Bush Stands for Constitution, Vetoes Gov't Charity

The Democrat Party's blogosphere propaganda arm at Badlands Blue highlights Senator Tim Johnson's angst and their own over President Bush's veto of the children's welfare health care program SCHIP.

I'm glad Bush vetoed it. He did so for a number of reasons, but perhaps the best one is simply that there is no constitutional authority for the program.

Badlands Blue makes this comparison to try and justify the government taking the earnings of one American and giving them to another American:

To put this in perspective, keep in mind that President Bush is busy spending $1 TRILLION on Iraq but says he can't spare $35 billion over the next five years to keep children healthy in this country.

There's just one tiny little problem with that picture: there is constitutional authority for national defense, but there is none for government charity.

(There is also the flawed assumption that without government charity, these children will not be healthy.)

Recall that oft-forgotten document called the United States Constitution? The preamble says the constitution was established to "provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare." Note that the government is to provide for defense, while it merely promotes the general welfare? There's a big difference.

And if that wasn't clear enough, consider what the Founders said about government charity:

A wise and frugal government...shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. – Thomas Jefferson

Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated. - Thomas Jefferson

With respect to the two words 'general welfare,' I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators. – James Madison

I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents. – James Madison

(And if he still hasn’t made himself clear…) Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government. – James Madison

We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. — Congressman Davy Crockett

The Constitution is the highest law of our land, and it defines the limited powers of our government to protect the people from government oppression (remember why we declared our independence and became a country in the first place?).

The Constitution should not under any circumstances be ignored.