Does the FEDERAL Government Have the ACTUAL Authority to Implement a National Minimum Wage?

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Time for some civic ejumication…

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Feds Have No Constitutional Authority to Impose Wage Controls
by Mike Maharrey , Tenth Amendment Center (read this in your browser here)

Talk of hiking the minimum wage at the national level has ramped up in recent weeks. With the Democrats controlling the House and the Senate, and Joe Biden in the White House, it seems increasingly likely that we’ll soon see a federal $15 per hour minimum.

In other words, it may soon be illegal to take a job that pays less than $15 an hour.

Where Do Your “Rights” Come From?

If your rights are not endowed by God, but are arbitrarily granted by man, then those rights can arbitrarily be taken away by man. We are seeing that taking place RIGHT NOW. Also, a “right” does not take away from another. If you look at many/most of the so-called “rights” granted by government, they take from one to redistribute to another. “Free” healthcare, “free” education, etc. The government takes by force from those who have earned these things to provide them to those who have not. When men and government decide that your rights are inconvenient, they can arbitrarily take them away. Right to bear arms? Government sees that as a threat, so they are trying to take it away. Right to choose your own doctor? Government views that as unnecessary and “unfair,” so they HAVE taken that away. The right to free speech? Already gone. The government can decide if your words are “hateful” and whether or not you can speak them. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Yes, now even your basic right to LIFE is at the whim of the government if we have allowed them to take our other rights AND the ability to defend them.

Do you think you STILL live in a free country? Think again. Do you want to live in a truly free country? Then fight for it.

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Liberty — Endowed by Whom?

The Eternal Bequest

By Mark Alexander · Jul. 3, 2013

“God who gave us life gave us Liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.” –Thomas Jefferson (1774)

Amid all the contemporary political and cultural contests, too many conservatives fail to make the case for overarching eternal truths – whether in debate with adversaries across the aisles of Congress, or with neighbors across Main Street.

Lost in the din is the foundational endowment of Essential Liberty, and any debate that does not begin with this eternal truth will end with temporary deceits.

The most oft-cited words from our Declaration of Independence are these: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The eternal assertion that Liberty for all people is “endowed by their Creator” and is thus “unalienable” should require no defense, because “we hold these truths to be self-evident,” and because the rights of man are irrevocable from the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.”

But the root of all debate between Liberty and tyranny – or, in political parlance, between Right and left – is the contest to assert who endows Liberty – God or man.

Socialism’s Trajectory: Obama’s HHS Is Bigger Than LBJ’s ENTIRE Government

Yes, you read that right. Adjusted for inflation, JUST the Dept of Health and Human Services under Obama will spend more in 2011 than LBJ’s ENTIRE FREAKING GOVERNMENT.

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Jeffrey on Socialism’s Trajectory: Obama’s HHS Is Bigger Than LBJ’s Government

Wednesday, February 16, 2011
By Terence P. Jeffrey

Anyone who doubts that the trend toward socialism is pushing America toward ruin should examine the historical tables President Obama published Monday along with his $3.7 trillion budget.

In fiscal 2011, according to these tables, the Department of Health and Human Services will spend $909.7 billion. In fiscal 1965, the entire federal government spent $118.228 billion.

What about inflation? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ inflation calculator, $118.228 billion in 1965 dollars equals $822.6 billion in 2010 dollars. In real terms, the $909.7 billion HHS is spending this year is about $87.1 billion more than the entire federal government spent in 1965.

1965 was a key year in the advancement of socialism in the United States.

From 1776 until 1965, Americans generally did not rely on the federal government for health care unless they served in the military or worked in some other capacity for the federal government.

But in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson and a Democratic Congress enacted two massive federal entitlement programs — Medicare and Medicaid — that fundamentally altered the relationship between Americans and the federal government by making tens of millions dependent on the government for health care.

Prior to 1937, the Supreme Court correctly understood the Constitution to deny the federal government any power to create and operate social-welfare programs. The Constitution held no such enumerated power, and the 10th Amendment left powers not enumerated to the states and the people.

