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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DMaA who wrote (13977)	11/9/1998 1:19:00 AM
From: jbe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67261

Does it bother you at all that the Federal Government has no constitutional authority to be in the wealth transfer business? I am not a constitutional scholar. However, welfare cases in abundance have come before the courts, including the Supreme Court, so I presume that some judges at least see some constitutional basis for welfare. What about unemployment insurance? That also involves "transferring wealth." And Social Security, too, for that matter: people live so much longer these days that some of them receive a lot more in benefits than they ever paid in. I personally have no problem contributing some of my taxes to programs designed to give a leg up to people who need it. To be perfectly honest with you, I have more of a problem with people who grumble about paying anything for programs from which they do not personally profit. That is, people who grumble about paying taxes for public schools their children do not attend; or for public transportation that they do not use; or for public libraries they never frequent; etc., etc. It seems to me that growing numbers of people these days have come to regard self-centeredness as a virtue, even as a sort of moral duty. The New York Times magazine last Sunday had a story about the "new selfishness," and the cover of the magazine ran a "new" version of the Declaration of Independence, written in that spirit. Rather funny, actually. jbe