To the editor:
Presidents of the United States possess great power, but it is not absolute. Let’s be clear about what the Constitution and constitutional law provides. Congress makes the laws, while the president enforces them (he must “take care that the laws are faithfully executed,” that is, not ignore them but enforce them). If he would like to act on a policy, he has to “recommend” to Congress “such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”
The controlling case occurred in 1952 when President Truman wanted to keep the nation’s steel mills open during the Korean War after the steelworkers went on strike. For the obvious reasons, steel production was critical for war materiel. As commander in chief of the armed forces, he claimed the authority to order his secretary of commerce to run the mills despite the strike. But Congress, five years earlier, prohibited the executive branch from ever seizing private industry, even during wartime (this was the famous 1947 Taft-Hartley Act).
After the mill owners sued, the case reached the Supreme Court. The court’s majority opinion, crafted by Justice Hugo Black, soundly rejected Truman’s action. The president must have congressional authority to act or he must base his decisions on the Constitution. Neither existed in 1952, nor do they exist today.
The framers of the Constitution created a government based on James Madison’s science of federalism: the national government has great authority, but as the Tenth Amendment says, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”
Jack Fruchtman
Aquinnah
Well, it does require us to have a President who has read and understands the Constitution, doesn’t it?
It requires a Republican party willing to criticize their leader. But he is the most popular man in the party. Even accidentally seeming to criticize him could be enough to get you primaried from the right. With this congress and a half-decent pretext, the president can do almost anything he wants.
To criticize the sitting President of the United is unpatriotic.
No one ever criticized Obama when he was in the White House.
Of after for that matter.
Are you serious? You actually believe no one critizied Obama?
Where’s Andrew when you need him?
Sulking that he lost his bet with Don and won’t pay up. It’s refreshing not to have him betting on how many people will die.
If our economy is going to see the growth rates of China our President much have at least as much power as the president of China.
No tto mention the adulation.