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HR 3200 Considered As Software
bfwebster writes "Independent of one's personal opinions regarding the desirability and forms of government-mandated health care reform, there exists the question of how well HR 3200 (or any other legislation) will actually achieve that end and what the unintended (or even intended) consequences may be. There are striking similarities between crafting software and creating legislation, including risks and pitfalls — except that those risks and pitfalls are greater in legislation. I've written an article (first of a three-part series) examining those parallels and how these apply to HR 3200."
No... it has been long established that "promotion of the general welfare" is subservient to the other restrictions that are explicitly laid out in the Constitution. In other words, the Federal Government can promote the general welfare all it wants... as long as it does so only in the ways otherwise authorized by the Constitution. That phrase was (according to the debates at the time, mentions in the Federalist Papers, etc.) never intended to authorize anything that was not allowed by the rest of the document.
Further, the "necessary and proper" clause was intended in a similar way and must meet two criteria: (1) it does not allow operating outside the explicit restrictions, and (2) anything justified under the "necessary and proper" clause must be LESSER than anything allowed by the explicit restrictions. For example: it might be "necessary and proper" to build a structure adequate to house the House and Senate, so that they may do their jobs. It would not, however, be allowable to spend even more money building roads directly from the houses of each Senator and Representative to those buildings. The "necessary and proper" clause is one that has been grossly abused, by being used far outside any meaning it ever really had.