Anonymous wrote:"I don’t think our founding fathers when they were putting the term “general welfare” in there were thinking about a federally operated program of pensions nor a federally operated program of health care. What they clearly said was that those were issues that the states need to address. "

They said nothing of the kind. As you keep saying, they never mentioned health care or pensions. John Adams, the second president, instituted a national health care scheme for merchant marines paid for by mandates on the captains of the ships. During the Revolution there was a pension set up for the soldiers paid for by the government.

"the states could substantially better operate those programs IF (emphasis added) that’s what those states decided to do. "

And where did they say that?

"I don’t think our founding fathers when they were putting the term “general welfare” in there were thinking about a federally operated program of pensions nor a federally operated program of health care. What they clearly said was that those were issues that the states need to address. "

They said nothing of the kind. As you keep saying, they never mentioned health care or pensions. John Adams, the second president, instituted a national health care scheme for merchant marines paid for by mandates on the captains of the ships. During the Revolution there was a pension set up for the soldiers paid for by the government.

"the states could substantially better operate those programs IF (emphasis added) that’s what those states decided to do. "

Anonymous wrote:One could argue we shouldn't be paying those taxes to begin with or at least collect taxes at an equal percentage per income. The job of the government is to use taxes to pay expenditures of government programs that defend the laws of the land and secure the nation. The dems want to use tax collection to redistribute money based on socioeconomics. A lot of government agencies and programs have been created as a shell to redistribute money from the earners to the non earners / workers. This is why there is a continual taking money from one area to pay for another. SS should be dismounted and only be used for people who are truely disabled and not a retirement program.

One would argue that if one were a libertarian. But the Constitution says the government's job is "to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty", which implies, to most of us, more than the limited government favored by tea party and libertarians. The general Welfare seems to me to include protecting the aged from starvation, for example. Exactly what is included is a matter for debate, but I wish that debate could be carried on without exaggeration and name-calling.

BTW, is the proposed "dismounting" of SS a cell-phone's version of dismantling?