From George Washington’s administration to Franklin Roosevelt’s, Americans took care of themselves and their own communities without resorting to federal handouts.

FDR sought to change what he believed was an unrealistic reliance on families in American life.

He used the crisis of the Great Depression to pass the Social Security Act of 1935, compelling Americans to pay a payroll tax in return for the promise of a federal old-age pension. This was blatantly unconstitutional. That same year, in Railroad Retirement Board v. Alton, the Supreme Court had justly slapped down a law mandating what amounted to a Social Security program for the railroad industry alone.

FDR attempted to defend the railroad pension law as a legitimate regulation of interstate commerce, justifiable under the Commerce Clause — the same argument the Obama administration has used to defend the individual mandate in Obamacare.

The Court scoffed, suggesting that if the federal government could mandate a federal pension for railroad workers, the next thing it would do would be to mandate health care.

“The question at once presents itself whether the fostering of a contented mind on the part of an employee by legislation of this type is, in any just sense, a regulation of interstate transportation,” the Court said answering FDR’s argument. “If that question be answered in the affirmative, obviously there is no limit to the field of so-called regulation. The catalogue of means and actions which might be imposed upon an employer in any business, tending to the satisfaction and comfort of his employees, seems endless. Provision for free medical attention and nursing, for clothing, for food, for housing, for the education of children, and a hundred other matters, might with equal propriety be proposed as tending to relieve the employee of mental strain and worry.”

When Social Security went to the Court in 1937, FDR used a different strategy. He argued that Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1 of the Constitution, which gave Congress the power to levy taxes to “provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States,” meant the federal government could do virtually anything it deemed in the “general welfare” of Americans even if it was otherwise outside the scope of the Constitution’s other enumerated powers.

FDR’s interpretation of the General Welfare Clause effectively rendered the rest of the Constitution meaningless.

To persuade the same court that ruled against him in the railroad case to rule for him in the Social Security case, FDR proposed the Judicial Reorganization Act. This would allow him to pack the court by appointing an additional justice for each sitting justice who had reached age 70 and six months and not retired.

Faced with a potential Democratic takeover of the court, and thus a federal government controlled entirely by FDR’s allies, Republican Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes and Associate Justice Owen J. Roberts flip-flopped from their position in the railroad case. They quietly voted in favor of Social Security and took the steam off FDR’s court-packing plan.

That year, federal spending was 8.6 percent of gross domestic product, according to President Obama’s historical tables.

When LBJ enacted Medicare and Medicaid — and began fulfilling the court’s prophecy in the 1935 railroad-pension case — federal spending was 17.2 percent of GDP.

When George W. Bush expanded Medicare with a prescription drug benefit in 2003, federal spending was 19.7 percent of GDP. This year, federal spending will be 25.3 percent of GDP.

In 2014, when Obamacare is scheduled to be fully implemented, HHS will become the first $1-trillion-per year federal agency. That year, Medicare and Medicaid will cost $557 billion and $352.1 billion respectively, or a combined $909.1 billion — about what all of HHS costs this year.

In other words, when Obamacare is just getting started, Medicare and Medicaid will cost more than the $822.6 billion in 2010 dollars than the entire federal government cost in 1965 when LBJ signed Medicare and Medicaid into law.

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Yes, Nancy Pelosi. We are “Serious” About Stopping You From Shredding the Constitution

I will simply repeat what I said in my previous post from today, Senate Judiciary Chairman Unable to Say Where Constitution Authorizes Congress to Order Americans to Buy Health Insurance, when Sen. Patrick “Leaky” Leahy (D-Vt.) was unable to answer the same question:

Where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?

So, are we serious?  Yes, Ms. Pelosi.  We are deadly serious.  We are not about to let you steal our freedom and shove your totalitarian crap down our throats.  Oh, by the way.  YOU’RE FIRED!

Here’s the text from Pelosi’s web site where she attempts to justify their constitutional power to do what they are doing.Pelosi Commerce Clause Justification

The idiots who don’t care enough to read their constitution or question the politicians might fall for her crap, but most of you reading this know better.

