Off to an unconstitutional start. Not surprising, but I wonder how commonplace this is going to be for the new “maverick” in the Senate.
A modest job-creation bill advanced in the U.S. Senate on Monday as the chamber’s newest Republican bucked his party and sided with Democrats on a $15 billion package of tax cuts and highway spending.
Republican Scott Brown joined four other Republicans, 55 Democrats and two independents to overcome a procedural hurdle that sets up a final vote later this week.
The question is this – Mr Brown, where in the Constitution does the federal government get the authority to legislate “job creation” – even modestly?
Hint. It doesn’t.
If it is tax cuts and highway spending, where does the Constitution disallow that?
Tax cuts are always good, and I support that part of it. In fact, if that was the entirety of the bill, I would consider it a good bill.
But that is not the whole bill, and I’m not interested in anything but constitutional purity. Some of it includes subsidies for state programs – construction, insurance, and the like. As a whole, I consider it constitutionally unsound.
The reality, of course, is that the entire bill is a massive subsidy of certain perferred activities to segments of the population
We agree on your last sentence, without even my having to know the bill. As you know, I believe this to be true of almost every law.
I did not know the details about subsidies for construction, etc. Of course, I am not so sure there is much of a practical effect that would differentiate the government handing a check to certain tax payers vs. giving them specific tax breaks, except that the latter is arguably Constitutional and the former is not. See how easy it is to pervert legal concepts? You can achieve the same, pernicious (or good, if you prefer) result, either way.