Constitution Study Group

Comment

Comment by Charlie on February 18, 2010 at 6:44pm

Nope, no federally-owned land or property at all, excepting what is explicitly authorized by the Constitution. If the federal government has a need for other properties (in order to facilitate the execution of Constitutionally-delegated powers of course), it should be leased from a private owner.

Comment by Phil Hoffman on February 18, 2010 at 6:12pm

If you want to see medical cost drop like a lead balloon. Let every company and the government drop all coverage . Necessarily medicare would have to be phased out. You take all the money allocated for pork projects and put it into the medicare fund.( A true lock box and placed into private investments with a history of long term positive yields) Keep it forever away from the hands of the Congress and administration. This would not only reduce the cost of medicare for the duration it would reduce the budgets knowing that pork money would go to the medicare not the the states and businesses that put pay for play money into the pockets of politicians.

Comment by Trumpet Blast on February 18, 2010 at 6:04pm

Utah legislature is draftng a bill to demand the feds give back all the land that they have wrongfully secured. An astounding 60% of Utah is owned by the federal govt. Perhaps this is a start! In the case of "landmarks" sited by Danny, they could be given back to the states for preservation.

Comment by Publius Huldah on February 18, 2010 at 5:41pm

Yeah, Danny! I have no sense of humour! And Bobby nailed it. In fact, he gets a gold star! The federal government has no authority to own land for parks or monuments. And they don't have authority to tax us to pay for their monuments. Madison made a point in Federalist No. 43, paras 5 & 6, that the size of the District of Columbia was & should be "sufficiently circumscribed" ["tiny" for any of you from Rio Lindo] so as not to make people worry about the federal government getting too big (I'm paraphrasing). Private organizations may contribute funds to build memorials in the DC and in forts, arsenals, & dock-yards. But not one dime from me for the memorial to FDR! But I'll pay to take it down.

Comment by Land Shark aka Bob E on February 18, 2010 at 3:57pm

Danny, I don't think Publius is joking. Is there another part of the Constitution that you want to do just "a little" of? The Constitution is not a "pick-a-part" document. It's either accepted in its' original intent or it is considered to have been perverted. Note that if there is no enumerated right of the federal government in the Constituiton to do what you want, then the States can do it.

Comment by Danny Kirkpatrick on February 18, 2010 at 3:19pm

Charlie, i think and hope Publius was joking a little about selling all so called " Government Owned " land, maybe some, but not all should be sold. Most national parks could be sold, the ones that are just a lot of land, good arable land. All Landmarks should be kept.... Idea's?

Comment by Publius Huldah on February 18, 2010 at 3:07pm

Well, owning & operating national parks is not among the enumerated powers of any branch of the federal government. Weren't national parks Teddy Roosevelt's doing? Down with Progressives! And I too have relinquished ss & medicare.

Comment by Charlie on February 18, 2010 at 1:38pm

Yes, health care is absolutely none of the government's business. The question should not be what to replace Medicare with, but rather, how do we get rid of it entirely?

There are some proposals (originally from Goldwater?) for phasing-out Medicare that I support. These would involve keeping promises made to the elderly, while allowing younger workers to opt out and preventing new workers from entering the system. Personally, although I've been paying Medicare taxes for over a decade, I'd gladly walk away from the system without compensation if it would mean a permanent end to those deductions from my paycheck.

Of course, that leaves the (exacerbated) problem of unfunded Medicare liabilities (making the Ponzi scam worse). I like Publius' suggestion of selling-off federal land to cover the costs, as I am morally opposed to government/public property of any type based on principle.

Comment by Publius Huldah on February 18, 2010 at 12:40pm

Obviously, Medicare is unconstitutional as outside the enumerated powers of Congress. But millions of Americans have been forced to pay into the system - and many are now dependent upon it. We will have to restore constitutional government gradually. Dr. Walter E. Williams, former chairman of the Economics Department at George Mason Univ., and sometime guest host on Rush Limbaugh's show, mentioned a while ago that there is an age at which most American workers would be better off financially just forgoing all the money they had paid into social security and making their own arrangements. For the others, I think Dr. Williams said we would have to keep the bargain which was made with them. Legally, he is correct - it is the doctrine of "Estoppel" which says that you can't promise stuff to people, and then when they have relied to their detriment on your promise, pull the rug out from under them. So, a similiar approach would work with Medicare; and there may be ways we could fund the Medicare program for those of a certain age who choose to stay on it: selling the national parks and all federally owned lands other than the DC, military installations, and dock-yards? Question to anyone who knows: Who owns the oil in places like ANWAR (those oil fields in Alaska)? Does the federal government own that? If so, we could drill them and use the proceeds to fund the winding down of Medicare. And Yes! Eliminate the fraud & waste in Medicare!
Finally: As a People, we have become obsessed about medical care. I am old enough to remember when Americans actually paid their own medical expenses! Imagine that! AND, medical care was a whole lot cheaper when it wasn't "free" to so many people. Today, the self-payers and the insurance companies (I think) are overcharged to make up for the .....ahem... parasites who get it for free. Where did we get the idea that other people should pay our medical expenses!?

Most illnesses are entirely preventable: one of the results of the collapse of self-government in our culture is this: Americans stuff themselves with unhealthy food; and then, when they get obesity caused diseases, they want someone else to pay for it! We deserve what is coming to us!

Comment by George C. McMurtry on February 18, 2010 at 11:36am

In case you missed my point, get the government out of health care, they don't belong there constitutionally. The private sector, with the equivalent Medicare tax dollars would operate efficiently if the government did what is constitutional, protect us from the private sector taking advantage of us through proper legislation.

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