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What our power-hungry pole-iticians are hanging their hats on with this healthcare mandate, as I’ve been able to deduce thus far, are the “General Welfare” clause and Commerce Clause from Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution.  They read as follows:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

Liberals and power-hungry dictator/ruling class wannabe’s (Obama and the leadership of the house and senate) interpret “provide for the… general Welfare…” to mean “welfare” in the modern sense of the word, which is to say redistribution of wealth, taking from the haves and giving to the have-nots.  As usual, they are wrong.  Welfare in the constitutional sense means “health, happiness, or prosperity; well-being,”  not public assistance as it is being interpreted.  It is one heck of a stretch to interpret the General Welfare clause as meaning the government must provide “free” healthcare.  Even if you could interpret the clause to mean the government had to provide it, which violates the intent of the clause, you CAN NOT interpret in any way that they can mandate that you purchase it.

Here is a good primer on the General Welfare clause, and how it has been twisted and taken advantage of over the years. http://constitutionalawareness.org/genwelf.html

Now, looking at the Commerce Clause, there is no authority given to MANDATE that private citizens purchase ANYTHING.  Mandating that we purchase the government insurance, and then either fining or imprisoning us if we don’t is what’s known as a Bill of Attainder (In the context of the Constitution, a Bill of Attainder is meant to mean a bill that has a negative effect on a single person or group (for example, a fine or term of imprisonment).) which is specifically forbidden to Congress under Article 1, Section 9 (Limits of Congress).  That reads:

No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

Obama and the liberals are trying to circumvent the constitution and grab power before we can figure out what they are doing.  We must not allow this to happen.

Stay on the phones to congress, the senate, and the White House to express your outrage at their attempted destruction of the constitution.  Let them know that you will join any effort to remove them from office if they continue this course of action.

THEY MUST ANSWER TO THE PEOPLE, BECAUSE THEIR CONTRACT SAYS THEY WORK FOR US!

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CNSNews.com

When Asked Where the Constitution Authorizes Congress to Order Americans To Buy Health Insurance, Pelosi Says: ‘Are You Serious?’

Friday, October 23, 2009
By Matt Cover, Staff Writer

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) (AP Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke)

(CNSNews.com) – When CNSNews.com asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday where the Constitution authorized Congress to order Americans to buy health insurance–a mandate included in both the House and Senate versions of the health care bill–Pelosi dismissed the question by saying: “Are you serious? Are you serious?”

Pelosi’s press secretary later responded to written follow-up questions from CNSNews.com by emailing CNSNews.com a press release on the “Constitutionality of Health Insurance Reform,” that argues that Congress derives the authority to mandate that people purchase health insurance from its constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce.

The exchange with Speaker Pelosi on Thursday occurred as follows:

CNSNews.com: “Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?”

Pelosi: “Are you serious? Are you serious?”

CNSNews.com: “Yes, yes I am.”

Pelosi then shook her head before taking a question from another reporter. Her press spokesman, Nadeam Elshami, then told CNSNews.com that asking the speaker of the House where the Constitution authorized Congress to mandated that individual Americans buy health insurance as not a “serious question.”

“You can put this on the record,” said Elshami. “That is not a serious question. That is not a serious question.”

(Just in case the flash link doesn’t work, here’s the audio)

Currently, each of the five health care overhaul proposals being considered in Congress would command every American adult to buy health insurance. Any person defying this mandate would be required to pay a penalty to the Internal Revenue Service.

In 1994, when the health care reform plan then being advanced by President Clinton called for mandating that all Americans buy health insurance, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office studed the issue and concluded:

“The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States. An individual mandate would have two features that, in combination, would make it unique. First, it would impose a duty on individuals as members of society. Second, it would require people to purchase a specific service that would be heavily regulated by the federal government.”

Later on Thursday, CNSNews.com followed up on the question, e-mailing  written queries for the speaker to her Spokesman Elshami.

“Where specifically does the Constitution authorize Congress to force Americans to purchase a particular good or service such as health insurance?” CNSNews.com asked the speaker’s office.

