The Supreme Court’s radical departure from the law and basic principles of constitutional governance in last Friday’s abominable decision,Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, marked an affront to the judiciary and a setback for the administration.
For an institution mired in a crisis of legitimacy, a court that has drifted far afield of the Constitution’s original text and intended meaning by its designers over a decades-long peregrination, the High Court did itself no great service by intruding into a domain that the Constitution never intended.
Executive and legislative power is clear and straightforward. Article I of the Constitution equips the Congress with the power of the purse.
This includes tax and spending powers, as well as the ability to appropriate funding to the various government agencies.
Under Article II, the executive, or chief magistrate, has a whole separate slate of powers dealing with the enforcement of laws and regulations.
Foremost among executive power, however, is the ability to wage war and engage in international diplomacy.
Under this umbrella includes the numerous interests to national security.
Whether a foreign power poses a threat to the homeland, either directly through military intervention and war or indirectly through toxic policies, from drug smuggling to economic tampering, the executive is tasked with mitigating that threat, and doing so largely unencumbered by the other two branches of government.
The tariff power is unique in that it resembles traditional tax and spending powers to the extent that it fills government coffers with duties imposed on foreign imports.
However, its use, both traditionally and in practice, is fundamentally distinct from ordinary taxation.
Source: The Gateway Pundit
