by Linda Gehring

Created on: August 04, 2008   Last Updated: October 26, 2008

Actually, they are unconstitutional. Although it does appear the federal and state legislators passed them based upon the most misunderstood provision in our Constitution of all, the "general welfare" clause, which is really not a clause at all. That language first appears in the Preamble, and merely states what the Constitution and it's actual provisions are for. It again appears as a preface to the enumerated powers of the Congress in order again to outline the federal government's ability to tax the states for those enumerated "general welfare" powers.

Mandatory seat belt laws are a removal of "freedom," and the government now is using any number of excuses to deny those freedoms, especially now since 9/11. There is no such language in our Constitution stating that freedom can be removed "in the interest of public safety" or "in the interest of national security" - none whatsoever. And it would take an amendment of it in order for such words to be inserted to make most of those laws valid.

As far as the insurance argument and medical costs. The insurance industry needs to price it's product accordingly and is the reason there are risk/loss divisions and professionals who are charged with assessing and pricing. It appears that Congress, instead of regulating these now global entities, is assisting them in marketing since they are nw using the federal and state legislatures in order to both sell their products (mandatory auto insurance laws) and reduce those risks and losses, along of course with the National Highway Traffic Safety Council, a taxpayer paid lobbying organization supported by your tax dollars in order to lobby for such laws (and those low level DUIs) at the federal, rather than state, levels. Above all else, such legislation as mandatory seat belt or those low level DUI laws are not federal functions at all, but state. But in order to intimidate and threaten the states in order to uphold these federal directives and mandates outside their jurisdiction, they have become masters of using the public purse and removal of federal highway funding as the "carrot and stick."

Most of these entities are now global conglomerates, many of which also have been allowed to branch out into the financial markets in other ways. We are becoming a nation of conglomerates, as with Farmers (Zurich), and Bank of America who also recently purchased Prudential, and as such need regulation more than anything else. Stating that the courts are there to handle insurance disputes

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>