“If it is the Speaker’s belief that there is a provision in the Constitution that does give Congress this power, does she believe the Constitution in any way limits the goods and services Congress can force an individual to purchase?” CNSNews.com asked. “If so, what is that limit?”

Elshami responded by sending CNSNews.com a Sept. 16 press release from the Speaker’s office entitled, “Health Insurance Reform, Daily Mythbuster: ‘Constitutionality of Health Insurance Reform.’”   The press release states that Congress has “broad power to regulate activities that have an effect on interstate commerce. Congress has used this authority to regulate many aspects of American life, from labor relations to education to health care to agricultural production.”

The release further states: “On the shared responsibility requirement in the House health insurance reform bill, which operates like auto insurance in most states, individuals must either purchase coverage (and non-exempt employers must purchase coverage for their workers)—or pay a modest penalty for not doing so. The bill uses the tax code to provide a strong incentive for Americans to have insurance coverage and not pass their emergency health costs onto other Americans—but it allows them a way to pay their way out of that obligation.  There is no constitutional problem with these provisions.”

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Senate Judiciary Chairman Unable to Say Where Constitution Authorizes Congress to Order Americans to Buy Health Insurance

What our power-hungry pole-iticians are hanging their hats on with this healthcare mandate, as I’ve been able to deduce thus far, are the “General Welfare” clause and Commerce Clause from Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution.  They read as follows:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

Liberals and power-hungry dictator/ruling class wannabe’s (Obama and the leadership of the house and senate) interpret “provide for the… general Welfare…” to mean “welfare” in the modern sense of the word, which is to say redistribution of wealth, taking from the haves and giving to the have-nots.  As usual, they are wrong.  Welfare in the constitutional sense means “health, happiness, or prosperity; well-being,”  not public assistance as it is being interpreted.  It is one heck of a stretch to interpret the General Welfare clause as meaning the government must provide “free” healthcare.  Even if you could interpret the clause to mean the government had to provide it, which violates the intent of the clause, you CAN NOT interpret in any way that they can mandate that you purchase it.

Here is a good primer on the General Welfare clause, and how it has been twisted and taken advantage of over the years. http://constitutionalawareness.org/genwelf.html

Now, looking at the Commerce Clause, there is no authority given to MANDATE that private citizens purchase ANYTHING.  Mandating that we purchase the government insurance, and then either fining or imprisoning us if we don’t is what’s known as a Bill of Attainder (In the context of the Constitution, a Bill of Attainder is meant to mean a bill that has a negative effect on a single person or group (for example, a fine or term of imprisonment).) which is specifically forbidden to Congress under Article 1, Section 9 (Limits of Congress).  That reads:

No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

Obama and the liberals are trying to circumvent the constitution and grab power before we can figure out what they are doing.  We must not allow this to happen.

Stay on the phones to congress, the senate, and the White House to express your outrage at their attempted destruction of the constitution.  Let them know that you will join any effort to remove them from office if they continue this course of action.

THEY MUST ANSWER TO THE PEOPLE, BECAUSE THEIR CONTRACT SAYS THEY WORK FOR US!

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http://cnsnews.com/news/print/55910

CNSNews.com

Senate Judiciary Chairman Unable to Say Where Constitution Authorizes Congress to Order Americans to Buy Health Insurance

Thursday, October 22, 2009
By Matt Cover, Staff Writer

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee (Photo courtesy of Leahy’s Web site)

(This story was updated Oct. 22, 2009, at 1:30p.m..)

(CNSNews.com) – Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) would not say what part of the Constitution grants Congress the power to force every American to buy health insurance–as all of the health care overhaul bills currently do.

Leahy, whose committee is responsible for vetting Supreme Court nominees, was asked by CNSNews.com where in the Constitution Congress is specifically granted the authority to require that every American purchase health insurance. Leahy answered by saying that “nobody questions” Congress’ authority for such an action.

CNSNews.com: “Where, in your opinion, does the Constitution give specific authority for Congress to give an individual mandate for health insurance?”

