The “Taxing Clause”, Five Lawless Judges, and obamacare.

By Publius Huldah.

Our federal Constitution is one of enumerated powers only.  This means that WE THE PEOPLE, who ordained and established the Constitution, listed therein every power We delegated to the federal government. If We didn’t list a power, the federal government doesn’t have it.¹

Furthermore, we delegated only a very few powers to the federal government.

Accordingly, Congress has strictly limited legislative powers over the Country at large. These powers are listed primarily at Art. I, §8, clauses 3-16, and are restricted to war, international commerce & relations; and domestically, the creation of an uniform commercial system: weights & measures, patents & copyrights, a monetary system based on gold & silver, bankruptcy laws, mail delivery & roads. Several Amendments delegate to Congress some power over civil rights.

These enumerated powers are the only areas where the federal government has lawful authority over The States and The People in The States.  In all other matters [except those listed at Art. I, §10]the States and The People retain supremacy, independence, and sovereignty. Go here for a complete list of all of Congress’ Enumerated Powers.

Obamacare is altogether unconstitutional because it is outside the scope of the legislative powers We granted to Congress. Nothing in Our Constitution authorizes the federal government to control our medical care (or to exercise the other fearsome powers in the Act).  

I challenge those five (5) lawless judges on the supreme Court [Roberts, Kagan, Sotomayor, Ginsberg, & Breyer], all other totalitarians,  liberals,  and parasites who support obamacare, to point to that clause of The Constitution where We delegated to the federal government power to control our medical care.

Article I, §8, clauses 1-16: What it Really Means.

Those five (5) lawless judges on the supreme Court looked at Art. I, §8, cl.1, and found power in Congress and the Executive Branch to take over our medical care – even to decide whether we will receive medical treatment or be denied medical treatment.²

And how did The Lawless Five do this?  I’ll show you. But first, let’s see what the Constitution really says.  Article I, §8, clauses 1 & 2 read:

Clause 1: “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;” [boldface added]

Clause 2: “To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;”

Immediately after Clauses 1 & 2 follows the list of enumerated powers WE delegated to Congress:

• Clause 3: To regulate “commerce” [For the Truth about the “commerce clause”, go here];
• Clause 4: To establish uniform laws on Naturalization and on Bankruptcies;
• Clause 5: To coin money & regulate its value, and fix the standard of weights & measures;
• Clause 6: To punish counterfeiting;
• Clause 7: To establish Post Offices and post Roads;
• Clause 8: To issue Patents and Copyrights;
• Clause 9: To set up federal courts “inferior” to the supreme Court [one may well ask how any court can be “inferior” to the supreme Court];
• Clause 10: To punish Piracies & Felonies on the high seas and offenses against the Law of Nations;
• Clause 11: To declare War, grant Letters of Marque & Reprisal, and make rules for Captures;
• Clause 12: To raise and support Armies;
• Clause 13: To provide and maintain a Navy;
• Clause 14: To make Rules for the land and naval Forces;
• Clause 15: To call forth the Militia; and
• Clause 16: To provide for organizing, arming, disciplining the Militia.

Add to this short list of enumerated powers; the “housekeeping powers” itemized in the paper linked here; the salaries authorized by Art. I, §6, cl. 1; Art. II, §1, next to last clause; Art. III, §1, cl. 1, and others on the civil list; together with the Amendments addressing civil rights; and you have the sole purposes for which Congress is authorized to levy and collect taxes, borrow money, and spend money for the Country at Large.

And this is precisely what James Madison, Father of Our Constitution, says in Federalist Paper No. 41 (last 4 paras).   Some people were concerned that

“…the power ‘to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,’ amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. ”  (4^th para from end).

Madison answered the above objection by saying that one would be grasping at straws to stoop to such a silly “misconstruction”.  He said:

“Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases. A power to destroy the freedom of the press, the trial by jury, or even to regulate the course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly expressed by the terms ‘to raise money for the general welfare’ .” (3^rd para from end)

“But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever? … Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning … is an absurdity…” (2^nd para from end)

In the final paragraph of Federalist No. 41, Madison says Art. I, §8, cl. 1 does not vest in Congress a power to legislate in all cases whatsoever: Clause 1 is merely a “general expression”, the meaning of which is “ascertained and limited” by the clauses which “immediately follow” it.

To put Madison in modern English: Clauses 1 & 2 grant to Congress the power to raise money; clauses 3-16 enumerate the objects on which Congress may appropriate the money so raised, thus limiting clauses 1 & 2.

THAT is the Constitution We ratified.

What the Lawless Five Assert it Means:

See where it says in Clause 1, “To lay and collect Taxes”?  The Lawless Five assert that this phrase authorizes Congress to lay & collect taxes for any purposes whatsoever.

