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The Constitution is open to interpretation, after all, it does not wear its meaning on its face, but the Constitution is not subjected to interpretation, it is subjected to interpretation again and again.
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Now I do not want to explore each of these interpretive ploys; rather I want to look more closely at the first and to suggest that in the instance of the Constitution at least, the authors constructed it in such a way that their original intentions would not be determinative of its meaning. Moves to uncover the original intention of the authors are frequently frustrated, therefore, not because of a lack of ingenuity on the part of a judge, but because the Framers drafted the text in such a way as to leave little trace of their concrete proposals or substantive intentions. This feature of its construction is, in part, what makes the Constitution so special and enduring; and how it has come to have so many readers. It's also a feature it shares with the Ten Commandments.
There's one part that is central to this open interpretation that gets at the discussion you're talking about:
The Taxing and Spending Clause and Commerce Clause of the Constitution states:
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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
The key phrase being "general Welfare of the United States".
This language also exists in the preamble to the Constitution, saying:
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We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare
Also, the Commerce Clause strengthens this case and is arguably Congress' broadest authority. The Commerce Clause says that Congress has the power to regulate anything that will have an impact on the nation's economy as a whole. That is:
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To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes;
This clause was used as a secondary (in addition to the General Welfare clause) justification of the Department of Education - the argument went that because an educated populace is more capable of producing quality goods for sale internationally, and taxing domestically, commerce is effected and can be advanced through federal action.
Taken together, these passages have been used to justify the existence of a multitude of federal programs, departments, and services (such as the Dept. of Education, Social Security, Medicare - among many others).
This debate is certainly not a new one in any way. It literally extends back to the founding of our country, particularly between two founding fathers James Madison (smaller federal government, more power to the states) and Alexander Hamilton (advocated for a larger and more powerful federal government).
Over time, those in power leaned away from Madisonian thinking and towards Hamiltonian thinking, particularly in the early part of the 20th century, starting in major ways with the New Deal (and other social programs).
There is quite a bit of precedence that has been built up with this interpretation - including many laws, federal government agencies/departments/services, and supreme court cases that have found this interpretation to be Constitutional (particularly the 1936 Roberts Court ruling, which has strong language in it that justifies the federal government's "not limited" reach of this guiding principle of promoting the General Welfare).
As President, Madison signed the Second Bank Bill into law even though as a representative in the First Congress he opposed the bill because he believed Congress had no constitutional right to establish a national bank. But although he had voted against the First Bank Bill, by the time he was required to sign the Second Bank Bill as President of the United States, he recognized that "Congress, the President, the Supreme Court, and (most importantly, by failing to use their amending power) the American people had for two decades accepted the existence and made use of the services of the First Bank," and he viewed this widespread acceptance as "a construction put on the Constitution by the nation, which, having made it, had the supreme right to declare its meaning."
It had long been Madison's view that "precedents - at least those derived from 'authoritative, deliberate, and continued decisions' - served to 'fix the interpretation of a law.'" In defense of the open-language of the Constitution and in response to the Anti-Federalist charge of obscurity, he already acknowledged in The Federalist No. 37 that "all new laws, though penned with the greatest technical skill, and passed on the fullest and most mature deliberation, are considered as more or less obscure and equivocal, until their meaning be liquidated and ascertained by a series of particular discussions and adjudications." The meaning of the Constitution was to be found in a continuing process of interpretation and not in some specific set of intentions injected into the text at its inception. In fact, Madison was convinced that this was the predominant view held by those who attended the Philadelphia Convention:
It could not but happen, and was foreseen at the birth of the Constitution, that difficulties and differences of opinion might occasionally arise in expounding terms and phrases necessarily used in such a charter . . . and that it might require a regular course of practice to liquidate and settle the meaning of some of them.
This interpretation of this part of the Constitution is certainly still open for debate. But to argue against the more Hamiltonian thinking would require overcoming decades/centuries of precedence and laws. I imagine that would be a very tough fight to win.
I have said this repeatedly and it still falls on leftist's deaf ears (eyes).
James Madison (known as the Father of the Constitution because he wrote most of it) said,
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"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."
That quote is recorded in the official Congressional Record.
Furthermore, the US Constitution and each of the State Constitutions were NEVER intended to have their meanings and INTENT "interpreted". No... instead the founding father's of this great nation created the incredible brilliance of the Constitutions by creating a method for which each of them can be amended. That is by far their greatest achievement with the Constitutions, federal and State.
As far as the actual INTENT of the Constitution, one need look no further than the writings (letters back and forth) contained in the Federalist and the Anti-Federalist. Most positions WERE widely agreed upon, with few (a centralized national bank) being widely rebuked.
Due to the Federalist and the Anti-Federalist no HONEST person can claim the founder's INTENT cannot be determined. Part of the problem is our leftist public schools teach a little about the Constitution, injecting leftist interpretations of the INTENT, then refuse to use the actual documents which could easily disprove their nonsense claims, the Federalist and the Anti-Federalist, because these writings which show the actual intent go against their desire to rewrite the founding father's actual INTENT with the left's ever changing judicial interpretation.
I do not see the word "provide" and no references that can be remotely interpreted as "provide"
So, how does the federal government come to provide so much for so many, without authorization?
Good, compassionate human beings have always looked out for one another. This isn't something that needs to be in the Constitution, it is something you should have learned from your parents. It is at the core of every religion, too.
I realize (especially from seeing some of the attitudes on here) that a lot of you have no compassion for others, and would be thrilled to see less fortunate people starve and go away, but the rest of the world does not work that way. One of the wonderful things about America is that we look out for our own, in good times and bad.
I know that, under the new Presidency, they want to stomp out everything that does not fit into their rich boy agendas, but we are not going to let America become a place where only the rich eat and have a roof over their heads...........regardless of how much it pains you.
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