Tag Archives: FDR

The bedrock principle that the authors of Obamacare used to legally justify the federal government regulating health insurance is the “Commerce Clause”.  Basically, this clause states that the federal government has the right to regulate all interstate trade to ensure that the economic interests of America are met.

Except, health insurance is not allowed to be sold across state lines.

It’s not inTER-state trade.  In’s inTRA-state trade.

Ahhh….but I forgot.

Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942), was a U.S. Supreme Court decision that dramatically increased the power of the federal government to regulate economic activity. A farmer, Roscoe Filburn, was growing wheat to feed his chickens. The U.S. government had imposed limits on wheat production based on acreage owned by a farmer, in order to drive up wheat prices during the Great Depression, and Filburn was growing more than the limits permitted. Filburn was ordered to destroy his crops and pay a fine, even though he was producing the excess wheat for his own use and had no intention of selling it.

The Supreme Court, interpreting the United States Constitution’s Commerce Clause under Article 1 Section 8 (which permits the United States Congress “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;”) decided that, because Filburn’s wheat growing activities reduced the amount of wheat he would buy for chicken feed on the open market, and because wheat was traded nationally, Filburn’s production of more wheat than he was allotted was affecting interstate commerce, and so could be regulated by the federal government.

Long ago the Leftists felt that they had the answer to the Great Depression.  And they passed many laws intended to help us through this great time.  However, they were illegal laws and the Supreme Court struck them down.

Then FDR:

…sought to counter this entrenched opposition to his political agenda by expanding the number of justices in order to create a pro-New Deal majority on the bench.

{His} legislation was unveiled on February 5, 1937 and was the subject, on March 9, 1937, of one of Roosevelt’s Fireside chats. Shortly after the radio address, on March 29, the Supreme Court published its opinion upholding a Washington state minimum wage law in West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish by a 5–4 ruling, after Associate Justice Owen Roberts had joined with the wing of the bench more sympathetic to the New Deal.

So, because FDR was a thief who stole the right of a citizen from growing enough wheat to feed his animals, we now have to live through a law that seeks to regulate inter-state trade of a commodity that is illegal to sell inter-state.

Nice!