Rick Perry and his interview of death

[HomerJS]

By that I mean his political aspirations. He has three problems here.

1. SS and Medicare are highly sucessful and popular programs. He is the first one I've heard suggest they are unconstitutional

2. Old people vote

3. The interviewer caught him in his one sided interpretation of the constitution. Which shows he hasen't given it much thought other them how to use it to push his agenda.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) has, to say the least, a very odd understanding of the Constitution. He thinks Texas should be able to opt out of Social Security, and he believes that everything from federal public school programs to clean air laws are unconstitutional. Yet in an interview with the Daily Beast’s Andrew Romano, Perry makes his most outlandish claim to date — Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/12/rick-perry-newsweek-interview-transcript.html

The Constitution says that “the Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes… to provide for the… general Welfare of the United States.” But I noticed that when you quoted this section on page 116, you left “general welfare” out and put an ellipsis in its place. Progressives would say that “general welfare” includes things like Social Security or Medicare—that it gives the government the flexibility to tackle more than just the basic responsibilities laid out explicitly in our founding document. What does “general welfare” mean to you?
[PERRY:] I don’t think our founding fathers when they were putting the term “general welfare” in there were thinking about a federally operated program of pensions nor a federally operated program of health care. What they clearly said was that those were issues that the states need to address. Not the federal government. I stand very clear on that. From my perspective, the states could substantially better operate those programs if that’s what those states decided to do.
So in your view those things fall outside of general welfare. But what falls inside of it? What did the Founders mean by “general welfare”?
[PERRY:] I don’t know if I’m going to sit here and parse down to what the Founding Fathers thought general welfare meant.
But you just said what you thought they didn’t mean by general welfare. So isn’t it fair to ask what they did mean? It’s in the Constitution.
[Silence.]

Perry’s reading of the Constitution raises very serious questions about whether he understands the English language. The Constitution gives Congress the power to “to lay and collect taxes” and to “provide for the…general welfare of the United States.” No plausible interpretation of the words “general welfare” does not include programs that ensure that all Americans can live their entire lives secure in the understanding that retirement will not force them into poverty and untreated sickness.
Moreover, Perry’s belief that Social Security and Medicare must cease to exist not only puts him well to the right of his fellow Republicans in Congress — who recently voted to gradually phase out Medicare — it also puts him at the rightward fringe of the GOP presidential field. Not even Michele Bachmann has gone on record claiming that America’s two most cherished programs for seniors violate the Constitution, although she did invite a Fox News analyst who shares Perry’s beliefs to lecture her fellow lawmakers on what the Constitution requires.

 

[Inspector Jihad]

who takes this guy seriously?

 

[Craig234]

who takes this guy seriously?

The large number of Republican idiots who have him #2 in the polls.

 

[her209]

The words "general Welfare" appears twice in the Constitution. Once in the Preamble:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, 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.

And in Article I, Section 8:

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;

Note the underlined word that precedes it in each instance.

 

[Jaskalas]

Perry makes himself sound like the Texas cowboy version of Paul. His announcement speech is true to the ideals of conservatism. Whether he follows them is another story, but I'm watching him closely to consider my vote.

Let's face it, you !@#$ Dems will attack anyone who isn't the next GWB. You love Romney cause he's one of you. Romney would be just another term of Bush and Obama. Another big government lap dog who won't burn your throne while he keeps it warm.

First man who will destroy your institutions has my full support.

 

[Nebor]

^ You honestly don't think Perry would be just like GWB or Obama? He's more of the same. With poofier hair.

 

[Double Trouble]

Looks like the democrats have started firing up the hackery machine to go after Perry now that he's announced.

 

[Hacp]

1. SS and Medicare are highly sucessful and popular programs. He is the first one I've heard suggest they are unconstitutional

Those two programs are a big reason why we are still in the recession. The taxes from the programs make it more expensive to hire US workers. I don't care who gives the BS that they paid into the system, whoever paid into the system paid for their parents. Its a ponzi scheme.

 

[the DRIZZLE]

I do not like Perry at all, but many people myself included interpret the constitution to mean that Congress can tax and use the money to promote the general welfare but the ways in which they do so are limited by the enumerated powers. If Congress can do anything it wants to promote the general welfare, why did they bother listing 17 specific powers? The Constitution could have been a lot shorter.

