We all can agree that having money to pay our mortgage or rent on time is very important. Since some people are spendthrifts and don't manage their money well, what about a congressional mandate whereby mortgage or rent money is deducted from our paychecks each month and sent directly to our mortgage holder or landlord?

The medical profession advises that a vigorous 30-minute physical workout three or four times a week is important to the maintenance of good cardiovascular health. Not all of us heed that good advice. Wouldn't it be a good idea for congress to enact a law mandating that each able-bodied person perform some type of fitness exercise, such as running, a brisk walk, swimming or biking, at least three times a week? In addition to making Americans healthier, it would put a big dent in the nation's health care costs.

Were a congressman to introduce bills calling for payroll deduction for housing expenses or mandated exercise, what would you hope would be the focus of the legislative debate? Would you be satisfied if the congressional debate centered around whether housing expense deduction and mandated exercise were in fact good ideas? Then if congressmen agreed that mandated exercise and payroll deduction for housing expenses were good ideas, and enacted legislation to that effect, would you be happy? If not, why not? After all it would be the result of a democratic process by our elected representatives.

Were such a bill introduced, whether it's a good idea shouldn't enter the debate at all. Whether it's a good idea or not is irrelevant. The relevant issue is: it is permissible, under the U.S. Constitution, for Congress to enact legislation mandating exercise and payroll deductions for housing costs? The unambiguous answer to that question is a big fat no. I challenge any congressman to point us to even a hint of constitutional authority for such a mandate.

James Madison is the Constitution's acknowledged "father" and here's what he had to say, "With respect to the two 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."

"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
  

Question: Are there limits to what the US government can do in the interest of the "General Welfare"? Do you think laws which dictate a minimum amount of exercise, or mandate payroll deductions to pay for housing would be Constitutional?

I challenge PrismPaul to give example of laws passed by the 108th Congress that are unconstitutional.

To amend the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act to extend the availability of funds to carry out the fruit and vegetable pilot program.  [S.870.ENR]

To ratify the authority of the Federal Trade Commission to establish a do-not-call registry.  [H.R.3161.ENR]

Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Disaster Relief Act, 2003  [H.R.2859.ENR]

Family Farmer Bankruptcy Relief Act of 2003  [H.R.2465.ENR]

National Flood Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2003  [H.R.11.ENR]

Unemployment Compensation Amendments of 2003  [H.R.2185.ENR]

San Gabriel River Watershed Study Act  [H.R.519.ENR]

Veterans' Memorial Preservation and Recognition Act of 2003  [S.330.ENR]

To provide for a 5-month extension of the Temporary Extended Unemployment Compensation Act of 2002 and for a transition period for individuals receiving compensation when the program...  [S.23.ENR]

To direct the Secretary of the Interior to conduct a special resource study to determine the national significance of the Miami Circle site in the State of Florida as well as the suitability...  [S.111.ENR]

To amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 with respect to the qualifications of foreign schools.  [S.570.ENR]

Expressing the sense of Congress with respect to raising awareness and encouraging prevention of sexual assault in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of National...  [S.J.RES.8.ENR]

Nutria Eradication and Control Act of 2003  [H.R.273.ENR]

Hospital Mortgage Insurance Act of 2003  [H.R.659.ENR]
Do-Not-Call Implementation Act  [H.R.395.ENR]

Concerning participation of Taiwan in the World Health Organization.  [S.243.ENR]

Welfare Reform Extension Act of 2003  [H.R.2350.ENR]

Strengthen AmeriCorps Program Act  [S.1276.ENR]

To amend the Microenterprise for Self-Reliance Act of 2000 and the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to increase assistance for the poorest people in developing countries under microenterprise...  [H.R.192.ENR]

Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003  [H.R.1412.ENR]

To extend the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant program, and certain tax and trade programs, and for other purposes.  [H.R.3146.ENR]

Mosquito Abatement for Safety and Health Act  [S.1015.ENR]

Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge Complex Expansion and Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge Expansion Act  [H.R.289.ENR]

Runaway, Homeless, and Missing Children Protection Act  [H.R.1925.ENR]

Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003  [H.R.2330.ENR]

Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003  [S.3.ENR]

Smallpox Emergency Personnel Protection Act of 2003  [H.R.1770.ENR]

Museum and Library Services Act of 2003  [H.R.13.ENR]

Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003  [S.1435.ENR]

Surface Transportation Extension Act of 2003  [H.R.3087.ENR] (includes “sport fishing” and “boat safety” provisions)

Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2004  [H.R.2555.ENR]

Keeping Children and Families Safe Act of 2003  [S.342.ENR]

United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 2003  [H.R.1298.ENR]

PROTECT Act  [S.151.ENR]

$2.9 billion to bail out failing airlines

$117 million for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to build a National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System. (Strangely, the appropriation provides for $2,460,000 to be peeled off for the International Fisheries Commissions for such projects as sea lamprey control in Lake Champlain.)

$2 million to increase funding for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service's State and Tribal Wildlife Grants

$1 million for Training and Employment Services at the Department of Labor

$23.3 million for commission, salaries, and expenses for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

$9 billion in loan guarantees to Israel

$23.6 million in Operating Expenses of the United States Agency for International Development

$300 million in grants, $2 billion in loan guarantees for economic support to Egypt

$1 billion in grants, $8.5 billion in loan guarantees for economic support to Turkey

$700 million-plus for assistance for Jordan

$50 million to the Philippines to " further prospects for peace in Mindanao"

$16 million to study severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS

Jefferson:

Some, who have not denied the necessity of the power of taxation, have
grounded a very fierce attack against the Constitution, on the language
in which it is defined. It has been urged and echoed, 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. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which
these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a
misconstruction.

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."

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? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers
be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the
preceding general power? 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, and can have no other
effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which, as we are
reduced to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the
objection or on the authors of the Constitution, we must take the
liberty of supposing, had not its origin with the latter

"For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? 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, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity...."