It doesn't exist for that purpose but it certainly allows for it.
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States"
It has certainly been twisted to interpret that way, at times. It is does allow for eminent domain and other such considerations, it allows congress to pass laws regulating commerce, but it doesn't allow specifically for wealth distribution. We don't need to play semantic games. The Constitution allows Congress to collect taxes to aid the functioning of the government, but how far can one twist that to mean take money from one group of people and give to another? How does that conflict with personal property rights, which are as strongly protected in the Constitution as freedom of speech?
If wealth distribution is "allowed" in the Constitution, why is it that Obama's people had to defend the constitutionality of requiring people to pay for private health care? Why did they have to change their tactics to present the law as a tax, supposedly recognizable under the commerce clause, if it's so easy?
See, this way, we don't have to pay attention to the Constitution any more. The slippery slope keeps things going downhill with one precedent after another pushing the limits until the limits are well past what the original framework of the land says and now we can't get past precedent.
They're playing games, not honest politics. But again, it's ok for the "correct" side to do such things, and those who are against it are enemies.
I think when too many people read the word "welfare" in that sentence, they immediately think that means the government should take care of them instead of providing an environment where people can prosper.
"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic" - Benjamin Franklin
"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated." - Thomas Jefferson
"A wise and frugal government, shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government." - Thomas Jefferson
"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions." - James Madison
"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."- Thomas Jefferson
"The government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government
." - James Madison
Do you really think actual redistribution of wealth by force was the intention of the creators of the US Constitution? Again, I don't give a damn how much anyone thinks it's the "right thing to do" you can't ignore the constitution. They even made a way to change it.
And if you think that words of intent written outside the Constitution carry no weight, think again. They are used all the time to interpret the INTENT of the founders.
