The Founders created checks and balances in the Congress. The House was to be a forum to allow competing views of proposed legislation; generally one liberal and the other conservative in terms of Constitutional interpretation. The Senate was to agree or disagree with not only the content of the proposed legislation but also to agree to any expansion of the enumerated powers contained in the legislation. The Senate represented the Sovereign States.
Regardless of the potentially good features contained in Obamacare, nowhere in the enumerated powers is the Congress given authority to create a national health care system. This law was created based upon a further expansion of the Commerce Clause in Section 8 of the Constitution; "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several states, and the Indian Tribes;" The 1913 17th Amendment which destroyed the underlying purpose of the Senate, was once again the cause of this monumental expansion of the entitlement state.
There should never be a "party line" vote in the Senate. The purpose of the Senate was to be the voice of the several states not a debate forum between partisan views as it has now become.
Here in Virginia, should we then not ask of both Mr. Allen and Kaine "Are you a Republican, Democrat or a Virginian? " It is one thing for the candidates to be beholden to their state party organization, and quite another to be owned by a national party.
Therefore, it is we, the citizens of the Commonwealth, who must insure that the respective state parties advocate the will of Virginians and not a national party platform.
Bob Dewey
Wintergreen
No comments:
Post a Comment