Posted on 3/29/2009, 5:47:30 PM by mojito
It is high time Americans heard an argument that might turn a vague national uneasiness into a vivid awareness of something going very wrong. The argument is that the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (EESA) is unconstitutional.
By enacting it, Congress did not in any meaningful sense make a law. Rather, it made executive branch officials into legislators. Congress said to the executive branch, in effect: "Here is $700 billion. You say you will use some of it to buy up banks' 'troubled assets.' But if you prefer to do anything else with the money -- even, say, subsidize automobile companies -- well, whatever."
FreedomWorks, a Washington-based libertarian advocacy organization, argues that EESA violates "the nondelegation doctrine." Although the text does not spell it out, the Constitution's logic and structure -- particularly the separation of powers -- imply limits on the size and kind of discretion that Congress may confer on the executive branch.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
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So....do we have any attorneys filing suits????
I don't remember him saying anything similar about the Clinton AWB. Do you?
L
No one seemed to care about the retroactive tax that were in the gargantuan Clinton tax increases.
This is the Schechter Poultry v. U.S. case all over again. In that case, the Supreme Court overturned the National Industrial Recovery Act, it part because of a delegation of legislative power to the executive.
My question exactly! It seems that Republicans are busy playing politics as usual, i.e. worrying about the next election, instead of addressing the critical issues like this one.
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