The Illegal Stimulus

The normally staid George Will doesn't go around sounding alarms, so maybe we should pay attention when he breaks the glass. And here, he does so in no uncertain terms:

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." ...

The Vesting Clause of Article I says, "All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in" Congress. All. Therefore, none shall be vested elsewhere.

In other words, DC once again flagrantly ignores the restraints of the Constitution. But as we've said before, the Constitution was designed to restrict Congress' powers to those delegated to it by the sovereign States, who were the primary enforcers of the Constitution. After 1865, however, when Lincoln's counter-revolution centralized power, the Constitution was neutered and converted into a stage prop for DC's foreign and domestic interventions.

Before the Constitution can be reclaimed and restored, we have to understand what it was originally meant to be. Only then can we appreciate how it was corrupted and misused. And the ongoing debate about the Constitution, as well as the proper roles of the Federal and State governments are additional bright spots of hope generated by the current crisis.