A Discussion of The President's Saturday Morning Radio Address

Notes and Summary of the President's Address -- "Southern California Fires and Washington D.C."

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. On Thursday, I traveled to California to visit communities ravaged by wildfires. I went to Southern California with a message: We want you to know the country cares for you. We're concerned about you, your neighborhoods, and your homes. Things may look dismal now, but there is a better day ahead. And we will not forget you in Washington, D.C. We will help you put out the fires, get through the crisis, and rebuild your lives.

How the President Differs from the American vision of "Liberty Under God":

1. The Constitution gives the President no authority to put out fires in Southern California
2. The federal government only impedes local and private rescue and charity efforts. Remember Katrina.
3. Private ownership of property is the key to resource conservation and a healthy environment.

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President's Radio Address	Liberty Under God
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. On Thursday, I traveled to California to visit communities ravaged by wildfires. I walked with a married couple through the charred remains of their home. I met with emergency responders. I talked with displaced families at a disaster assistance center. And I made a pledge to the people of California on behalf of all Americans: We will help you put out the fires, get through the crisis, and rebuild your lives.	This is political posturing at its finest. Along with the Fake News Conference staged by FEMA to bolster its own image. "We the People" did not give the federal government constitutional authority to fight fires, shelter victims, and "rebuild their lives" in Southern California.
State and local authorities in California were well prepared for this crisis, and they responded quickly and effectively. Officials warned those in danger, moved residents out of the path of the flames, and set up dozens of shelters for thousands of people.	Even local governments suffer the same limitations as every other bureaucracy: Air tankers, copters grounded as fires took hold - USATODAY.com "The weight of bureaucracy kept these planes from flying, not the heavy winds," Republican U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher told The Associated Press. Throughout the last 200 years, America has proven that capitalism works better than socialism. In one of the wealthiest areas of the nation, this is a place to prove this.
State officials also reached out to the Federal government for help. And we responded. Shortly after the fires broke out, we started mobilizing and providing assistance, including the deployment of Federal firefighters and aircraft to drop fire retardant on the fires. As high winds spread the fires, Governor Schwarzenegger requested more Federal help. Within one hour of that request, we approved an emergency declaration that authorized Federal agencies across the government to help state and local responders save lives, protect property, and maintain public health and safety.	Help in eliminating government restrictions on fighting the fires? Local authorities did most of the work the federal government takes credit for: Fires not the best test of a reformed FEMA - OCRegister.com
On Wednesday, I issued a second declaration. This action made additional Federal funding available to the residents of the counties affected by the wildfires, so they can recover and rebuild. This Federal assistance includes grants for temporary housing and home repair, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses, loans for small business owners, and funding to help clean up debris.	"Federal funding" is simply the delusion that we can get "something for nothing." It makes no fiscal sense for taxpayers in Southern California to send their money to Washington D.C. to get picked through by federal bureaucrats, who then send the money back to Southern California in a long leaky hose -- with strings attached. Read how Congressman David Crockett responded to a motion for federal relief back in the early 1800's.
I was impressed by the performance of the first responders I met in California. Despite the challenges of high winds and dry weather, firefighters are gaining the upper hand and earning the gratitude of their fellow citizens. Many of these brave men and women have battled the blaze in triple-digit heat. Some have worked around the clock. And more than once, firefighting teams were forced to take emergency shelter in their fire tents when threatened by approaching walls of flame. I was grateful for the opportunity to meet them, and I thank them for their courage.	Nobody questions the gallantry and dedication of the human beings who work as firefighters. The question is, who should fund their paychecks?
I was also encouraged by the spirit of the families I met. At one recovery center, I met an amazing young girl named Alyssa Lamborn. Alyssa told me, "I lost my house, but I didn't lose my home -- because my family and my pets are safe." I saw this same spirit in many others who are grateful for their safety and determined to rebuild.	Much of the land burned was not privately owned. This is part of the problem. Government does not take care of "its" land as well as private owners. Land Socialism: Playing With Fire Big Government, Big Fire
People like Alyssa and her family are receiving help from their fellow Americans. Some have opened their homes to strangers who were evacuated and could not find a hotel room. Doctors and nurses have answered the call to help seniors who were forced from their nursing homes. And volunteers from every walk of life have come forward to provide food, clothing, and blankets -- and a shoulder to lean on.	Volunteers are volunteers when they are not conscripted, dispatched and paid by governments.
I went to Southern California with a message: We want you to know the country cares for you. We're concerned about you, your neighborhoods, and your homes. Things may look dismal now, but there is a better day ahead. And we will not forget you in Washington, D.C.	Washington D.C. should forget about fighting fires in Southern California.
Thank you for listening.

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Additional Resources:

• Land Socialism: Playing With Fire by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
• Cato-at-liberty » Heck of a Job, Smokey!
• Big Government, Big Fire
• BURN BABY BURN - The California Celebrity Fires  - Greg Palast
• Cato Scholar Comments on California Fires
• The Fires this Time
• Let 'em Burn
• Mega forest fires -- caused by global warming or the Sierra Club?
• Kevin Craig's Platform
  • Fire Fighting

The Democrat Party Radio Address:

Howard Dean, National Chairman of the Democrat Party, delivers this week's Democratic Radio Address.

Once again, the subject is SCHIP, the State Child Health Insurance Program.

