Somebody Better Sign Senator Merkley Up for A Class in Remedial Civics 101

"They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare.... [G]iving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please." --Thomas Jefferson

Compare that to what Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) says:

FYI Sen. Merkley, the general welfare is NOT an enumarated power, it is a part of the Preamble. The Preamble does not grant any particular authority to the federal government, nor it does not prohibit any particular authority. All it does is to establish the fact that the federal government has no authority outside of what follows the preamble, as amended. & nowhere in the 7 Articles that follow is health care listed as a part of the federal government's sphere of authority.

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." - Preamble of the US Constitution