[linuxhansl]

Finally some sanity. The administration has use laws about "national security" and other so call "emergencies" to impose tariffs. If everything is an emergency then nothing is, and that was clearly not congress' intention with those laws.

The power to impose tariffs rests with the legislator, not the executive. Of course our congress is effectively useless - we can thank decades of Mitch McConnell's (and others) "not giving the other side anything" thinking for that.

[somenameforme]

We're currently in the midst of 51 ongoing "national emergencies" [1], dating back to at least Carter. I think something that the next great empire will learn from is to limit emergency powers as well as the ability to create emergency powers, because in spite of their name they inevitably end up becoming normalized and just used as regular powers.

The description of some of those emergencies is comedic: "Declared a bank holiday from March 6 through March 9, 1933, using the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 as a legal basis."

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_emergencies_i...

[techblueberry]

Most of these seem at least plausible to me given they almost all have to do with foreign conflicts, and given that they have to be renewed every year, they can't be too excessive since Trump has kept in place 8/9 of Biden's emergency declarations? and your description of the most comedic one was actually maybe the most important one?

It was to stave off a bank run at the beginning of the great depression, and it was only done as a temporary measure so that Congress had time to write the long term legislation which they did 4 days later on March 9th.

[m4rtink]

This has been unfortunatelly an issue at least since Caesar times. :P

[dmix]

The most dangerous part of the current admin is the fealty he demands from congress and how exploits his popularity to be a kingmaker in local elections.

This is something FDR did heavily in the 1930s to expand his own power and bully congress into passing the New Deal. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/purge-1938 He also used legally questionable executive orders like crazy.

[goldfish3]

Can always count on HN to mindlessly equivocate.

[dmix]

There's a long legacy in America which has led to the expansion of the executive branch. It didn't start with Trump. Almost every power he's abusing was recklessly laid down in prior administrations/congress. FDR caused lots of controversy with how he acted and there was a pull back from executive power, including administrative laws currently slowing Trump down.

There's lots of other examples, such as the various emergency powers, including a large string of them for terrorism during Bush and expanded during Obama.

I've been posting about this issue on HN long before Trump was in power and plenty of journalists were documenting it.

[shimman]

lol you say FDR was bullying Congress, as if the New Deal coalition wasn't the most successful political movement that this country ever had (won nearly every Presidential election (only losing to the man that defeated Nazis in Europe), had control of the House from like 1932 to 1992, nearly controlled the Senate for just as long too).

Attacking FDR, someone who stood up against business interests to defend labor, kinda exposes the game here.

[linuxhansl]

Congressional Republicans let him do it.

Congressional Republicans confirmed every single one of his cabinet members.

So perhaps he demands it, but does not give congress a pass. At all. They chose to let him.

[mullingitover]

Honestly FDR doesn't get enough credit for probably saving capitalism.

He borrowed just enough of the stuff socialists were promising, and bolted it onto the government to mollify the working class who'd been absolutely ravaged by oligarchs for the preceding decades. You only have to look at the rest of the world to see how things might've turned out without FDR's very reasonable interventions.

[UltraSane]

The New Deal was a good thing when the US was in the Great Depression and there was a communist revolution in Russia.

[kgwxd]

There's nothing sane about it. All part of the plan. Next comes ignoring of this ruling (err, looks like that already happened) and they put another log on the fire under the pot.

[SunshineTheCat]

Still find it kinda wild that it's the Republicans fighting tooth and nail against any balance of power to...

...raise taxes

[justin66]

Rip van Winkle, let me tell you how they are treating conflict with Russia…

[paulryanrogers]

Primarily as extortion to enrich the first family and secondarily as a foil to undermine European dependence on US security commitments?

[Telemakhos]

> If everything is an emergency then nothing is, and that was clearly not congress' intention with those laws.

The state of exception is the true test of sovereignty, and powers that crave sovereignty therefore seek out states of exception. The PATRIOT act created new institutions and authorities like the TSA. Just a few years ago local health departments were making business-shuttering decisions that ruined life for a lot of people over the common cold. Ukrainian war funding provides the EU with opportunities for exports and new experiments in joint funding (Eurobonds). Emergencies and exceptions are how power grows, so everything can become an emergency if you look at it in the right way.

[zanellato19]

Are you equating covid to the common cold? If so, this comment is absurd.

[cruffle_duffle]

More like a flu in terms of IFR but yeah.

[c22]

I mean, you're right that a lot of liberties are taken with what constitutes an "emergency" these days, but when every other country on the planet is declaring the same emergency there might be some substance there.