This phrase meant that the well-being of the citizens would be taken care of as well as possible by the Federal government.
Promoting the general welfare means bettering the lives of Americans with things like: clean water, sewage systems, fire protection, police protection schools, universities, libraries, museums national parks, and access to healthcare.
For example, the federal government doesn't want you to smoke because the cost of cancer and heart disease is enormous and much of it is borne by the feds in the form of Medicare payments. So the government has slapped huge taxes on tobacco products with the hope that nicotine addicts will cut down their habits or quit all together. Now some believe this is a noble thing. But it is actually punitive – the State is punishing people who like tobacco. At times, the State punishes people by seizing land that is needed for public projects and paying the land owner what the local government thinks is fair. The State also assesses your property and taxes it pretty much any way it wants. Yes, you have a right to vote the taxers out of office every few years – but you’ll rarely get a refund. The founding fathers were very wary of the power of the State to punish individual Americans and said flat-out in the preamble to the Constitution that the government was formed to “establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare.”
Promoting the general welfare means bettering the lives of Americans with things like: clean water, sewage systems, fire protection, police protection schools, universities, libraries, museums national parks, and access to healthcare.
For example, the federal government doesn't want you to smoke because the cost of cancer and heart disease is enormous and much of it is borne by the feds in the form of Medicare payments. So the government has slapped huge taxes on tobacco products with the hope that nicotine addicts will cut down their habits or quit all together. Now some believe this is a noble thing. But it is actually punitive – the State is punishing people who like tobacco. At times, the State punishes people by seizing land that is needed for public projects and paying the land owner what the local government thinks is fair. The State also assesses your property and taxes it pretty much any way it wants. Yes, you have a right to vote the taxers out of office every few years – but you’ll rarely get a refund. The founding fathers were very wary of the power of the State to punish individual Americans and said flat-out in the preamble to the Constitution that the government was formed to “establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare.”