Libertarian Response to Democrats:

• Click here to go to a replay of the September 22, 2007 Ozarks Virtual Town Hall
• Click here to go to a replay of the October 6, 2007 Ozarks Virtual Town Hall
• See the September 22, 2007 Ozarks Virtual Town Hall.
• Dean spoke frequently about covering "uninsured kids." But a major criticism of the Democrats' plan is that it covers those who are already privately insured, and encourages them to replace private coverage with taxpayer coverage.
• Dean is correct to criticize the Bush Administration for giving war a higher funding priority than children's health. But neither the killing nor the healing of children is a power given to the federal government by the Constitution.
• "Private lobbying groups" often lobby Congress for government takeover of their industries - if it brings them profits or "security."
• Bush wants to expand the SCHIP program, not cut it. He just doesn't want to expand it as much as the Democrats do. There's no evidence that this child would have been denied coverage under the White House expansion.
• Expanding this government program is wrong. It is sinful and immoral to take money from Jones under threats of violence to give to "the poor children."
• It is unconstitutional for the federal government to to this, even if it were moral.
• Capitalism, not socialism, will ensure the greatest amount of the highest quality health care to every child in this country. The medical care available to this child would not have been available to him if he lived in the Soviet Union a few decades ago.
• Democrats and Republicans are quibbling over ten or fifteen billion tax dollars. True leadership would inspire and orchestrate voluntary giving from those who can afford to do so.

Book Review: The Scandal Of The Evangelical Conscience - Acton Institute PowerBlog

“If American Christians simply gave a tithe rather than the current one-quarter of a tithe, there would be enough private Christian dollars to provide basic health care and education to all the poor of the earth. And we would still have an extra $60-70 billion left over for evangelism around the world.”

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Listeners' Questions

Last month a listener submitted this question:

I thought the Preamble for the Constitution said the purpose of that document was "to provide for the common weal. . ." How can that be done without education? Without public safety? Without regulation of industries that would otherwise rob the public and spoil the environment?

The preamble states:

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.

Probably our listener was referring to the highlighted phrase.

What are "the blessings of liberty?" How are they "secured" by the government? The blessings include automobiles, computers, antibiotics, and thousands of groceries at the local market. How are these blessings "secured" by the government? By nationalizing the automobile industry, as in the Soviet Union? No, simply by protecting the nation from foreign invasion and eliminating trade barriers between the several States. What about punishing fraud and crime? Though considered to be a function of government, it was not considered to be a function of the federal government. Punishing crime remained with the states and local governments.

The question posed during the Constitutional Convention and during the ratification process was "What form of government best secures the Blessings of Liberty and promotes the general Welfare?" The answer given was not "a huge centralized federal government with unlimited powers," but rather a limited federal government that has only a few powers enumerated in the constitution, with the rest of government remaining with the states. The Tenth Amendment in the Bill of Rights summarizes the philosophy of the Constitution:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

In Federalist 45, Madison described the relationship between the federal government and the states in these famous words:

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State. [emphasis added]

And nobody believed that the state governments had the authority to nationalize production of computers, automobiles, and groceries. Government on all levels was tightly limited, and liberty extended to The People and their businesses.

This is the theory of constitutionally-enumerated powers. Only powers enumerated in the Constitution are possessed by the federal government.

But doesn't the "promote the general welfare" clause indicate that the federal government has vast, sweeping powers to whatever is necessary to "promote the general welfare?"

In testimony before Congress, CATO Institute scholar Jerry Taylor explained how the architects of the Constitution understood the "general Welfare" phrase:

In Federalist No. 41, Madison summarizes the relationship of the general preface language including the "welfare" language, to the subsequent more detailed enumeration of specific powers, as follows.  "Some who have denied the necessity of the power of taxation [to the Federal government] have grounded a very fierce attack against the Constitution, on the language on which it is defined. It has been urged and echoed that the power to "lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States" amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction." (emphasis added)  Thus, Madison, who like Story after him sought to defend federal power, treats with derision the claim of opponents of federal powers the claim that the "welfare clause" is a general grant of power. Madison continues Federalist No 41 in this language of angry paradox:  "For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural or more common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify by an enumeration of the particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity ... what would have been thought of that assembly, if, attaching themselves to these general expressions and disregarding the specifications which limit their import, they had exercised an unlimited power of providing for the general welfare?" (emphasis added)

More information on the "general Welfare" clause can be found on our Constitution page, and this page.

Our listener mentions three functions which are necessary to secure "the Blessings of Liberty":

• Education
• Public Safety
• Regulation of industries that would otherwise rob the public and spoil
• The environment

The first question to be asked is, must education etc. be provided by the government, or can it be provided by the Free Market: voluntary associations, businesses, and "We the People" networking together to assure that children are educated. In other words, which political theory is true: capitalism or socialism?

If socialism is true, we might still ask, should state and local governments decide how children will be educated, or should that be done by the federal government? In other words if only government can provide these elements of an orderly and prosperous society, which level of government?

The Constitutional answer precludes the federal government from involving itself in these areas. It would not have been ratified by states jealous to protect their own powers, or The People jealous to protect their liberties, if it gave to the federal government such sweeping powers.

Click here for a replay of this edition of the Ozarks Virtual Town Hall