From Veeshir (who has left so many helpful comments here that I treat an email from him like a homework assignment), my attention was directed to a perfect -- perfectly dreadful that is -- example of the contempt some of our highest elected officials have for the Constitution:

James O'Connor, Burris's communications director, later told CNSNews.com that although the word "health" does not appear anywhere in the Constitution, the senator was referring to the Preamble of the Constitution which says the following:

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

But don't trust me. Here's what constitutional author James Madison had to say:

If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions. (James Madison, Letter to Edmund Pendleton, January 21, 1792 Madison 1865, I, page 546)

As Walter Williams pointed out not long ago, Madison later added this:

"With respect to the two words 'general welfare,' I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."

"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."

I know it's just Burris now, but it'll spread.
And when you try to show them those comments you showed me when I (facetiously) said that, you'll be ignored.

If they can deny that there's a right to bear arms while simultaneously saying that there is a right to abortion, they can do anything with that document.

[Hoyer] added that Congress has "broad authority" to force Americans to purchase other things as well, so long as it was trying to promote "the general welfare."

Either the man has no idea what the Constitution or federalism means or else he's a demagogue.

Quite incidentally, in the course of looking up Madison quotes, I found another very specific warning from Madison, quoted by a reliable commenter to an Ed Morrissey post:

"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress.... Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America."

Sorry if I sound like a crank, but here's the problem. I loved reading the above purported quote from Madison, and I'd love nothing more than to be able to cite it, as it sounds as if it was specifically written to rebut the noxious position of Steny Hoyer. I hate to be a spoilsport, but if I am unable to find it at the source* provided, I really can't cite it in good faith. This should not be a game of stuffing words in your favorite founder's mouth and then citing them because you like them. Yet the above is all over the Internet, attributed to Federalist 41. Or else simply quoted without a source, as it is here. That prompted this very reasonable comment:

Where is this quote from? When did he say/where did he write this?

Madison is referring to a bill to subsidize cod fisherman introduced in the first year of the new Congress
http://www.barefootsworld.net/nortonuc12.html

Anyway, it's not Federalist 41, but I'm delighted to help do my part to save it from the fate of unsourced or badly sourced quotes. Why would anyone need to that, when what Madison did say in Federalist 41 is more than adequate to rebut Steny Hoyer?

It has been urged and echoed, that the power "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States," amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction.

Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases. A power to destroy the freedom of the press, the trial by jury, or even to regulate the course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly expressed by the terms "to raise money for the general welfare."

But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which, as we are reduced to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the objection or on the authors of the Constitution, we must take the liberty of supposing, had not its origin with the latter.

The objection here is the more extraordinary, as it appears that the language used by the convention is a copy from the articles of Confederation. The objects of the Union among the States, as described in article third, are "their common defense, security of their liberties, and mutual and general welfare." The terms of article eighth are still more identical: "All charges of war and all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defense or general welfare, and allowed by the United States in Congress, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury," etc. A similar language again occurs in article ninth. Construe either of these articles by the rules which would justify the construction put on the new Constitution, and they vest in the existing Congress a power to legislate in all cases whatsoever. But what would have been thought of that assembly, if, attaching themselves to these general expressions, and disregarding the specifications which ascertain and limit their import, they had exercised an unlimited power of providing for the common defense and general welfare?

* By the way, it's always a good idea to beware of unsourced Madison quotes, of which there are many floating about. The general rule has long been that the burden is on whoever does the quoting to come up with a verifiable source. Repetition on the Internet is not proof of anything.