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The financial crisis is constitutional

I have tried, Lord knows I have tried, to keep my political meanderings off-site, and over at dailykos where they probably belong. But what is going on just now, this weekend and early next week, is extraordinary, and extraordinarily important.

I am far from competent -- far, far, far from competent -- to discuss the proposed $700-billion bailout proposal being rammed through Congress by the same Administration which swore it had incontrovertible evidence Saddam Hussein possessed and meant to use weapons of mass destruction.

The three-page legislation drafted to authorize this contains the following language:

Sec. 8. Review.

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

What that means, for the two or three of you still following at home, is that it is seriously proposed that in order to save our economy from the next Depression we should give the Secretary of the Treasury -- an appointed cabinet official who serves at the pleasure of the president -- unbridled authority to spend $700-billion (or more). With complete immunity from meaningful oversight. By anybody, save the president he or she serves. No Congressional oversight. No judicial review.

We have eviscerated much of the Constitution driven by our fear of terrorism.

But this is outrageous on the face of it, and I have spent much of the afternoon reading liberal and conservative blogs on which this is argued.

I fear what the other hand may be doing while we fret over this language. Regardless, this clause, at least, must be stopped dead in its tracks.

Because otherwise I might have to buy that damned shotgun.

Write those who must be written. And store food for the winter. It could be a long, dark season.

Posted by grant on September 20, 2008 9:08 PM | Permalink