Ed Rasimus wrote:
On Tue, 08 Jun 2004 15:21:58 GMT, "Steven P. McNicoll"
wrote:


"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
...

That's absurd. We agree beforehand in our republic that once a
decision is made through the legislative process, we will abide by
that decision or seek to change it through the established judicial
process. We don't get to pick and choose which laws we will comply
with or which government programs we will allow our taxes to support.


But we didn't agree to these programs beforehand! There is no
Constitutional basis for them. The proper legislative process was not
followed. If the government can pick and choose which Constitutional
provisions it will adhere to and which it will ignore why can't the
citizenry pick and choose which laws it will follow?

Excuse me? Social Security and Medicare are not the result of an act
of Congress? There were no elections for those representatives? There
was no public debate? There have been no subsequent modifications to
the program at the behest of interest groups, concerned citizens, etc?
Where then did these programs come from? How were they authorized? Who
runs them?

Government chooses policies after debate and public input to solve the
needs of the nation. The Constitutionality is determined by
established rules but only after the fact of legislative or executive
action. Seems as though Medicare and SS have not been found
unconstitutional.

For the benefit of those too young to remember the way things were when Social
Security was enacted, we were a society who largely took care of our elderly
through the efforts of families, churches, and small, tight-knit communities.
The economic disaster created by the depression in the early 30s proved that
those sources were inadequate to care for the declining years of older citizens
no longer able to pay their own way. In addition, society was in a process of
flux, as a result of which families often broke apart and landed in different
parts of the country, and church and community ties were severed by older people
moving about the country seeking ways to make a living. If I remember it right,
that was the rationale that brought on the Social Security program, in which
people would be expected to contribute to their own declining years wherever
they lived and regardless of support available to them from other than
themselves.

I was just a young teenager in those years (early to mid 30s), but that's the
way I remember it. Have I got it right?

George Z.