According to our source, the Constitution Party Platform Committee debated the addition of a three page plank regarding Social Security. The plank would have replaced the current platform language which calls Social Security unconstitutional with a complex plan to ensure that SS remains viable. The SS plank was tabled.
For background, the platform language regarding Social Security has historically been a contentious issue for the CP. I was on the Platform Committee in 2008 and a similar (I assume) plan was introduced and rejected by the Committee. The SS plank was then brought before the convention as a whole (there is a procedure for doing that if a particular faction is upset with the determination of the Platform Committee) and was similarly rejected.
The issue is that some people believe that the CP’s position on Social Security makes it a non-starter with older Americans who might otherwise be sympathetic to the rest of the CP agenda. The plan that was introduced in 2008 was, IIRC, the result of a specific request to fashion a Constitutionally acceptable “fix” for SS. I believe this is one reason there were harder feeling than there might otherwise have been when the plank was summarily rejected.
The full platform should be voted on this evening, I heard.
The largest Ponzi scheme in human history! FRAUD on the youth!
What’s going on with you guys? Going with Goode SS’ friend as your nom means you have to change the platform to suit him !?
Federal Records Show Romney Campaign Bought And Paid For By Big Banks – http://www.conservativeactionalerts.com/2011/10/federal-records-show-romney-campaign-bought-and-paid-for-by-big-banks/
Who Donated to Mitt Romney – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Zq7sOjLvhI&feature=related
Romney Scam – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkUMn4FMoT8&list=UUQB7GremTkZDH1FI9-YIiFw&index=10&feature=plcp
Ok, Romney- What Was It? Moose or Elk?-http://garciamedialife.com/2012/01/17/ok-romney-what-was-it-moose-or-elk/
“Whether social security is good policy is an open question, but I don’t understand the argument that social security is unconstitutional.”
I don’t consider Social Security to be constitutional. It is not general welfare, it is specific welfare. Also, I don’t believe that it even falls into the original intent of the phrase general welfare.
Thank you, #4, for putting Madison’s words on the post. I think he makes a good point in that, why enumerate the powers if they are endless? #5 you make a great point that the taxes are for specific purposes, not to take care of all. #3, the 10th amendment does give states the liberty to set up their own Social Security system, but as you said, would be nearly impossible to manage as people move in and out. But the 10th amendment is beneficial. For instance, with Massachusetts setting up a health care system, it is an experiment or test which other states can examine to see if they wish to do the same.
Every advocate of limited government should know the story of Gouverneur Morris and his semicolon:
From http://www.uwgb.edu/voelkerd/handouts/semicolon-by-david-voelker.pdf
During the framing of the U.S. Constitution in Philadelphia in 1787, the proper use of punctuation became an issue of great importance. Gouverneur Morris, a member of the committee of style that drafted the Constitution, tried to use a semicolon to change the intended meaning of a crucial passage in the document.1
Article I, Section 8 reads: “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and Provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States . . .” The general consensus at the convention was that this sentence addressed the Congress’s powers of taxation but did not grant additional legislative powers.
Morris, however, wished for the government to have expansive powers. When he drafted this section, he used a semicolon where today we have a comma. Morris’s original version of the section thus read: “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises; to pay the Debts and Provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States . . .” Had not another member of the convention noticed this punctuation ploy, the section would have granted massive powers to the Congress-to-be to legislate for the “general Welfare.” (Never mind that during the twentieth century the federal government took on such powers despite the apparent limits in the Constitution.)
The first clause of Art. I Sec. 8 is: “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States”. The compound phrase about paying debts and providing for defense and “general welfare” are just limits on the power to tax, specifying that taxes can’t be for an arbitrary purpose. That phrase is clearly not a grant of arbitrary spending power, or else most of the rest of Art. I Sec. 8 would be redundant.
The above was the standard interpretation until US v. Butler in 1936. To see how flimsy was the reasoning on which the federal nanny state was built, see my takedown of that opinion at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marketliberal/message/334
Richard @3 I would think original intent would be extremely important, Madison in Federalist 41 explains:
Some, who have not denied the necessity of the power of taxation, have grounded a very fierce attack against the Constitution, on the language in which it is defined. It has been urged and echoed, that the 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,” amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction.
Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases. A power to destroy the freedom of the press, the trial by jury, or even to regulate the course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly expressed by the terms “to raise money for the general welfare.”
But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which, as we are reduced to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the objection or on the authors of the Constitution, we must take the liberty of supposing, had not its origin with the latter.
The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution says one of the purposes of the Constitution is to promote the general welfare. Article One, section 8, says Congress shall have the power to provide for the general welfare of the United States. Whether social security is good policy is an open question, but I don’t understand the argument that social security is unconstitutional.
If each state had its own separate social security system, that would be very unwieldy, because so many people live and work in different states during their lifetime.
Does anyone know if the CP convention is streaming live anywhere?
I hope my background information above was sufficiently neutral, now my opinion. The problem with SS fixes is that SS IS unambiguously unconstitutional from an enumerated powers standpoint. The best thing to do might be to have language that acknowledges the difficulty of getting rid of a program that so many have paid into and are counting on, without conceding the constitutional legitimacy of the program. (Essentially throwing up your hands.) If you concede the legitimacy of SS, then you can’t credibly condemn other programs on enumerated powers grounds.