Posted on 01/16/2009 10:37:19 AM PST by reaganaut1
While much of the debate over the $700 billion federal bailout plan has focused on whether the money is being spent wisely or well, concerns are growing among many conservatives about its constitutionality.
Some conservatives have argued that the law creating the program, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, which Congress passed hastily in October, violates constitutional principles that limit the amount of power that lawmakers can delegate to the executive branch.
They also maintain that the enormous bailout plan has illegally grown beyond its original focus on the financial services industry to include a bailout of the auto industry and more.
Robert A. Levy, the chairman of the Cato Institute, a libertarian organization in Washington, said in an interview that the bailout program, which goes by the acronym TARP for Troubled Assets Relief Program, goes beyond the realm of delegation the courts should allow. Mr. Levy said that earlier cases had found such delegation was appropriate if Congress laid down “an intelligible principle” that provided clear guidance to an agency or a regulator. But that, he said, is precisely what is missing in the bailout.
“There’s no intelligible principle that I could discern,” Mr. Levy said.
Now the FreedomWorks Foundation, which was founded in 1984 and declares itself to be “leading the fight for lower taxes, less government and more freedom,” says it plans to file a lawsuit against the program.
The group’s chairman is Dick Armey, the former Republican House majority leader. A memorandum the group distributed to Congress on Thursday laid out its argument that “when Congress delegates so much authority to the executive branch with so few rules to guide its discretion, Congress unconstitutionally transfers its lawmaking power to the executive.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Anyone who even needs to ask the question is a drooling moron. The only bigger drooling morons are the ones who vote for it anyway.
Like Senator McCain for instance.
L
This bail out crap is such a cluster.....doom on those involved. Hope they hang em all !
Well, shucks, we’ve got an unconstitutional President-elect, and an unconstitutional Congress. Why would we expect their legislative output to be anything but unconstitutional?
Yes. It is. Giving our tax money to banks and unprofitable private enterprise is unconstitutional
Congress is supposed to provide for the common defense and the general welfare not private welfare.
Meanwhile all the rest uf us Americans suffer.
Cursed banker mentality!
“Some Ask if Bailout Is Unconstitutional”
Of course it is.
Most government spending is.
Unenumerated, anonymous amendment?
>> The only bigger drooling morons are the ones who vote for it anyway. Like Senator McCain for instance.
And, sadly, like my own Sen. Cornyn (R, TX). Cornyn is turning into more of a RINO every day.
Well can someone sue and get it destroyed before it destroys the greatest economic success story on earth?
Our whole freakin’ Government has become UnConstitutional!
I wonder, on the enableing legislation for TARP, what Constitutional authority Congress pointed to that authorizes this legislation?
Interstate Commerce?
Of course it’s unconstitutional. Just like 90% of the rest of the babbling, stinking horses**t the federal government does.
L
Well, we had a banker go to the Congress and tell them that if they didn’t pass the bill (without even reading it, of course), there would be martial law.
Written between the lines is the following threat:
Give us whatever we want or the bank doors will not open tomorrow and YOU get to deal with it.
Somehow I don’t think that was what the founders intended...
Sound Constitutional to anybody out there?
Thanks for saying it so I didn't have to!
Thanks for saying it so I didn't have to!
The Constitution is dead.
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