I've always said that 90% of the DNC platform is, in effect, conspiracy to commit felony. The government is only legally allowed to do specific things, and if it confiscates citizen's money to do illegal things then that is extortion, theft, and dealing with illicit funds.

Ignoring foreign policy, I'm going to look at what portions of Barack Obama's policy platforms would be illegal if "enacted".

"Guaranteed eligibility. No American will be turned away from any insurance plan because of illness or pre-existing conditions."

Such a regulation - which entails news sections of the US Criminial Code -  falls beyond the purview of the federal government, and is illegal.

"Comprehensive benefits. The benefit package will be similar to the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), and cover all essential medical services, including preventive, maternity and mental health care."

To provide such would require a program that lacks Constitutional authorization, and is thus beyond the jurisdiction of the Federal government and illegal.

"Subsidies. Individuals who do not qualify for Medicaid or SCHIP but still need assistance will receive an income-related federal subsidy to buy into the new public plan or purchase a private health care plan."

Find the part of the Constitution that guarantees direct payments to individuals, and I will find you a new car.

"Quality and efficiency. Participating insurance companies will be required to collect and report data to ensure that standards for quality, health information technology and administration are being met."

Per the first quote, all insurance companies are ipso facto "participating". Once again, if you can find the portion of the Constitution that allows the federal government to lay claim to private company's records without warrant in the name of a matter neither civil nor criminal, I will recommend you to a rehab clinic.

<blockquote>National Health Insurance Exchange. Obama will create a National Health Insurance Exchange to help individuals who wish to purchase private insurance. The Exchange will act as a watchdog group and help reform the private insurance market by creating rules and standards for participating insurance plans to ensure fairness and to make individual coverage more affordable and accessible. Insurers would have to issue every applicant a policy, and charge fair and stable premiums. The Exchange will require benefits comparable to those offered in the new public plan. Insurers would be required to justify an above-average premium increase. The Exchange would evaluate plans and provide information about differences between them.</blockquote>

Obama will create! We don't need no steekin Congresses! First of all, the idea of a government agency acting as a "watchdog group" would be dryly humorous if it wasn't mind numbingly Orwellian. What this says is, in simple terms, if one for reactionary reasons wants to opt out of the one size fits all Government health care plan, then one must sign up with a plan from companies ordered by the government to offer a one size fits all Government health care plan.

Brilliant.

<blockquote>Employer Contribution. Employers that do not offer or make a meaningful contribution to the cost of quality health coverage for their employees will be required to contribute a percentage of payroll toward the costs of the national plan. Small employers that meet certain revenue thresholds will be exempt.</blockquote>

There was a day and age when, if one wanted the government to issue a new tax, one would have to pass a Constitutional amendment. Apparently that age died sometime between 1913 and now.

"Mandatory Coverage of Children. Obama will require that all children have health care coverage."

With his mighty Fist of Justice!

Also, Illegal, Illegal, Illegal.

"Flexibility for State Plans. Obama's plan allows states to continue innovating on health care reform."

But only if they obey illegal Federal dictates and only if they continue the long march towards our brilliant, happy-fun socialist future.

<blockquote>Transitional Jobs: Obama will create a transitional jobs program to place people with extreme difficulties getting and keeping good jobs into temporary, subsidized wage-paying jobs to gain necessary job skills before applying for unsubsidized jobs in the private and public sectors.</blockquote>

Translation: Obama has no grasp of the legal limits of his presidency, or of the Federal Government in general. Obama thinks that somewhere in the emanations of the penumbras of the Constitution lurks the clause of the section of the article that gives authority to Congress to create thousands of jobs for the lazy and stupid and pay them with taxpayer money.

"Barack Obama believes that workers should have the freedom to choose whether to join a union without harassment or intimidation from their employers. "

Barack Obama believes that the right to assemble does not include the right to choose with whom you assemble, and that one does not have the right to judge whom one wants to hire for one's business.

<blockquote>Improve Transportation Access to Jobs:   Three quarters of welfare recipients live in areas that are poorly served by public transportation and low-income workers spend up to 36 percent of their incomes on transportation.   As president, Barack Obama will work to eliminate transportation disparities.  Obama will double the federal Jobs Access and Reverse Commute program to ensure that additional federal public transportation dollars flow to the highest-need communities and that urban planning initiatives take this aspect of transportation policy into account.</blockquote>

Barack Obama believes that it is somehow legal, proper, and prudent for the Federal Government - versus, say, one's city - to be in the business of putting buses on city streets. As President, Barack Obama will send city buses into high crime areas and will magically "eliminate transportation disparities", presumably because Barack Obama is bad at math. Unless Obama intends to increase the numbers of the middle and upper classes riding public transportation (and, with things like traffic calming, he could think of doing such), this means he wants taxpayer money to go to poor people in order to afford a cab fare.

