Where in the Constitution does it say that the federal government is obligated to bail out failing banks?

[rage_against_the_mccain5]

I ask this because right-wingers always want to know where it says in the Constitution that the federal government should provide health care to everyone.

[Natasha B]

Nowhere
corporate welfare is ridiculous...how can they give more money to the idiots who have money...I guess they like that sound the toilets make

that's where all our money goes down the hole...

[peash]

Yeah i don't get how the government has the money to give billions of dollars to banks but won't help out it's own citizens with healthcare...or when Katrina happened. Now the auto industry wants the government to bail them out too...why should they? Who can afford to buy a new car anyways now a days? What a screwed up country.

[malclave]

It doesn't.

But then again, no Republican I've heard of is saying that there should be a law requiring all banks to be bailed out by the government. So, you're really comparing apples and cement blocks.

Edit... I did a quick check on the Constitution, and found out that IF the federal government wanted to eanct such a law, I think it would be Constitutional.

Article I, Section 8: "The Congress shall have Power ... To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States"

It would depend, I guess, on how the SCOTUS interpreted "uniform Laws".

[zhoukies]

Right next to the affirmative action clause, on the page after the foodstamp clause, next to the prescription drugs for seniors clause, above the Envornmental Protection / Health Education and Welfare amendment.

[Phil]

it doesn't say it anywhere,why say it to right wingers,both sides want a bail out,doesn't make it right,and the federal government should do it,and they shouldn't do health care either

[Spock (rhp)]

there is no such requirement in the Constitution.

there is the "general welfare" clause which permits Congress to take such action as it deems fit to promote the general welfare, unless specifically prohibited elsewhere in the Constitution.

note that Congress is not required to act by the general welfare clause, only permitted to do so.

there is a long argument about the side effects on people's motivations if you give them free goods and services which suggests that the welfare clause shouldn't be used to provide for things that the people are capable of providing for themselves -- government provided health care would have been laughed out of the tavern back in 1790, for example.

[martinx07]

Nowhere. And it also states that the Congress shall have the power to coin our money, in legal gold/silver. Yet, they give this power to a independent-private banking institution. Arrogance at its best.

[brucec83]

It states that no 'person' shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law and the Supreme Court ruled in 1886 that a corporation is legally 'a person' and subject to 14th amendment protections. That being said, the Federal government has no Constitutional obligation to protect private property, just not to deprive people of it. But it does have a moral obligation to do the best thing for the people of the United States and preventing bank failures may be just that.

What irks me is that many people will still steadfastly insist that America is Capitalist and good, and universal healthcare is Socialist and bad. When the fact is that the United States abandoned Capitalism at the turn of the 19th century.and our economic system can more accurately be described as a mixed free-market system with social controls and

While I personally applaud bi-partisan support for preventing bank failures, I do not think that the shareholders who have been raking in record profits from banks which have charged usurous interest rates, levied unreasonable late and overlimit fees and lent money frivolously should profit from their failure. They should have to surrender their shares to the government and the bankrupt corporations should be under federal conservatorship until they can be sold off.