Second (third?) thoughts on Article I, Section 8, Clauses 1 and 18

If the congress is empowered to raise taxes for certain purposes then surely it is empowered by implication to undertake those purposes.

I, 8, 1

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

Now, the text does not actually say the following.

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States so far as these last may be done through the exercise of powers granted elsewhere in this constitution; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

That interpolated restriction is pure invisible ink.

Think of it this way.

Without question or dispute, I, 8, 1 empowers the congress to raise taxes.

And it does not empower the congress to raise taxes only so far as authority and means to do so can be found in other powers granted to the congress elsewhere in the document.

Too, I, 8, 1 by implication empowers the congress to pay the debts of the United States.

It does not, as is sometimes said, only give to the congress the power to raise taxes.

And it does not empower the congress to pay those debts only so far as authority and means to pay them can be found in other powers granted to the congress elsewhere in the document.

There is no such limitation in the text of I, 8, 1.

So it empowers the congress both to raise taxes and to pay the debts of the United States without any such limitation or constraint.

How then does it not also empower the congress to provide both for the common defense and for the general welfare of the United States, also without any such limitation or constraint?

So what we have here in the constitution as written is in fact an explicit grant of power to collect taxes for three purposes, and an implied grant of power to undertake those same three purposes: to pay the debts, to provide for the common defense, and to provide for the general welfare of the United States.

Those three, then, stand alongside the other powers of the congress enumerated in Section 8, rather than being limited by them or other constitutional powers of that body.

But the congress also has power to do anything necessary and proper to carry out any undertaking under its legitimate powers.

I, 8, 18

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

On this reading, the entire progressive, New Deal, Great Society agenda is constitutionally legitimate and would have been at any time since 1788, though at least some of the Framers (not all) would have been aghast to realize what they had countenanced.

Too, we may take "and proper," I think, to at least mean consistent with limitations elsewhere expressed in the constitution.

A more narrow reading might be getting a little too much into invisible ink.

None of this goes any distance to legitimate any of the constitutional creations based on the 14th Amendment or the fiction of incorporation.

But it does, I think, legitimate the Air Force, paper money, and a lot besides.

And Obamacare, in particular, including its mandatory purchase provisions.