House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., must think the Constitution’s “general welfare” clause applies to whatever the heck he thinks it should apply to. In this case, a government takeover of the health care system.
Hoyer, speaking to reporters at his weekly press briefing on Tuesday, was asked by CNSNews.com where in the Constitution was Congress granted the power to mandate that a person must by a health insurance policy. Hoyer said that, in providing for the general welfare, Congress had ?broad authority.?
?Well, in promoting the general welfare the Constitution obviously gives broad authority to Congress to effect that end,? Hoyer said. ?The end that we?re trying to effect is to make health care affordable, so I think clearly this is within our constitutional responsibility.?
If we go by that definition, why even have a Constitution?
It’s a short step from this kind of thinking to advocating that each American be forced to have a government-endorsed job, car, bank account, childcare, etc. Those things, after all, would promote the “general welfare,” too, right?
What’s lost in that equation is freedom and opportunity, essential ingredients of the American experience — the freedom and opportunity to succeed or fail on one’s own merits, independent of Uncle Sam’s “helpful” hand. That’s what built the American economy, and its opposite — the kind of policies advocated by Hoyer — is what’s tearing it down.
