Constitutional Welfare

Constitutional Welfare

Welfare n. 1. health, happiness, or prosperity; well-being.    This is the true definition (Webster’s) of the word welfare, and it is contained in the preamble of the US Constitution: “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.”

In the meantime, our US Congress, and our new President, who are sworn to uphold the Constitution, are poised to pass a sweeping heath care bill that threatens the welfare of the citizens who they serve.    Let’s examine the welfare definition:

Health is more important part of our well being.    Once the US government comes into the health care arena, choices are made for us, about us and that will impact us.    Supposedly for our good, but as we have seen with most US government programs, somehow the good intentions at the Congressional level get lost in the translation at the state and local level.   Instead of looking to Washington, DC., we should be looking to Grand Junction, CO.   This western Colorado community has worked for over thirty years to create a locally directly and quality focused health care delivery system that has higher quality care (that comparative regions) and lower costs (that average regions in the US).    Ideas coming from the ground up with real people, organizations and health care professionals.   Not the Washington DC top down approach that has been proven not to work.

Happiness is our personal responsibility.    The government doesn’t owe it to us, except to provide for our national defense and secure the blessing of liberty.    That compares the present health care legislation in the US Congress (now in the US Senate) that is attempting to secure nationalized health care with compulsory insurance, fees, fines and taxes.     That will secure us socialized medicine, not the blessings of liberty.    What responsibility does the Congress have for health care?     To allow the individual to choose their doctor, their insurance, their level of care and make reasonable (not unilateral) provision for those unable to obtain decent health care.   

Prosperity is the result of limited government, lower taxes, less government spending and the pursuit of happiness by the individual.  It allows for the citizens to practice personal responsibility, not be wards of the state.   The proposed health care bill expands government, increases taxes, expands government programs and spending, and restricts the choices of individual Americans.     The United States has been known as the best place in the world to go to receive the best medical care.     The Mayo Clinic, MD Anderson, Cleveland Clinic are not located in Cuba, Russia or China.   They are located in the US for a reason.   That may be lost in the headlong plunge into a government run health care system.

Choices in health care, choices in insurance, good choices in your lifestyle are part of our constitutionally protected welfare, or well-being.     The Democrats, in their quest for a socialized and fair practice of medicine and health care delivery have created legislation that threatens the very fabric of our free society.    A while 1,000 pages of hastily written legislation may be passed in some form by the US Senate, the 50 plus words in the preamble of the US Constitution stand as a beacon of hope and freedom.     Do Americans want the 1,000 model of beauracracy and government control, or do we prefer the way of liberty and true welfare? 

© 2009, Jasper Welch, Four Corners Media, www.jasperwelch.org  

Madison Slow Down Obamacare

US Founder Madison Slows Down President Obama

So what exactly happened in the health care debate this summer? The founding fathers, wary of kings and divine rulers, and willing to sacrifice their own personal gain for the formation of a fledging democracy, wrote a Constitution that featured checks and balances. And their vision for a system of American government for the people and by the people has withstood the onslaught of Washington insiders for over 225 years. The founding fathers created a document; known as the US Constitution that has guided our Republic. Our Constituion includes the 10^th Amendment (1791): 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. It could be argued that the nationalization of health care by the government is prohibited based on this amendment. Exactly where does it say that health care is within the exclusive jurisdiction of the US Government? Just being the President, doesn’t make it so. Not in America.

During this national debate on health care, a rookie President with a majority of the Congress has failed to fully understand the American process. And now he is blaming the American people for being…. well American.

To put Madison’s work into the modern perspective, we feature the work of Peter Wehner, a former presidential advisor and current think tank fellow, who wrote the following in the Weekly Standard:

But Madison has thwarted others who possessed grand, even utopian, designs. And so we are now getting the debate on health care Obama desperately wanted to avoid--with the result that support for his plan is sinking like a stone in the sea. Whatever plan finally emerges, if any plan emerges, will be quite different from what Obama originally had in mind.

None of this is going down very well with our chief executive. The man who promised us a new style of politics, civil and uplifting, is now unleashing his top aides and congressional allies to "punch back twice as hard" against critics. They are attempting to paint opposition to Obamacare as the work of fringe elements, mercenaries, and automatons. If Team Obama actually believes this explains the groundswell of public concern about its health care plan, they are living in a White House even more hermetically sealed than usual.

But the fundamental problem is the Obama view of politics--romantic and even quasi-revolutionary--in which men of zeal remake the world. This is not the American way. Ours is a system of government in which, as Madison noted, "ambition must be made to counteract ambition," where there are more brakes than accelerators, and where massive overhauls and centralized control are discouraged and most of the time defeated. Whatever its limitations, the Constitution remains, in the words of Gladstone, "the greatest work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man." It does not bow before a president in a hurry--even a young, charismatic, and impatient one. Excerpt from the Weekly Standard online at www.weeklystandard.com

Peter Wehner, former deputy assistant to President George W. Bush, is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

© 2009 Jasper Welch, Four Corners Media, www.jasperwelch.org

Congratulations, Mr. President

Congratulations, Mr. President

The swearing-in of the President of the United States occurs upon the commencement of a new term of a President of the United States. The United States Constitution mandates that the President make the following oath or affirmation before he or she can "enter on the Execution" of the office of the presidency:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

The newly elected or re-elected President traditionally adds "so help me God" to the constitutionally mandated statement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inauguration_Day

We will witness the miracle of American Democracy, as another smooth transition of power will take place on Tuesday January 20^th in Washington.   President Barack Obama, the duly elected President of the United States will be sworn in as the Commander in Chief by the Chief Justice Roberts.   The United States of American stands alone in its democratic and bloodless transitions of power, which have occurred many times since April 30, 1789.    On that day, the first president, George Washington was sworn in as President.

As Americans we will put aside our differences of opinion and unite as fellow Americans in support of the 44^th President of the United States.   President Obama has many challenges that he will face.    Our prayers are will him.

© 2008, Four Corners Media, Jasper Welch,  www.jasperwelch.org