Welfare and the Constitution
Chapter One
INTRODUCTION
EVERY STATE A WELFARE STATE
THIS BOOK examines the constitutional dimensions of the welfare debate in
America. The precise shape of state-facilitated welfare here and elsewhere will
depend on results of policy experiments either under way or anticipated and on
the contest among philosophic frameworks for describing those results. Because
I share to some limited extent the conventional view that constitutional
questions differ from policy questions, this book proposes few specific
policies in the Constitution's name. But I shall emphasize here what I have
argued elsewhere: the American Constitution makes sense (and originally made
sense) only in light of general substantive ends like national security,
freedom of conscience, domestic tranquility, and the people's economic
well-being. For this reason, fidelity to the American Constitution entails a
concern for more than negative constitutional rights, constitutional
procedures, and institutional forms; it also entails a concern for what James
Madison called "the solid ha ... read full excerpt from Welfare and the Constitution ebook
