Fortune's Stanley Bing: Buddy, Can You Spare $250,000,000,000?

When the Founders got together to establish this great Republic of ours, they had certain clear goals in mind. Here they are: -- 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. Throughout our history, this vision of what government should do has changed, grown and shrunk depending on the level of heart, spleen or brains any given generation of the ruling class has under their wigs, vests or pinstripes. For instance, back in the 19th Century, "promoting the general welfare" might very well have meant keeping the poor locked up in houses especially designed to keep them off the streets, and to start children working at jobs that stunted their growth by the age... [read full story]