Bailing on the Constitution? By Todd Gaziano

One of the principal benefits of the constitutional separation of powers is that citizens know which branch to hold accountable when something goes wrong. It is symptom of the separation of powers sloppiness of modern times that instead of writing detailed laws that the president is then responsible to execute, Congress delegates vast new authority to the executive branch to “fix” he problem de jure and then tries to invent new ways to micromanage and nitpick the exercise of the authority. Such a power-sharing relationship is the exact opposite of the constitutional separation of powers perfected by the Framers of our Constitution.

The outline of the compromise bill seems to do very little to guide the Treasury secretary’s almost limitless discretion on what financial or other debt he may buy, for what purposes, to whom he may sell it, and on what terms. Instead, congressional negotiators simply added the tools of modern micromanagement: a quasi-unconstitutional inspector general (depending on how “independent” he is when the ink is dry), extra-special GAO audits and reviews, multiple layers of specially burdensome congressional reporting, and a questionable-sounding, whiz-bang oversight board.

James Madison would not approve. It’s a classic recipe for fingerpointing if something goes wrong and an equally worrisome precedent even if the immediate “crisis” abates. I prefer the Constitution.

— Todd Gaziano is the director of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
I prefer the constitution too.
Jenny Hatch