We've gone a long way from funding our survival from British invaders, to this time of bread and circuses.

<blockquote>Reduce Crime Recidivism by Providing Ex-Offender Supports:  America is facing an incarceration and post-incarceration crisis in urban communities.  Today, nearly 2 million children have a parent in a correctional facility.  In the U.S. Senate, Obama has worked to provide job training, substance abuse and mental health counseling, and employment opportunities to ex-offenders</blockquote>

So we should divert resources from the productive and peaceful to the destructive and violent. Fantastic. Even if one thought such a Utopian idea was gee-wiz, it requires civic ignorance to consider such a program on the federal level.

"Raise the Minimum Wage"

The Minimum Wage: Ignoring the Constitution for 70 Years!



These are only a fraction of the policy prescriptions on a fraction of the man's website. We are in a serious moral and civic crisis if even a plurality of American's think these prudent and wise.

 

This episode: the Necessary and Proper Clause versus the Tenth Amendment.

The Necessary and Proper Clause. Article One. Section Eight.

<blockquote>[Congress shall have the power...] To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof. </blockquote>

The Tenth Amendment. Amendments to the Constitution. Amendment Ten.

<blockquote>The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. </blockquote>

Notes:

1. As always, given the very nature of written Constitutions and written law, a preamble states the intent of the document and is not meant to carry the force of law. Thus appeals to a literal "general welfare" are faulty.

2. The Necessary and Proper Clause refers to "foregoing" powers, meaning that the power of Congress referred to in the clause only operates in context to the powers already listed (mostly in Article One, Section Eight). These "necessary and proper" powers are tempered by numerous other restrains such as those on ex post facto, bills of attainder, and Article One, Section One, which prohibits Congressional delegation of its sole Constitutional authority. Due to this fact, there is no dispute with the Tenth Amendment.

3. The Tenth Amendment, which due to the textual and common "foregoing" explicit and implied in the Necessary and Proper Clause does not conflict with any other portion of the Constitution, explicitly makes extra-constitutional laws unconstitutional. It states that in order for Congress to make a law, there must be Constitutional grounds for that law; there must be text within the Constitution that supports the supposition that such law is within the natural purview of both a legislative assembly and this Congress. It goes further and states that what is not in the jurisdiction of the federal government (most matters not related to the national defense or of Great Import - in other words, most governmental matters) is to be in the jurisdiction of the several states or, a state failing to contain within its constitution empowerment to that effect, the people.

4. Let us suppose, as a paltry few Federalists (as opposed to Democratic-Republicans), most Progressives, and all progressives have since 1791, that there was an inherent contradiction between the Necessary and Proper Clause and the Tenth Amendment. Which one would be considered to supersede; which one would take precedent as the Supreme Law of the Land?

The very nature of Amendments, whether to statutes or Constitutions, is that they render previous contradictory text null and void. The Thirteenth and Seventeenth Amendments famously did such things. Why? Because they were included in the text of the Constitution at a time proceeding earlier text; they "amended" what was considered to be a less than beneficial arrangement (although, as in the case of the Seventeenth, we can see that not all amendments are salutary). The simple fact that the Tenth Amendment was an amendment, and that it was made law after Article One, Section Eight, means that in any potential disagreement the Tenth Amendment takes precedent. Thousands of years of legal practice, and metaphysical and universal Good Sense, make this so.

What does this mean? This means that, unless a particular program -let us use as an example, an old age pension - is a delegated power in the Constitution, then no law that Congress may make to effect such a program can possibly be necessary and proper. This means that, with "foregoing" included in the clause, in addition to the very nature of written constitutions being whole and without "living" powers, the Constitution, as far as the listed portions go, is in harmony.

And most importantly, no one can use the Necessary and Proper clause to hide from the fact that when Congress attempts to enact a program that does not have explicit Constitutional approval - whether this be securities law, drug prohibition, Social Security, or funding petting zoos for inner city school children - then Congress is acting outside of its legal mandate, and any products of such are unconstitutional, illegal, and, in a sane and moral world in which we do not live, ignorable.