Sen. Leahy: “We have plenty of authority. Are you saying there is no authority?”

CNSNews.com: “I’m asking–”

Sen. Leahy: “Why would you say there is no authority? I mean, there’s no question there’s authority. Nobody questions that.” (No question?  Really?)

(Just in case the flash link doesn’t work, here’s the audio file)

When CNSNews.com again attempted to ask which provision of the Constitution gives Congress the authority to force Americans to purchase health insurance, Leahy compared the mandate to the government’s ability to set speed limits on interstate highways–before turning and walking away.

CNSNews.com: “But where, I mean, which–”

Sen. Leahy: “Where do we have the authority to set speed limits on an interstate highway?

CNSNews.com: “The states do that.”

Sen. Leahy: “No. The federal government does that on federal highways.”

Prior to 1995, the federal government mandated a speed limit of 55 miles an hour on all four-lane highways. The limit was repealed in 1995 and the authority to set speed limits reverted back to the states.

Technically, the law that established the 55 mile-an-hour limit–the Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act of 1974–withheld federal highway funds from states that did not comply with it. The law rested on the Commerce Clause, which give Congress the authority to regulate interstate commerce, and Congress’ authority to dole out federal tax revenue.  Someone who does not buy health insurance, critics have argued, is not by that omission engaged in interstate commerce and thus there is no act of interstate commerce for Congress to regulate in this situation.

All versions of the health care bill currently being considered in Congress mandate that individuals buy health insurance.  Americans who don’t would be subject to a financial penalty.

Attorney David Rivkin Jr., who worked in the Justice Department under both Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, said that Sen. Leahy’s response about the constitutional authority to mandate the purchase of health insurance “is wrong.”

“None of Congress’ enumerated powers support an individual purchase mandate,” said Rivkin. “We have made this case in considerable detail in our recent articles in The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. Indeed, the Congressional Research Service, an entity that is usually deferential to Congress’ prerogatives and prone to take an expansive view of congressional powers, when asked by the Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus about the constitutionality of individual purchase mandates could only say that this is a ‘novel question.'”

“This mandate can only be based upon a view that Congress can exercise general police powers, a view profoundly at odds with the Framers’ vision of the federal government as one of limited and enumerated powers,” he said. “If the federal government can mandate an individual insurance purchase mandate, it can also mandate an unlimited array of other mandates and prescriptions, including the mandate to buy health club memberships or even to purchase a given quantity of fruits and vegetables.”

“This state of affairs would completely warp our constitutional fabric, vitiate any autonomous role for the states and eviscerate individual liberty,” said Rivkin.  “It is profoundly un-American.”

This is not the first time Congress has considered forcing Americans to buy health insurance. In 193-94, an individual mandate was a key component of then-President Bill Clinton’s health care reform proposal.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said in a 1994 report that for federal government to order Americans to buy health insurance would be “unprecedented,” adding that the government had “never required” Americans to purchase anything. “A mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of federal action,” CBO found.

“The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States,” said the CBO report.

“An individual mandate would have two features that, in combination, would make it unique. First, it would impose a duty on individuals as members of society. Second, it would require people to purchase a specific service that would be heavily regulated by the federal government.”

Although Sen. Leahy said that “nobody” questions that Congress has the authority to force Americans to buy health insurance, Republican members of the Senate Finance Committee did question whether Congress had that authority when the health-care bill was being debated in their committee. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R.-Utah) tried to offer an amendment that would expedite judicial review of the bill were it enacted, but Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D.-Mont.) ruled that Hatch’s amendment was out of order.

In making his ruling, Sen. Baucus said the issue should not be considered by the Finance Committee because it came under the jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee–the panel chaired by Sen. Leahy.

“If we have the power simply to order Americans to buy certain products, why did we need a Cash-for-Clunkers program or the upcoming program providing rebates for purchasing energy appliances?” Hatch asked on Oct. 1 when trying to offer his amendment in the committee. “We could simply require Americans to buy certain cars, dishwashers or refrigerators.”

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