While I may disagree with the stimulus package and fear it will fail, I think you put to rest the constitutionality of this point. Thanks! At this point I still feel that major parts of the bill are unconstitutional. The governor issue is one. Another that I doubt many have considered is the violation of privacy made possible by the government's forming a medical database and department overseeing it. Ironically, I'm refering to Roe v. Wade. In my opinion, that case provided a right to privacy that would be violated by the government having access to the medical files of the citizenry. I suppose subsidizing the private use of such a database would be fine, but the government disqualified its right to that info with the abortion case. Either way, I feel my protests are a moot point. For the sake of the country, I just hope the economy, and resulting tax receipts, turn around and grow fast enough to pay for all of this.
The government has to abide by the Privacy Act, which has strict restrictions on how personal information is collected, stored, and accessed. There are several other laws that make it difficult to amalgamate databases that have personal info, The greatest loss of privacy in the history of the world has occurred in the last 40 years as private companies have developed massive databases that collect financial info and track everything we buy. I trust the government to a much higher degree than I do Equifax or marketing firms.
I would disagree about trusting the government more than private firms. The ability to sue these private firms is much higher than that of the government. This is exactly why I disagree with tort reform. Proper enforcement of tort decisions would reduce the need for federal regulations.
