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General Welfare Quotes

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General Welfare Quotes

“Taxes are what we pay for civilized society, for modernity, and for prosperity. The wealthy pay more because they have benefitted more. Taxes, well laid and well spent, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, and promote the general welfare. Taxes protect property and the environment; taxes make business possible. Taxes pay for roads and schools and bridges and police and teachers. Taxes pay for doctors and nursing homes and medicine. During an emergency, like an earthquake or a hurricane, taxes pay for rescue workers, shelters, and services. For people whose lives are devastated by other kinds of disaster, like the disaster of poverty, taxes pay, even, for food.”

GovernmentWealthBusinessPovertyEnvironmentSocietyTaxesBenefitsPropertyEmergenciesGeneral WelfareDisastersCommon DefenseDomestic Tranquility
Author:Jill Lepore
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“It is all-essential to the continuance of our healthy national life that we should recognize this community of interest among our people. The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us, and therefore in public life that man is the best representative of each of us who seeks to do good to each by doing good to all; in other words, whose endeavor it is not to represent any special class and promote merely that class's selfish interests, but to represent all true and honest men of all sections and all classes and to work for their interests by working for our common country.”

CommunityUnitySelfishnessCooperationCivicsGeneral Welfare
Book:A Square Deal
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“I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion about the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.”

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Book:Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin
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“In my youth, I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”

MadeDifferentCountryDoneGovernmentCoursesPoorYouthContraryTraveledFederal GovernmentProvisionWelfare StateDifferent CountriesGeneral WelfareGovernment And SocietyGovernment Politics
Book:The Autobiography and Other Writings
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“Thomas Jefferson explained, Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated. .. If Congress can determine what constitutes the general welfare and can appropriate money for its advancement, where is the limitation to carrying into execution whatever can be effected by money?.”

IfsCongressDetermineLimitationWelfareAppropriateExecutionUnlimitedAdvancementUnlimited PowerGeneral Welfare
Author:Bill Drayton
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“Money cannot be applied to the *general welfare*, otherwise than by an application of it to some *particular* measure conducive to the general welfare. Whenever, therefore, money has been raised by the general authority, and is to be applied to a particular measure, a question arises whether the particular measure be within the enumerated authorities vested in Congress. If it be, the money requisite for it may be applied to it; if it be not, no such application can be made.”

IfsMayHas BeensMadeParticularAuthorityRaisedCongressAriseWelfareApplicationGeneral Welfare
Book:The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: As Recommended by the General Convention at Philadelphia in 1787 ...
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“In a democracy the responsibility for the Government's economic policies, which so affect the economy, normally rests with the elected representative of the people: in our case, with the President and the Congress. If these two follow economic policies inimical to the general welfare, they are accountable to the people for their actions on election day. With Federal Reserve independence, however, a body of men exist who control one of the most powerful levers moving the economy and who are responsible to no one.”

PeopleIfsMenTwoBodyGovernmentActionMovingPoliticsPresidentPowerfulResponsibilityCasesEconomyDemocracyEconomicPolicyResponsibleElectionIndependenceCongressWelfareLiberalismMost PowerfulRepresentativesReservesFederal ReserveElection DayEconomic PolicyLeversGeneral Welfare
Author:Wright Patman
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“To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical...A wise and frugal government...shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned...Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare but only those specifically enumerated...Would it not be better to simplify the system of taxation rather than to spread it over such a variety of subjects and pass through so many new hands?”

MenHandsGovernmentOpinionWiseSubjectsMouthsLaborCongressSpreadBreadVarietyWelfareContributionUnlimitedTaxationSimplifyFrugalUnlimited PowerPropagationGeneral Welfare
Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“General welfare is a general condition - maybe sound currency is general welfare, maybe markets, maybe judicial system, maybe a national defense, but this is specific welfare. This justifies the whole welfare state - the military industrial complex, the welfare to foreigners, the welfare state that imprisons our people and impoverishes our people and gives us our recession.”

PeopleGivingStatesWholeSoundConditionsMilitaryComplexesDefenseWelfareJustifyCurrencyForeignersRecessionsJudicialWelfare StateMilitary Industrial ComplexNational DefenseGeneral WelfareJudicial System
Author:Ron Paul
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“The State insists that, by thus quarantining the general reading public against books not too rugged for grown men and women in order to shield juvenile innocence, it is exercising its power to promote the general welfare. Surely this is to burn the house to roast the pig...The incidence of this enactment is to reduce the adult population of Michigan to reading only what is fit for children.”

