Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The validity of the public debt of the U.S.....shall not be questioned (14th Amendment) [View all]Yo_Mama
(8,303 posts)19. Youngstown
For those actually interested in separation of powers, the Youngstown case, and in particular, Justice Jackson's concurrence, have generally served as the template for future SC rulemaking:
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/youngstown.html
1. When the President acts pursuant to an express or implied authorization of Congress, his authority is at its maximum, for it includes all that he possesses in his own right plus all that Congress can delegate. In these circumstances, and in these only, may he be said (for what it may be worth) to personify the federal sovereignty. If his act is held unconstitutional under these circumstances, it usually means that the Federal Government as an undivided whole lacks power. A seizure executed by the President pursuant to an Act of Congress would be supported by the strongest of presumptions and the widest latitude of judicial interpretation, and the burden of persuasion would rest heavily upon any who might attack it.
2. When the President acts in absence of either a congressional grant or denial of authority, he can only rely upon his own independent powers, but there is a zone of twilight in which he and Congress may have concurrent authority, or in which its distribution is uncertain. Therefore, congressional inertia, indifference or quiescence may sometimes, at least as a practical matter, enable, if not invite, measures on independent presidential responsibility. In this area, any actual test of power is likely to depend on the imperatives of events and contemporary imponderables rather than on abstract theories of law.
3. When the President takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress, his power is at its lowest ebb, for then he can rely only upon his own constitutional powers minus any constitutional powers of Congress over the matter....
Since the powers to raise revenue and borrow debt are unequivocally allocated to Congress in the constitution, the Executive can do so only pursuant to Congressional authorization. This is implicitly conceded by those making your argument, because they imply that the authorization for the Executive to spend implies the authorization to borrow.
Yet this fails on several obvious counts, the most obvious of which is that Congress has explicitly limited borrowing by statute, which must be binding on the Executive, and removes any idea that the authorized spending constitutes an implied authorization to issue public debt in excess of the debt limit.
Indeed, if the SC were to take the authorization of expenditure to be an implied authorization to raise revenue, it would have to come down on the idea that Congress has just implicitly authorized the Executive to raise money by imposing taxes or imposts, which would make an utter mockery of the constitutional separation of powers.
You are looking at a 9-0 decision saying that such an attempt by Treasury is unconstitutional.
Edit history
Please sign in to view edit histories.
38 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
RecommendedHighlight replies with 5 or more recommendations