The Heritage Foundation, a voice of trust, has put together a brief document on the effects of ObamaCare on "We the people." You can download the document here, or view it on line here. Which ever you choose, do be fully aware of this damaging bill to America and "We the people."
This .PDF file displays the Chronology of the government insertion into health care choices.
Take notice the gradual strangulation of Medicare (entitlement program - non-constitutional). Also, the mandates are almost certain to drive insurance companies into insolvency. Essentially everything is covered, but reimbursements are reduced. Ergo, care will be permitted, but severely rationed. In other words there is legal right to treatment but application and delivery of care is restricted by time, money and legal provision.
The sad part is when we allow elected officials to violate the constitution it is a sentence to our own death as the greatest nation ever on earth. Then again, history is created from the errors of man. Being stupid is not something that can be corrected, but ignorance can be corrected with a little education and a little active involvement. Here's something to help get you started, if you no long want to be ignorant.
Health Care and the Constitution
After a year of contentious debate, it became clear that the House intended to pass the health care bill by whatever means necessary, even if it required the use of a "deem and pass" procedure whereby Members would not vote directly on the bill. After a massive public outcry arose against that unconstitutional proposal (Article I, § 7, ¶ 2, and § 5, ¶ 3 direct that "the votes of both Houses shall be determined by yeas and nays" on a measure rather than just "deeming" it passed), Rep. Chris Van Hollen (MD), head of the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee, urged Democrat House Members to remain quiet and avoid talking about the unconstitutional process in an attempt to lessen the political backlash.
That procedure ultimately was not used, but once the health care bill passed, voters demanded of congressional leaders the constitutional provision that authorized the federal takeover of health care. In answering that question, Rep. John Conyers (MI) replied: "Under several clauses – the Good and Welfare Clause and a couple others. All the scholars – the constitutional scholars that I know (I'm chairman of the Judiciary committee, as you know) – they all say that there's nothing unconstitutional in this bill."
Of course, there is no Good and Welfare Clause in the Constitution, but assuming that Conyers simply made an honest mistake, he likely was referring to the General Welfare Clause, which appears in two locations:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure 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. PREAMBLE TO THE CONSTITUTION
The Congress shall have 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. ART. 1, SEC. 8, PAR. 1
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (MD) agreed that "Congress has 'broad authority' to force Americans to purchase" health care "so long as it was trying to promote 'the general welfare'."
(Rep. James Clyburn – the No. 3 ranking Democrat in the House – did not invoke the General Welfare Clause but instead candidly admitted, "Most of what we do down here is not authorized by the Constitution."
The attempt by congressional leaders to invoke the General Welfare Clause as a cover for an unconstitutional act is nothing new. In 1792 when New England was suffering a crisis in one of its most important economic industries (fishing), some Congressmen proposed that federal funds be used to subsidize that troubled industry. James Madison quickly asserted that such a proposal was unconstitutional, explaining:
Those who proposed the Constitution knew, and those who ratified the Constitution also knew that this is . . . a limited government tied down to specified powers. . . . It was never supposed or suspected that the old Congress could give away the money of the states to encourage agriculture or for any other purpose they pleased.
Madison then warned about the consequences of allowing Congress to expand the narrow meaning of the "General Welfare Clause":
If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the "general welfare," and are the sole and supreme judges of the "general welfare," then they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every state, county, and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the United States; they may assume the provision for the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, everything from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police would be thrown under the power of Congress, for every object I have mentioned would admit of the application of money, and might be called, if Congress pleased, provisions for the "general welfare."
According to Madison, if the original intent of the General Welfare Clause were ever expanded, then Congress would begin an unbridled intrusion into areas that were deliberately designed by the Constitution to be under the control of the state and local governments. Two specific aspects of the Constitution were intended to prohibit such federal encroachments: (1) the Enumerated Powers Doctrine, and (2) the Bill of Rights – specifically the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
Concerning the first, the Constitution authorizes Congress to address only eighteen specifically enumerated (that is, individually listed) areas and responsibilities; this is called the Enumerated Powers Doctrine. As affirmed by Thomas Jefferson:
Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare but is restrained to those specifically enumerated, and . . . it was never meant they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers.
Many other Founders were equally outspoken about Congress' limitations under the Enumerated Powers Doctrine. In fact, this doctrine was so well understood that in America's first several decades, presidents had only four cabinet level departments: the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Attorney General (occasionally there was also a separate Secretary of the Navy, but many presidents often placed him under the Secretary of War). Today, however, there are almost four times as many cabinet level positions, including a Secretary of Agriculture, Labor, Commerce, Housing, Education, Transportation, Energy, and many others. 8 Each of those areas was also very important two centuries ago, but because the Constitution had placed these areas under the jurisdiction of state governments, there was no federal presence involved in them.
