Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) was asked by CNSNews.com to specify where the Constitution grants the federal government the authority to force citizens to purchase health insurance, and he replied: “Well, that’s under certainly the laws of the–protect the health, welfare of the country. That’s under the Constitution. We’re not even dealing with any constitutionality here.” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) also believes that the individual mandate is acceptable so long as it promotes the “general welfare.”

The fact is the word “health” appears nowhere in the Constitution.

James O’Connor, Burris’s communications director, tried to clarify the Senator’s statement by saying it “indicates his [Burris] belief that the term ‘general welfare’ can be interpreted to include the health and well-being of American citizens, and health care in general.”

But who are we to believe, Steny Hoyer and Roland Burris or Thomas Jefferson and James Madison?

Jefferson said of the general welfare, “Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.” Madison explained, “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.”

Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) has at several times introduced the Enumerated Powers Act. It would require each act of Congress to contain a concise and definite statement of the specific constitutional authority relied upon for the enactment of each portion of that act or else the bill could not go forward. The Enumerated Powers Act (HR 175) went down in three devastating defeats.

When the vast majority of our politicians neither understand nor respect the Constitution, what kind of future can this country have other than a bleak one. When it comes to American civics, most politicians actually score lower than the average citizen according to one study.

An ISI Civics Literacy Survey was given to 2,508 respondents covering a wide range of questions. Of those respondents:

164 say they have been elected to a government office at least once. This sub-sample of officeholders yields a startling result: elected officials score lower than the general public. Those who have held elective office earn an average score of 44% on the civic literacy test, which is five percentage points lower than the average score of 49% for those who have never been elected. It would be most interesting to explore whether this statistically significant result is maintained across larger samples of elected officials.

To read more about this survey, click here.