Promote the General Welfare, Already!

"There isn't any bigger metaphor for a society in trouble than a bridge falling, its concrete lanes pointing brokenly at the sky, its crumpled cars pointing down at the deep waters where people disappeared.

Only this isn't a metaphor..."

(Nick Coleman, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, writing on the collapse of the I-35W Bridge: http://www.startribune.com/10204/story/1339911.html)

There's a phrase in the Constitution that our country's been falling flat on fulfilling lately. In the Preamble, after establishing Justice and providing for the common defense, there's a phrase, "promote the general welfare".

What is that? What exactly does it mean to "promote the general welfare"?

A fellow blogger with an extensive site on the US Constitution puts it this way:

"...This, and the next part of the Preamble [and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity], are the culmination of everything that came before it - the whole point of having tranquility, justice, and defense was to promote the general welfare - to allow every state and every citizen of those states to benefit from what the government could provide. The framers looked forward to the expansion of land holdings, industry, and investment, and they knew that a strong national government would be the beginning of that." (http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_pre.html).

Justice is not an end to itself, neither is insuring tranquility nor providing for a common defense. All of these are means to the end of promoting the general welfare. Although there's considerable disagreement among pedantics out there regarding what "general welfare" is, and what its intention was in the Constituion (with the far right claiming it was meant to limit the ability of Congress to regulate the states and the far left arguing exactly the opposite), I think it's a pretty clearly understood phrase by most folks out there.

Would most people consider bridge maintenence a part of the "general welfare"? I'd say so. How about upgrading levees? Rebuilding cities after a force majure event, like a hurricane? Yep. Protecting us from epidemics? Making sure we have clean water to drink and safe air to breathe? Enforcing the law?

I'd say most folks would consider all of these areas a part of the "general welfare", and therefore something they expect their government to do something about. But, when our government cares more about tax breaks than people, and thinks that its sole purpose is to boost the Dow and somehow everything else will fall into place...this is a government that has forgotten its entire reason for being.

No more Katrinas. No more interstate bridge collapses. No more neglect.

It's time to start promoting the general welfare.