To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And

 

To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

 

 

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

I keep telling you; stop ignoring what I've written.

 

Giving foreign aid promotes the common defense and general welfare of the US. If you don't agree, that's your problem, isn't it.

[TheScout]

Why isn't it on the list then. It says they may lay taxes etc. for the general welfare.

 

If the general welfare clause means Congress can spend on whatever it wants, why are the other things even listed. It is clear that this was not meant to be an all embracing power. You are manipulating the Constitution.

 

They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. Thomas Jefferson

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

"the common defense and general welfare" IS on the list; foreign aid promotes them.

 

You know, maybe there should be a group of people whose job it is to decide what the constitution means, and their opinions carried more weight than a movie review. That would really help.

[TheScout]

"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States"

 

It has the power to lay taxes to provide for the general welfare. What does that have to do with foreign aid.

 

Clearly that clause doesn't mean Congress can spend money on whatever they want.