Concerning the second point (the Bill of Rights), the Founding Fathers – dedicated students of history, government, and human nature that they were – knew that the federal government would invariably try to step beyond its enumerated powers; they therefore added the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the Constitution, directly stipulating that all areas not specifically listed in the Constitution were to remain under the jurisdiction of the states and local governments, which thus included areas such as education, criminal justice, energy, agriculture, and many others. As Thomas Jefferson affirmed:
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" [the Tenth Amendment]. . . . 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.
James Madison agreed:
I declare it as my opinion that [if] the power of Congress be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations . . . of the limited government established by the people of America.
Jefferson further explained:
Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. Public servants at such a distance and from under the eye of their constituents . . . will invite the public agents to corruption, plunder, and waste. . . . What an augmentation of the field for jobbing, speculating, plundering, office-building, and office-hunting would be produced by an assumption of all the state powers into the hands of the federal government!
As Jefferson summarized it:
The states can best govern our home concerns, and the [federal] government our foreign ones.
Significantly, health care issues often arose in early America – as when various dangerous fevers would periodically appear, ravaging American cities and killing scores of citizens. Concerning health care issues, the Founders specifically placed domestic health care into the hands of the state governments, leaving issues of international health care in the hands of the federal government. As Thomas Jefferson affirmed, the federal government was "to certify with exact truth, for every vessel sailing from a foreign port, the state of health respecting this fever which prevails at the place from which she sails," but that "the state authorities [are] charged with the care of the public health." 13 Under the Constitution, states were to handle domestic health care issues, and the federal government foreign ones.
Continuing:
Notwithstanding the fact that a majority of Congressmen voted for the recent passage of the unconstitutional health care bill, there are many in Congress who do understand the constitutionally limited powers of Congress. Dozens of these Congressmen formed the Constitution Caucus, chaired by Rep. Scott Garrett (NJ), and many of its Members have made outstanding efforts to return Congress to its constitutional role; two such measures are highlighted below.
Rep. John Shadegg (AZ)
Every session since John has been in Congress, he has introduced "The Enumerated Powers Act" which would require "that all bills introduced in the U. S. Congress include a statement setting forth the specific constitutional authority under which the law is being enacted." 14 As Shadegg explains, "The Enumerated Powers Act will help slow the flood of unconstitutional legislation and force Congress to reexamine the proper role of the federal government."
Not surprisingly, leaders of Congress have not allowed this bill to move forward, nevertheless, what a refreshing idea that Congress should provide constitutional authority for the actions it takes and the bills it passes!
Rep. Mike Conaway (TX)
Federal law establishes September 17 (the day the Constitution was signed in 1787) as Constitution Day, requiring that on that day every school receiving federal funding spend time studying the Constitution. Despite the law, a recent survey found that the majority of high school students had never heard of Constitution Day, and only ten percent could recall any such school celebration the prior year.
However, Congressman Conaway believed that not just school students but also Members of Congress and their staff should also study the Constitution on that day, so he introduced a congressional resolution to that effect. When the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee heard the resolution, he told Mike, "That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard!" – an attitude far too common among many in Congress.
Nonetheless, Mike (and many other Congressmen like him) continues to study the Constitution regularly. In fact, Mike always carries a pocket Constitution with him and each time he reads through it, he writes the date on the flyleaf of the booklet – a practice he began even before he became a Member of Congress.
The letter of credit belongs to: David Barton of WallBuilders
http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=49126
Davy Crockett and the U.S. Constitution
By: April 9, 2010 by Chip Wood
When you hear the name “Davy Crockett,” what do you think of?
If you’re of “a certain age,” as the more diplomatic among us like to say, you probably think of Fess Parker wearing a coonskin cap. The incredibly popular television program in which he starred had every boy in America (and a few girls, too) clamoring for their own buckskin jacket and coonskin cap.
A few years later John Wayne played Davy Crockett in the film The Alamo, laying down his life at the Alamo for the cause of Texas’ independence. About the same time the Kingston Trio had a hit with a song called “Remember the Alamo.” I can still remember most of the lyrics.
But before the events portrayed in the movie and the television show, the famed frontiersman served for a couple of terms in the United States Congress—from 1827 to 1831 and again from 1833 to 1835.
