General
Welfare and the Fiscal Cliff
By JB
Williams
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.
JB Williams
Co-Founder
www.PatriotsUnion.org
www.VeteranDefenders.org
www.ThePatriotsNews.com
Co-Founder
www.PatriotsUnion.org
www.VeteranDefenders.org
www.ThePatriotsNews.com
*****************************
JB Williams is a writer on
matters of history and American politics with more than 3000 pieces published
over a twenty-year span. He has a decidedly conservative reverence for the
Charters of Freedom, the men and women who have paid the price of freedom and
liberty for all, and action oriented real-time solutions for modern challenges.
He is a Christian, a husband, a father, a researcher, writer and a business
owner. He is co-founder of action organizations The
United States Patriots Union, a civilian parent organization for The
Veteran Defenders of America. He is also co-founder of The
North American Law Center, a citizen run investigative legal research and
activism organization preparing to take on American's greatest legal battles.
Williams receives mail at: jb.uspu@gmail.com
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