Jeff Lunde's guest column, "Americans should be pleased to work for the common good," raises a number of questions and misuses the Constitution's intent in regard to the general welfare clause.
The first question: How much is enough? Do the current budget deficits suggest working half the year to pay the cost of government is not enough? At what point does the government provide enough "common good " to suggest that we have paid enough? Don't you wonder how anyone survived before all these government programs?
Regarding the welfare clause, here's what James Madison said: "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." Thomas Jefferson said, "Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated." The detail to which Madison and Jefferson refer is found mostly in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.
The founding fathers had it right: Liberty and its main ingredient, limited government, is better than a society where everybody tries to live at the expense of everyone else.
Paul; G. Starker
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Rochester;