They IGNORED the “specification of the objects [Clauses 3-16] alluded to by these general terms” [Clauses 1 & 2] – the “enumeration of particulars” which “explain and qualify” “the general phrase”.   

In effect, they repealed Clauses 3-16.  In a nutshell, the Lawless Five asserted that Congress and the President may do whatever they want to us.  Just call it a “tax”.

What can WE Do?

First, we must disabuse ourselves of the monstrous lie that the federal government We created by Our Constitution is the exclusive and final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to it; and that the opinion of five judges, not the Constitution, is the sole measure of its powers. ³ That is a pernicious  ideology antithetical to our Founding Documents and Principles. Once you understand that, our remedies are readily apparent:

1. Impeach Federal Judges who violate their Oaths of Office. The supreme Court is merely a creature of the Constitution and is completely subject to its terms; and when judges on that and lower federal courts – who serve during “good Behaviour” only (Art. III, §1, cl. 1) – usurp power, they must be removed from office. Alexander Hamilton writes in Federalist No. 81 (8^th para) of:

“… the important constitutional check which the power of instituting impeachments in … [the House] … and of determining … them in the … [Senate] … give[s] to … [Congress] … upon the members of the judicial department. This is alone a complete security. There never can be danger that the judges, by a series of deliberate usurpations on the authority of the legislature, would hazard the united resentment of the body intrusted with it, while this body was possessed of the means of punishing their presumption, by degrading them from their stations…” ⁴

We must elect Representatives and Senators who will support our Constitution by impeaching & removing usurping federal judges.  We must elect people who will rid of us The Lawless Five.

2. Elect Representatives and Senators who will also repeal obamacare and dismantle everything which has been implemented so far.

3.  Elect Romney.  He has promised he will “repeal” obamacare.  His Oath of Office – which is “to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution” – requires him to refuse to implement obamacare. By Executive Order, he must refuse to implement it, he must reverse all implementation in effect when he takes office, and he must rescind the unconstitutional rules [see, e.g., Art. I, §1] made by the baby-killing totalitarians who presently infest the Department of Health & Human Services.

4.  States must nullify obamacare.   Here are Nullification Resolutions States may use to nullify obamacare and the HHS rules.

State officials, legislators, and judges all take The Oath to support the federal Constitution (Art. VI, cl. 3); and that Oath requires them to nullify obamacare.

5. We the People must stop deceiving ourselves about the motives of people such as obama and the Lawless Five. They are not ‘basically decent people who just have different opinions”. They are Dolores Umbridges who are determined to reduce us to abject slavery. PH.

Endnotes:

¹ Contrary to the misconstructions long and unlawfully applied by the federal government, the federal Constitution is one of enumerated powers only.  E.g.:

“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.  The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected.  The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people.”  (Federalist No. 45 , 9^th para)

“…the proposed government cannot be deemed a national one; since its jurisdiction extends to certain enumerated objects only, and leaves to the several States a residuary and inviolable sovereignity over all other objects….” (Federalist No. 39, 3^rd para from end)

“…the general [federal] government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws. Its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects...” (Federalist No. 14, 8^th para)

² There is much more in obamacare than transferring to the Executive Branch power to decide whether we will receive or be denied medical care. It is a parade of horribles worthy of Stalin, Hitler, and Anita Dunn’s hero, Mao.  It transfers total control of our lives to the Executive Branch.

³ Our beloved Thomas Jefferson writes in para 1 of the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798:

“1. Resolved, That the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General Government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General Government for special purposes,–delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force: that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party: that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.” [boldface mine]

⁴ With obamacare, the Lawless Five colluded with Congress & the Executive Branch to subvert Our Constitution. Our Framers warned us of such connivances  between the branches of the federal government:

Alexander Hamilton tells us that Congress can’t successfully usurp powers unless The People go along with it!  In Federalist No.16 (next to last para), he points out that because judges may be “embarked in a conspiracy with the legislature”, the People, who are “the natural guardians of the Constitution”, must be “enlightened enough to distinguish between a legal exercise and an illegal usurpation of authority.”

James Madison says in Federalist No. 44 (last para before 2.):

“…the success of the usurpation [by Congress] will depend on the executive and judiciary departments, which are to expound and give effect to the legislative acts; …” [boldface added]

Hamilton and Madison are telling us that We don’t have to go along with obamacare just because Five totalitarians on the supreme Court want the Executive Branch to have total control over our lives. This is where we draw the line.  We must Resist this tyranny. PH

July 5, 2012

Revised November 8, 2012.; November 15, 2012.