 

[pcgeek11]

By that I mean his political aspirations. He has three problems here.

1. SS and Medicare are highly sucessful and popular programs. He is the first one I've heard suggest they are unconstitutional

2. Old people vote

3. The interviewer caught him in his one sided interpretation of the constitution. Which shows he hasen't given it much thought other them how to use it to push his agenda.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) has, to say the least, a very odd understanding of the Constitution. He thinks Texas should be able to opt out of Social Security, and he believes that everything from federal public school programs to clean air laws are unconstitutional. Yet in an interview with the Daily Beast’s Andrew Romano, Perry makes his most outlandish claim to date — Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/12/rick-perry-newsweek-interview-transcript.html


Perry’s reading of the Constitution raises very serious questions about whether he understands the English language. The Constitution gives Congress the power to “to lay and collect taxes” and to “provide for the…general welfare of the United States.” No plausible interpretation of the words “general welfare” does not include programs that ensure that all Americans can live their entire lives secure in the understanding that retirement will not force them into poverty and untreated sickness.
Moreover, Perry’s belief that Social Security and Medicare must cease to exist not only puts him well to the right of his fellow Republicans in Congress — who recently voted to gradually phase out Medicare — it also puts him at the rightward fringe of the GOP presidential field. Not even Michele Bachmann has gone on record claiming that America’s two most cherished programs for seniors violate the Constitution, although she did invite a Fox News analyst who shares Perry’s beliefs to lecture her fellow lawmakers on what the Constitution requires.

I don’t think our founding fathers when they were putting the term “general welfare” in there were thinking about a federally operated program of pensions nor a federally operated program of health care.

So you think the founding fathers did mean SS and federally funded health care? If so then that is even more stupid.

 

[ichy]

Those two programs are a big reason why we are still in the recession. The taxes from the programs make it more expensive to hire US workers. I don't care who gives the BS that they paid into the system, whoever paid into the system paid for their parents. Its a ponzi scheme.

Having a huge number of elderly people without health care coverage would put a drain on our economy as well...

People often call Medicare and SS ponzi schemes, but that's a bunch of nonsense. The actual problem with both programs is that people are living longer and that healthcare is getting more expensive. The former could be dealt with by raising the SS retirement age and the latter by imposing some kinds of caps on what Medicare pays for. We need somebody to grow a pair of balls and say no, we will NOT pay for ICU care for 90-year old dementia patients with metastatic cancer.

 

[Thump553]

I wonder if he will end up like Fred Thompson, the actor who was supposed to be the savior of the GOP in 2008. Highly popular before he announced somewhat late in the campaign, he immediately sunk without a splash after announcing when the public realized there was no substance there. These days he's a huckster for reverse mortgages on TV.

 

[kage69]

Holy rollers like Perry are an embarrassment to this country. I'm sure Obama will appreciate him hoarding the religitard vote though.

 

[Ausm]

The words "general Welfare" appears twice in the Constitution. Once in the Preamble:



And in Article I, Section 8:



Note the underlined word that precedes it in each instance.

General Welfare for a Republican means "I have mine so fuck you!"

 

[Jaskalas]

^ You honestly don't think Perry would be just like GWB or Obama? He's more of the same. With poofier hair.

How the hell would I know?

What I do know is what I heard. There was no "big government's good for you" compassionate conservative. Bush told us exactly who he was in the 2000 election, we just had to listen. At the time it was expected that a moderate would be good for the nation. That he'd capture enough independent votes while still being a conservative.

After eight years of that we know better. He was electable, and he was one of them.

I don't know if Perry is a big gov lap dog, but I will be watching him closely to see if what he said is his speech is true to his nature. For it is the ideals he spoke of that we desperately need.

 

[TheSlamma]

The large number of Republican idiots who have him #2 in the polls.

People seriously need to take a trip to/through Iowa, then they can see why this weekends event is total uselessness.

 

[feralkid]

People seriously need to take a trip to/through Iowa, then they can see why this weekends event is total uselessness.

No trip needed, use the Google.


