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Are Medicare and Social Security Constitutional?

Are Social Security and Medicare Constitutional?

  • Medicare ONLY Is Constitutional

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Social Security ONLY is Constitutional

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • BOTH Medicare and Social Security are Constitutional

    Votes: 13 56.5%

  • NEITHER are Constitutional

    Votes: 10 43.5%
  • Total voters
    23
OnWisconsin said:
Libertarians remind me of Creationists. They love to take the literary word and accept no substitutes as if they are all constitutional scholars and know more than anyone else on the subject. Know it all political banter.
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That is because substitutes change the meaning.

Without meaning, words and documents that are supposed to be binding are useless.
 
rocket88 said:
This is why originalists are almost always wrong. The Constitution is not a shackle meant to keep us in 1787.

Where in the Constitution is the power given to the President to purchase land, or to go to war to acquire it? Yeah, you just invalidated everything West of the Mississippi river and Florida.
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No offense Rocket but this is kind of a generalization. Originalists do understand that situations and times change, as well we understand that things do come about which require changes to the social contract, but there still have to be limitations and burdens of proof upon the government. A politician must still follow the spirit of constitutional law and make their cases to the public via a vote, for things that MUST be changed there is a necessary and proper standard, i.e., the law must be proved necessary and with the proper authority to do so. The shackle isn't on the times past, but the government future and present.
 
OnWisconsin said:
Libertarians remind me of Creationists. They love to take the literary word and accept no substitutes as if they are all constitutional scholars and know more than anyone else on the subject. Know it all political banter.

They also seem to have a direct relationship with every founding father and know exactly what each one was thinking at the time.
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You need not be a scholar to understand the meanings of words.

Our founding documents were written by individuals who were tired of a tyrannical government, with the specific intent of preventing the same in their new country. They were, for the most part, *classical liberals* of their time, having come out of the age of enlightenment, and they valued individual liberty above essentially all else. They were, unfortunately for us, lacking in foresight in not being more specific and , and did not seem to understand that many people do not value liberty. They want a security blanket instead.
 
Bigfoot 88 said:
I already pointed out how silly the Air Force comment was. The Constitution is what it says it is. Indeed it is not meant to shackle us, we the people, but it IS meant to shackle the federal government. Statements like yours, are simply dishonest or uninformed.

There is no power in the Constitution for the President to purchase land. There should have been an amendment to the Constitution, and probably would have been, for something of that importance and necessity.

So while you may want to disregard the truth of the Constitution because it suits you, it won't make you correct.
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I am no scholar but, perhaps, a treaty was involved, and its terms and conditions allowed the purchase of land as part of it.
 
LaMidRighter said:
Medicare only has two government parts, parts A and B. Part A comes straight from payroll taxes and no further effort need be applied but it pays almost nothing, B is a slightly expanded optional fee which is limited in scope but still pays more than A. All other parts are individual policies approved by CMS to be sold by private companies which must comply with all regulations issued by that board, it's not complicated if you take them one at a time and read into the details. What happens is that medicare pays it's portion of the bill and the other optional parts supplement the rest up to obligations.

Again though, under tax powers.....I'm thinking you are of the same opinion it has to be based upon a loose interpretation of the 16th amendment but is possible to justify with that.
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First, thank you for explaining at least parts of medicare and the thoughtful reply. IMHO, SS/Medicare are far more direct and single purpose than 85% of the 80K+ pages of the IRS code. The 16th amendment allowed the federal gov't to tax the INCOME of the citizens, from all sources yet, says NOTHING about basing that taxation upon how that private income was LATER spent or how many citizens that it may (or may not) support. SS/Medicare are simple, flat and direct taxation systems, from the first dollar of wage income to the current cap (that should be removed). The mass of credits, deductions, exceptions and exclusions are mind boggling, to say the least, for the balance of the FIT mess. I am sure that, by now, we have spent FAR more time money and effort, as a nation, keeping records and filling out federal income tax forms, than we expended to get a man on the moon and to build the entire interstate highway system. ;-)
 
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ttwtt78640 said:
First, thank you for explaining at least parts of medicare and the thoughtful reply. IMHO, SS/Medicare are far more direct and single purpose than 85% of the 80K+ pages of the IRS code. The 16th amendment allowed the federal gov't to tax the INCOME of the citizens, from all sources yet, says NOTHING about basing that taxation upon how that private income was LATER spent or how many citizens that it may (or may not) support. SS/Medicare are simple, flat and direct taxation systems, from the first dollar of wage income to the current cap (that should be removed). The mass of credits, deductions, exceptions and exclusions are mind boggling, to say the least, for the balance of the FIT mess. I am sure that, by now, we have spent FAR more time money and effort, as a nation, keeping records and filling out federal income tax forms, than we expended to get a man on the moon and to build the entire interstate highway system. ;-)
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No problem on the explanation, forgot one thing, to qualify for the supplementals under law a person must have part B enrollment, not a big omission but important to know. Overall I'd say SSI and Medicare are less complicated than a lot of federal programs due simply to the backdoors created and the bureacracies created by such.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
I am no scholar but, perhaps, a treaty was involved, and its terms and conditions allowed the purchase of land as part of it.
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Well, the Louisiana Purchase is not the most grievous offense against the Constitution, because that is a valid point. But I tend to go with the other side in believing that something as important as expanding the country by purchase should be written in the Constitution.
 
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