The Truth about Taxes in 2000 Home

The Truth of Taxes in 2000: General Welfare Clause in Front Page Article!!! Our Founders understood that there would always be people seeking to obtain special favors from government (See Pr. 29:4, 26) and tried to protect us from this evil by forbidding lawmakers from passing laws to benefit specific individuals or groups. The Founders were so worried about this danger they repeated the prohibition, called the "General Welfare Clause," twice in the Constitution, once in the Preamble and once in the Enumerated Powers Clause. James Madison reiterated the meaning of the clause in his reports on the Constitutional debates and in a speech in Congress to block a law that would have created a welfare program for certain refugees. Thomas Jefferson also stated the meaning plainly in a letter to Albert Gallatin in 1817. Now, the Washington Times has put the General Welfare Clause's prohibition on laws that redistribute wealth on the front page. Comparing the federal tax bite in 1902 to that in 1999, reporter John Godfrey notes: In 1902 Fed. taxes were 2.4% of GDP, in 1999, 19.7% All taxes in 1902 totalled 6.4% of GDP, in 1999, 29.2% - almost 1 out of every 3 dollars you earn is taken by government In 1902 the largest share of revenue - 46% - was raised by taxes on alcohol and tobacco In 1999 the largest share of revenue - 83% - come from people's work - personal income & payroll taxes In 1999 fully 10% of revenue is raised by double taxation - taxes on dividends paid to corporate shareholders In 1902 64% of spending went to the military and veterans benefits, in 1999 only 19% does In 1999 56% of government spending is pure socialism - wealth redistribution for social security, medicare, welfare, etc. The Times also described how the meaning of the General Welfare Clause was lost. In 1936, the Supreme Court amended the Constitution without consulting the people by rejecting the Founders' understanding of the meaning of the clause. The case was United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1, 65-66. A year later, in Helvering v. Davis, 301 U.S. 619, the Court followed up by refusing to ever again consider whether a particular exercise of the spending power was for special favors to particular groups or for the general welfare. It is this history that has put us in the position we are in today where Congress regularly sells laws to the highest bidder. Regulation raises costs on small competitors to keep big companies in business. Unions extort unworked for benefits from companies and shareholders. The wealthiest segment of America - the elderly - extort the wages of the poorer segment - young workers. And on and on. Campaign finance reform will not solve this problem. Our people must again embrace the idea that each man is responsible for his own welfare and that one person may not steal the property of another. Only a people who accept these ideas can live under a Constitution with a General Welfare Clause that judges will enforce. Now do you see what Jeremiah meant when he said "for every one from the least even unto the greatest is given given to covetousness?" Jer. 8:10.

James Madison on the General Welfare Clause Money cannot be applied to the General Welfare, otherwise than by an application of it to some particular measure conducive to the General Welfare. Whenever, therefore, money has been raised by the General Authority, and is to be applied to a particular measure, a question arises whether the particular measure be within the enumerated authorities vested in Congress. If it be, the money requisite for it may be applied to it; if it be not, no such application can be made. - James Madison James Madison, Report on Resolutions, in 6 WRITINGS OF JAMES MADISON, quoted in Roger Pilon, Freedom, Responsibility, and the Constitution: On Recovering Our Founding Principles, 68 Notre Dame L. Rev. 507, 530.

Thomas Jefferson on the General Welfare Clause [O]ur tenet ever was, and, indeed, it is almost the only landmark which now divides the federalists from the republicans, that Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were to those specifically enumerated; and that, as it was never meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action; consequently, that the specification of powers is a limitation of the purposes for which they may raise money. Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin (June 16, 1817), in 10 WRITINGS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON at 90, 91 (Paul Leicester Ford ed., 1899) quoted in Roger Pilon, Freedom, Responsibility, and the Constitution: On Recovering Our Founding Principles, 68 Notre Dame L. Rev. 507, 530.