Perry is essentially DOA, Bachman and the Pea Tardy have peaked, so it's pretty much Romney vs. a slow-death circus of moon bats until the primary.

 

[HomerJS]

Looks like the democrats have started firing up the hackery machine to go after Perry now that he's announced.

Hack-ery ma-chine
noun
1. from the latin meaning to make public the statements and interviews of said subject.

 

[DaveSimmons]

SS and medicare are popular and a nice idea to help those who couldn't help themselves, but I don't think it makes you a loony to argue that they were not envisioned by the founding fathers when writing the constitution.

Regardless of that, we've now had people paying into them for all of their working lives, so we have an obligation to deliver something like the promised services that they've paid us for.

 

[her209]

I don’t think our founding fathers when they were putting the term “general welfare” in there were thinking about a federally operated program of pensions nor a federally operated program of health care.

So you think the founding fathers did mean SS and federally funded health care? If so then that is even more stupid.

The founding fathers wrote the Constitution in general terms and ideas and left it up to the people to interpret and apply the Constitution to fit their times.

 

[LegendKiller]

The founding fathers wrote the Constitution in general terms and ideas and left it up to the people to interpret and apply the Constitution to fit their times.

This. I am amused and worried at the same time that people think the Constitution was a yolk by which all future generations were ensalved to the ideas of 18th century leaders. On the contrary, most founding fathers agreed that the Constitution was a document of the living and shouldn't be all-encompassing. Even several administrations out from Washington you could see the evolution of thought, every single President expanded powers or altered the makeup of the government to reflect reality.

The Constitution is not the house of the US but merely the foundation. We often forget that this is an experiment of SELF RULE, not of historical decree.

 

[ProfJohn]

We could look up what the founding fathers said about the term general welfare, but the left wouldn't like the answers...

"Our tenet ever was that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated, and that, as it was never meant that they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers, so it could not have been 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. "
-- Thomas Jefferson <- radical right winger for sure

"They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare.... [G]iving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."
--Thomas Jefferson

"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one...."
-- James Madison <- another crazy ass right winger

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.
-- James Madison

"If Congress can determine what constitutes the general welfare and can appropriate money for its advancement, where is the limitation to carrying into execution whatever can be effected by money?"
-- South Carolina Senator William Draden 1828 <-- explains it perfectly. Why bother with the rest of the stuff if all we needed was a line that said "The government shall provide for the general welfare" and let it go at that?

 

[fskimospy]

Pro-Jo, you do realize that in terms of state/federal power that Thomas Jefferson was absolutely a radical right winger by today's standards? Also, were you aware that he was not a member of the Constitutional Convention?

LK is completely correct. The Constitution was made deliberately vague in order to adapt to future circumstances.

 

[ProfJohn]

This. I am amused and worried at the same time that people think the Constitution was a yolk by which all future generations were ensalved to the ideas of 18th century leaders. On the contrary, most founding fathers agreed that the Constitution was a document of the living and shouldn't be all-encompassing. Even several administrations out from Washington you could see the evolution of thought, every single President expanded powers or altered the makeup of the government to reflect reality.

The Constitution is not the house of the US but merely the foundation. We often forget that this is an experiment of SELF RULE, not of historical decree.

So tell me this...

Which parts of it do we get to ignore and which parts do we have to listen too?

No one would dare to challenge the 1st amendment, but the 2nd? Well it doesn't really mean what people think it means...

How about the 10th? Probably the most overlooked amendment and most ignored.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Seems pretty simple. If the constitution doesn't give the power to the government to do something then it can't do it! The state though can do what ever they please, as long as they are barred via the constitution.

A state wants to pass Romneycare then fine, but the Federal government... nope, doesn't have the power.

 

[a777pilot]

By that I mean his political aspirations. He has three problems here.

1. SS and Medicare are highly sucessful and popular programs. He is the first one I've heard suggest they are unconstitutional

2. Old people vote

3. The interviewer caught him in his one sided interpretation of the constitution. Which shows he hasen't given it much thought other them how to use it to push his agenda.

I too want to see SS ended. It has outlived its usefullness.

I am old, get a SS check and I vote.

I will vote for Mr. Perry.