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Author:Felix Frankfurter
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“An ideal is an unselfish aspiration. Its purpose is the general welfare not only of this but of future generations. It is a thing of the spirit. It is a generous and humane desire that all men may share equally in a common good. Our ideals are the cement, which binds human society.”

MenHumansMaySpiritDesirePurposeCommonGenerationsShareIdealsWelfareGenerousAspirationHumaneFuture GenerationHuman SocietyCommon GoodUnselfishCementGeneral Welfare
Book:Herbert Hoover: Containing the Public Messages, Speeches, and Statements of the President
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“To take a single step beyond the boundaries specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible to definition.”

GovernmentPoliticalPoliticsStepsFieldsConstitutionCongressDefinitionsPossessionBoundariesFederal GovernmentBoundlessFreedom LibertyProperty RightsBill Of RightsSusceptibleAmerican GovernmentConstitutional RightsSeparation Of PowersUs ConstitutionFederalismGeneral WelfareConstitutional GovernmentSingle StepTyranny Founding FathersPower Government
Book:The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, cont
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“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.”

PeopleStatesGovernmentUnitedUnited StatesConstitutionFederal GovernmentReservedFreedom LibertyProperty RightsLimited GovernmentBill Of RightsFederal ReserveJudiciaryAmerican GovernmentLimiting GovernmentConstitution Of The United StatesFounding Fathers GunConstitutional RightsSeparation Of PowersUs ConstitutionFounding Fathers Second AmendmentFederalismSecessionGeneral WelfareConstitutional GovernmentStates RightsTyranny Founding FathersAmending The ConstitutionPower GovernmentPolice PowerNullification
Book:Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States: With a Preliminary Review of the Constitutional History of the Colonies and States, Before the Adoption of the Constitution
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“The absence of effective State, and, especially, national, restraint upon unfair money-getting has tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power. The prime need is to change the conditions which enable these men to accumulate power which is not for the general welfare that they should hold or exercise. We grudge no man a fortune which represents his own power and sagacity, when exercised with entire regard to the welfare of his fellows.”

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Book:The Complete Works of Theodore Roosevelt
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“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. ... The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives and liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State.”

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Author:James Madison
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“But the older he grew and the more intimately he came to know his brother, the oftener the thought occurred to him that the power of working for the general welfare – a power of which he felt himself entirely destitute – was not a virtue but rather a lack of something: not a lack of kindly honesty and noble desires and tastes, but a lack of the power of living, of what is called heart – the aspiration which makes a man choose one out of all the innumerable paths of life that present themselves, and desire that alone.”

KnowsMenHeartDesireFeltVirtuePathHonestyBrotherGrewTasteNobleWelfareAspirationDestituteGeneral Welfare
Book:The Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy: Novels, Short Stories, Plays, Memoirs, Letters & Essays on Art, Religion and Politics: Anna Karenina, War and Peace, Resurrection, The Death of Ivan Ilych, A Confession, The Cossacks, Correspondences with Gandhi, The Kreutzer Sonata, Fables and Stories for Childrenand Many More
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“First, individual rights cannot be sacrificed for the sake of the general good, and second, the principles of justice that specify these rights cannot be premised on any particular vision of the good life. What justifies the rights is not that they maximize the general welfare or otherwise promote the good, but rather that they comprise a fair framework within which individuals and groups can choose their own values and ends, consistent with a similar liberty for others.”

FirstsEndsValuesPoliticsIndividualJusticeLibertyVisionPrinciplesRightsGroupsParticularFairsSakeWelfareConsistentJustifyGood LifeFrameworkIndividual RightsGeneral Welfare
Book:Public Philosophy: Essays on Morality in Politics
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“The preamble to the Constitution states: "We, the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare..." It doesn't say "guarantee the general welfare." And it certainly doesn't say "give welfare benefits to all the people in the country who aren't doing so well even if the reason they aren't doing so well is because they're sitting on their butts in front of the TV".”

PeopleIfsGivingWellsCountryStatesReasonFormOrderJusticePerfectUnitedCommonUnited StatesFrontsTvsBenefitsSittingConstitutionUnionsWelfareGuaranteesDefenceTranquillityGeneral WelfarePreamble
Author:P. J. O'Rourke
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“If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one.”

