I'm not...so which one of you five are getting them?

shermangeneral wrote:Aaron you are hiting it right on the nailhead young man.

In part abdication by the Congress, in part usurpation by the Executive, power and control have moved incrementally toward the executive since the earliest days of the Republic.

Of late, Senator Byrd has addressed that issue a lot, but with little response from fellow members of Congress.

shermangeneral wrote:I hope this helps to jog your memory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_School_Lunch_Act

It was to help raise more and better cannon fodder.

A case of doing the right thing for the wrong reason.

Fortunately, the program has been revised, refocused, and extended over the years.

Strategic Plan for Appalachia, 2005–2010

General Goal 1: Increase job opportunities and per capita income in Appalachia to reach parity with the nation


General Goal 2: Strengthen the capacity of the people of Appalachia to compete in the global economy


General Goal 3: Develop and improve Appalachia's infrastructure to make the Region economically competitive


General Goal 4: Build the Appalachian Development Highway System to reduce Appalachia's isolation

Accomplishments and Challenges

In the mid 1960s, one in three Appalachians lived in poverty and per capita income was 23 percent lower than the U.S. average. In the previous decade nearly 2 million more people had left the Region than had moved into it. Since then, the Appalachian Region has experienced broad socioeconomic improvements, the result of many macroeconomic and social factors, including ARC's activities. For example, the Commission's efforts have helped:
Cut the Region's poverty rate in half;
Reduce the infant mortality rate by two-thirds;
Double the percentage of adults age 25 and older with a high school diploma;
Create over 400 rural health-care facilities;
Construct over 2,400 miles of new highways;
Provide water and sewer services to over 800,000 households;
Create over 1.6 million new jobs in addition to 766,000 generated by the Appalachian Development Highway System (ADHS); and
Cut the number of severely distressed counties from 223 in 1960 to 91 in fiscal year 2004.

Although Appalachia has seen clear and substantial progress since the early days of the Commission's work, the majority of the Region's communities still do not enjoy the same economic vitality and living conditions that the rest of the country does. The Region continues to battle economic distress, concentrated areas of high poverty, high unemployment rates, educational disparities, high rates of disease, and population outmigration.

shermangeneral wrote:And to those who question LBJ's social programs I would invite you to look around and see the benefit of Medicare and Medicare..

shermangeneral wrote:http://www.ed.gov/programs/ctearc/index.html

Probably most regular posters are familiar with the ARC, but for those who are not this is a pretty good primer.

To refer the power in question to the clause "to provide for common defense and general welfare" would be contrary to the established and consistent rules of interpretation, as rendering the special and careful enumeration of powers which follow the clause nugatory and improper. Such a view of the Constitution would have the effect of giving to Congress a general power of legislation instead of the defined and limited one hitherto understood to belong to them, the terms "common defense and general welfare" embracing every object and act within the purview of a legislative trust. It would have the effect of subjecting both the Constitution and laws of the several States in all cases not specifically exempted to be superseded by laws of Congress, it being expressly declared "that the Constitution of the United States and laws made in pursuance thereof shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges of every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." Such a view of the Constitution, finally, would have the effect of excluding the judicial authority of the United States from its participation in guarding the boundary between the legislative powers of the General and the State Governments, inasmuch as questions relating to the general welfare, being questions of policy and expediency, are unsusceptible of judicial cognizance and decision.

A restriction of the power "to provide for the common defense and general welfare" to cases which are to be provided for by the expenditure of money would still leave within the legislative power of Congress all the great and most important measures of Government, money being the ordinary and necessary means of carrying them into execution.

If a general power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the navigation of water courses, with the train of powers incident thereto, be not possessed by Congress, the assent of the States in the mode provided in the bill can not confer the power. The only cases in which the consent and cession of particular States can extend the power of Congress are those specified and provided for in the Constitution.

I am not unaware of the great importance of roads and canals and the improved navigation of water courses, and that a power in the National Legislature to provide for them might be exercised with signal advantage to the general prosperity. But seeing that such a power is not expressly given by the Constitution, and believing that it can not be deduced from any part of it without an inadmissible latitude of construction and reliance on insufficient precedents; believing also that the permanent success of the Constitution depends on a definite partition of powers between the General and the State Governments, and that no adequate landmarks would be left by the constructive extension of the powers of Congress as proposed in the bill, I have no option but to withhold my signature from it, and to cherishing the hope that its beneficial objects may be attained by a resort for the necessary powers to the same wisdom and virtue in the nation which established the Constitution in its actual form and providently marked out in the instrument itself a safe and practicable mode of improving it as experience might suggest.

source

shermangeneral wrote:But if the reason for doing it is to provide more cannon fodder then I think that is not the best reason.

Having a healthy well nourished population is a worthy goal in its own right.

shermangeneral wrote:And Sam I know you won't admit it but the Appalachian Regional Commission is responsible or partly responsible for probably most of the worthwhile projects undertaken in WV in the past 30 years.

shermangeneral wrote:Well OC we might disagree about travel and tourism being good for the economy. (I agree that it is but suspect you don't.)

But the ARC spends far more on bricks and mortar projects than PR.

Just check out roads and dam projects, water and sewer, etc. in WV and you will see a sign posted about how many ARC dollars are involved.

TerryRC wrote:Again, I'd like to point out that "qualifying" is not the same as "getting".

Just because 1 in 6 qualify for the stamps doesn't mean 1 in 5 signs up.

Food stamps suck. Either what can be purchased needs to be restricted more or the fed needs to go to food banks and just give the needy their supplies.

The stamp program is too fraud-prone but I don't want to see little ones go hungry.