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Posted by Kris Krieger on November 15, 2007, 7:36 pm
> Kris Krieger wrote:
>>
>>> George Conklin wrote:
>>>>> federal & state intrusion into the
>>>>> schools.
>>>> I am not sure why you are so concerned about standardized
>>>> testing which
>>>> is supposed to raise standards? Having said that, two of my
>>>> children (+ my brother and I) went to Friends Schools which did not
>>>> even bother with licensed teachers. Care to say what your concern
>>>> is? However, my daughter who went to public schools and a public
>>>> college has done very, very well too.
>>>
>>> 1) There is no constitutional authority for the federal government
>>> to be involved in public education. There is no authority to
>>> collect taxes for it, no authority to spend money on it. No
>>> authority to mandate anything about it to the states. Simply put,
>>> the federal government cannot be in the public education business.
>>
>> It's part of the "provide for th egeneral welfare" bit. Education
>> was considered important to that pretty much from the get-go - as the
>> nation was forming, people understood that education (NOT just
>> memorizing test answers - I mean learning information and also
>> learning how to apply info and principles to solve practical
>> problems) was the key to opportunity.
>
> Clearly, you have not read the writings of those who wrote the
> Constitution. The "general welfare" clause does not refer to social
> programs.
Education - not mere memorization of facts, but learning how to think and
reason - is not a social rogram (such as welfare), it is a necessary
element to democracy. Democracy depends upon people understanding the
decisions they need to make. Education is an investment. The ignorenti
cannot make the sorts of decisions that maintain liberty - only people
lifted out of ignorance can do so.
Public works tend to be a matter for the communities which they'd affect.
> Read below
> (http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/wew/misc/Veto%20of%20federal%
> 20public%20works%20billMarch%203.pdf) It's James Madison's speech as
> to why he vetoed a PUBLIC WORKS bill. It really puts into perspective
> the recent veto and override of the veto of the "water works" bill.
>
> --------------
> Veto of federal public works bill
> March 3, 1817
> To the House of Representatives of the United States:
> Having considered the bill this day presented to me entitled "An act
> to set apart and pledge certain funds for internal improvements," and
> which sets apart and pledges funds "for constructing roads and canals,
> and improving the navigation of water courses, in order to facilitate,
> promote, and give security to internal commerce among the several
> States, and to render more easy and less expensive the means and
> provisions for the common defense," I am constrained by the
> insuperable difficulty I feel in reconciling the bill with the
> Constitution of the United States to return it with that objection to
> the House of Representatives, in which it originated.
> The legislative powers vested in Congress are specified and enumerated
> in the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, and it
> does not appear that the power proposed to be exercised by the bill is
> among the enumerated powers, or that it falls by any just
> interpretation with the power to make laws necessary and proper for
> carrying into execution those or other powers vested by the
> Constitution in the Government of the United States.
> "The power to regulate commerce among the several States" can not
> include a power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the
> navigation of water courses in order to facilitate, promote, and
> secure such commerce with a latitude of construction departing from
> the ordinary import of the terms strengthened by the known
> inconveniences which doubtless led to the grant of this remedial power
> to Congress. To refer the power in question to the clause "to provide
> for common defense and general welfare" would be contrary to the
> established and consistent rules of interpretation, as rendering the
> special and careful enumeration of powers which follow the clause
> nugatory and improper. Such a view of the Constitution would have the
> effect of giving to Congress a general power of legislation instead of
> the defined and limited one hitherto understood to belong to them, the
> terms "common defense and general welfare" embracing every object and
> act within the purview of a legislative trust. It would have the
> effect of subjecting both the Constitution and laws of the several
> States in all cases not specifically exempted to be superseded by laws
> of Congress, it being expressly declared "that the Constitution of the
> United States and laws made in pursuance thereof shall be the supreme
> law of the land, and the judges of every state shall be bound thereby,
> anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary
> notwithstanding." Such a view of the Constitution, finally, would have
> the effect of excluding the judicial authority of the United States
> from its participation in guarding the boundary between the
> legislative powers of the General and the State Governments, inasmuch
> as questions relating to the general welfare, being questions of
> policy and expediency, are unsusceptible of judicial cognizance and
> decision. A restriction of the power "to provide for the common
> defense and general welfare" to cases which are to be provided for by
> the expenditure of money would still leave within the legislative
> power of Congress all the great and most important measures of
> Government, money being the ordinary and necessary means of carrying
> them into execution.
>
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