Re: Californians fires
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As I watch the news, here, in Australia, my thought go to all those people that have lost their houses and possessions (and some indeed their lives or loved ones lives) in California those past days.
I was disturbed by also being forced to watch President Bush promise (another promisee, another lie) those Californians that they will not be forgotten in Washington and that help was forthcoming.
Assuming that President Bush was not lying, a big ask, I understand, what would make those Californians different from the many from New Orleans that are still waiting, regardless of even the international support and donations that that catastrophe generated?
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James Madison is the acknowledged father of the constitution. In 1794, when Congress appropriated $15,000 for relief of French refugees who fled from insurrection in San Domingo to Baltimore and Philadelphia. James Madison wrote disapprovingly, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."
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In 1854, President Franklin Pierce vetoed a popular measure to help the mentally ill saying, “I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity.” To approve the measure "would be contrary to the letter and the spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded.”
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During President Grover Cleveland’s two terms in office, he vetoed many congressional appropriations, often saying there was no constitutional authority for such an appropriation. Vetoing a bill for relief charity, President Cleveland said, “I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit.”
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Their misfortune is no Constitutional entitlement to my treasure, a long forgotten truth.
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