Enough Is Enough: Why General Welfare Limits Spending

Enough Is Enough: Why General Welfare Limits Spending - Perhaps no other clause in the Constitution generated as much debate among the Founders as the “Spending Clause”—the first of the 18 powers granted to Congress under Article I, Section 8. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, the principal authors of The Federalist, famously disagreed about the meaning of “general Welfare” and the limits to Con-gress’s spending power. For the past 70 years, however, this fruitful debate over the meaning of the Constitution has been replaced by the view that there are no limitations whatsoever on Congress’s power to spend and that the “general Welfare” means whatever Congress says it means. Today, no project is deemed too local or too narrow not to fall under the “general Welfare” rubric. It is therefore incumbent upon Members of Congress to consider, once again, the limits of their spending power and recognize, as even Hamilton did, that it is not unlimited. This essay is adapted from The Heritage Guide to the Constitution for a new series providing constitutional guidance for lawmakers. [Heritage Foundation]