IfsDoneGovernmentCan DoConstitutionCongressSocialismWelfareFederal GovernmentLegislatureDiscretionPossessingProperty RightsLimited GovernmentFederalistLimiting GovernmentFederalist PapersUs ConstitutionGeneral Welfare
Book:James Madison's
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“I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power not longer susceptible of any definition.”

PeopleStatesGovernmentUnitedStepsUnited StatesFieldsConstitutionFoundationCongressDefinitionsPossessionBoundariesSocialismFederal GovernmentBoundlessReservedFreedom LibertyProperty RightsBill Of RightsSusceptibleAmerican GovernmentConstitution Of The United StatesConstitutional RightsSeparation Of PowersUs ConstitutionFederalismGeneral WelfareConstitutional GovernmentSingle StepStates RightsTyranny Founding FathersPower Government
Book:The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private : published by the order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the original manuscripts, deposited in the Department of State
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“When you authorised Congress to borrow money, and to contract debts, for carrying on the late war, you could not intend to abridge them of the means of paying their engagements, made on your account. You may observe that their future power is confined to provide common defence and general welfare of the United States. If they apply money to any other purposes, they exceed their powers. The people of the United States who pay, are to be judges how far their money is properly applied.”

PeopleIfsMayMeanMadeWarStatesPurposeUnitedCommonPayUnited StatesJudgingLateAccountsCongressDebtWelfareContractsEngagementExceedConfinedDefenceCarrying OnGeneral Welfare
Author:David Ramsey
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“The other General Welfare Clause is in the first of the authorities given to the Congress and it's not a grant, it's a restriction. By which I mean it doesn't say Congress can legislate for the general welfare, it means that everything Congress must do has to enhance the general welfare of the United States of America. It can't grant things to individuals, it can only legislate for the government.”

FirstsMeanStatesGovernmentAmericaIndividualGivenUnitedUnited StatesAuthorityCongressWelfareGrantsUnited States Of AmericaRestrictionClausesGeneral Welfare
Author:Andrew Napolitano
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“We believe that the spreading out and perpetuity of the institution of slavery impairs the general welfare. We believe - nay, we know, that that is the only thing that has ever threatened the perpetuity of the Union itself.”

KnowsBelieveInstitutionsSlaveryUnionsWelfareThreatenedGeneral Welfare
Book:The Complete Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln (Biographically Annotated Edition)
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“With respect to the words "general welfare," I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.”

CharacterGovernmentWould BeLibertyConstitutionDetailsCreatorConnectedLibertarianProofWelfareHostFoundersFederal GovernmentUnlimitedQualifiedFreedom And LibertyLiteralFreedom LibertyProperty RightsLimited GovernmentMetamorphosisFederalistLimiting GovernmentConstitution Of The United StatesFederalist PapersLimited FreedomUs ConstitutionGeneral WelfareLimiting FreedomConstitutional GovernmentStates RightsTyranny Founding FathersPower Government
Author:James Madison
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“To refer the power in question to the clause "to provide for the 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.”

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Book:The Writings of James Madison: 1808-1819
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“In this relation, then, 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 sovereignty over all other objects.”

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Book:The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788
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“It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please . . . . Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It [the Constitution] was intended to lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect.”

MeanStatesWholeWould BeEvilGivenUnitedUnited StatesEffectsJudgingPleaseUniversalConstitutionInstrumentsCongressPhrasesMeant To BeSoleLegislatureLaceWere Meant To BeGeneral Welfare
Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“It may not be improper, however, to remark two consequences, evidently flowing from an extension of the federal power to every subject falling within the idea of the "general welfare." One consequence must be, to enlarge the sphere of discretion allotted to the executive magistrate... The other consequence would be, that of an excessive augmentation of the offices, honors, and emoluments, depending on the executive will.”

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Author:James Madison
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“Our tenet ever was . . . that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated; and that, as it was never meant that they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers, so it could not have been meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action.”

ShouldHas BeensActionPurposeExerciseRaisesCongressWelfareUnlimitedUnlimited PowerGeneral Welfare
Book:The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence and Papers, 1816-1826
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“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.”

StatesGovernmentConstitutionDefinedFederal GovernmentProperty RightsLimited GovernmentBill Of RightsState GovernmentFederalistLimiting GovernmentFederalist PapersConstitutional RightsUs ConstitutionFederalismSecessionGeneral WelfareConstitutional GovernmentStates RightsToo Much PowerPower GovernmentNullification
Book:The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788
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