After his defeat in the 1834 election he said, “I told the people of my district that I would serve them faithfully as I had done; but if not… you may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas.” He eventually did, and died on March 6, 1836, when the Alamo finally fell to Mexican troops after an 11-day siege.
It is an episode from his time in Congress that I want to tell you about today. Davy himself first told the tale, in a speech on the floor of the House that he later reprinted under the title “Sockdolager!”
A “sockdolager” is one of those slap-your-forehead moments, when something suddenly becomes blindingly clear to you. That’s how Davy felt when he came to realize that his understanding of the U.S. Constitution was sadly lacking. Here’s what happened.
Near the end of his first term, Davy decided to visit the western edge of his district to see how much support he’d get if he decided to seek reelection. To appreciate how different campaigning was back then, let me quote the beginning of Davy’s tale:
“So I put a couple of shirts and a few twists of tobacco into my saddle-bags and put out. I had been out about a week, and had found things going very smoothly, when, riding one day in a part of my district in which I was more of a stranger than any other, I saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. I gauged my gait so that we should meet as he came to the fence.”
Can you believe it? No fancy entourage, no public relations flacks paving the way, no reporters covering the scene. Not even a buggy with a suitcase or two; it was just Davy, a horse, and a couple of saddle-bags. Life sure was different back then, wasn’t it?
Davy introduces himself to the farmer and says, “I am one of those unfortunate beings called candidates, and ….” Before he could continue, the man interrupted and said, “Yes, I know you; you are Colonel Crockett. I have seen you once before and voted for you the last time you were elected. I supposed you are out electioneering now, but you had better not waste your time or mine. I shall not vote for you again.” Needless to say, the young congressman is surprised and asks the man why on earth not. The farmer replies, “You gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution or that you are wanting in the honesty and firmness to be guided by it. In either case, you are not the man to represent me.”
As Davy says, when he later related the story on the floor of Congress, “This was a sockdolager!” I told the man, “There must be some mistake, for I do not remember that I gave my vote last winter upon any constitutional question.” The man replies, “No, Colonel, there’s no mistake. Though I live here in the back woods and seldom go from home, I take the papers from Washington and read very carefully all the proceedings of Congress. My papers say that last winter you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some sufferers by a fire in Georgetown. Is that true?”
Crockett replies, “Certainly it is. And I thought that was the last vote for which anybody in the world would have found fault with.” Then comes the classic denouement: “Well, Colonel, where do you find in the Constitution any authority to give away the public money in charity?”
Let me pick up the rest of this part of the story, exactly as Davy Crockett told it on the floor of Congress: “Here was another sockdolager; for, when I began to think about it, I could not remember a thing in the Constitution that authorized it. I found I must take another tack, so I said: ‘“Well, my friend; I may as well own up. You have got me there. But certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant sum of $20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing Treasury, and I am sure, if you had been there, you would have done just as I did.’
I’d love to share the farmer’s entire response with you, but I don’t have room here. Instead, let me do two things. First, let me direct you to Davy Crockett’s complete speech. Personal Liberty Digest has created a special link to “Sockdolager!” by Davy Crockett. To see it, just click here. (And while you’re there, why not send it to a few dozen of your friends?)
Second, let me go right to the farmer’s concluding remarks. He told the congressman, “When Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people.”
Davy has no choice but to acknowledge the truth of what he’s heard. He tells the man, ‘“Well, my friend, you hit the nail upon the head when you said I had not sense enough to understand the Constitution. I intended to be guided by it, and thought I had studied it fully. I have heard many speeches in Congress about the powers of Congress, but what you have said here at your plow has got more hard, sound sense in it than all the fine speeches I ever heard.
“If I had ever taken the view of it that you have, I would have put my head into the fire before I would have given that vote, and if you will forgive me and vote for me again, if I ever vote for another unconstitutional law I wish I may be shot.”
What are the chances, ladies and gentlemen, that your congressman would ever make such an admission—or such a speech—today? You really should read the rest of the story. You’ll be delighted to learn that when Congressman Crockett gets back to Washington, the House has taken up a bill to appropriate money for the wife of a distinguished naval officer. Everyone who has spoken about it has declared himself in favor. It looks like it will pass unanimously when Davy Crockett takes the floor.
To read what he says, and what happens next, please click here to enjoy Davy Crockett’s “Sockdolager!”
And remember the story the next time your congressman votes to take your money for some government activity that is nowhere to be found in our Constitution.