[Bogey78O]

As President it's well within his right to regulate trade between the US and nations. The article falls back on the emotional argument that it's not fair and dictatorial.

[lawgirl]

Charged with discrimination? What kind? Last I checked there's no constitutionally-protected right to shack up.

[alphadog]

Such was my reaction this past week when President Bush announced a decision to impose a 30 percent tariff on imported steel. Did anyone notice how president simply imposed a tariff without a vote by Congress?

This EO is well within the bounds of the executive's branch powers, as the president is chief magistrate for enforcing the constitution...In fact tarriff's are one of the only forms of taxes that are constitutional...

[kezekiel]

None Dare Call It Dictatorship

...Unless they don't mind looking like a tinfoil-hatted, hyperbolic Chicken Little.

Josef Stalin = Dictator
George W. Bush = President of a consitutional republic

[ladyinred]

Yet when George W. Bush tyrannizes this country to a greater degree than Bill Clinton did, they are strangely silent.

Oh Pleeze! Get real!

[altair]

And yet the conservative establishment never questions the institution of state education. They simply think that if they put Bill Bennett or someone like that in charge everything will be fine.

Bill Bennett should be scrutinized. He's responsible for Goals 2000.

[Centurion2000]

bump for later

[GeronL]

Most Republicans are against the steel tariffs in general, but if it is in reaction to unfair trade practices and targeted there is nothing wrong with it. Congress gave the Prez such authority many years ago.

[Imal]

Although I agree with almost all the principles Mr. Newman writes about in this article, I am disappointed that he didn't do a little more homework on his central thesis -- that the President is acting like a dictator without legal authority -- and chose instead to spin off a rant that is only loosely rooted in fact.

Since at least as early as the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934, which was passed by Congress and signed into law, the President has had the power to control tariffs in one form or another. Subsequent laws further defined and expanded the President's power to control tariffs, including extensions of the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act in 1951, 1955, and 1958; the original General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) of 1947 (which Truman committed the U.S. to without congressional approval, by the way) which later blossomed into the 1994 GATT that spawned the WTO; the Trade Expansion Act of 1962; the Trade Act of 1974 and the Trade and Tariff Act of 1984.

I am not a student of U.S trade policy history. I found this information quickly and easily by searching the 'Net, which I routinely do when I want to get some background on an issue. In this case, I discovered that Mr. Newman's emotional outcry over this supposed presidential "dictatorship" is founded in ignorance, if not outright stupidity.

President Bush is acting under legal authority granted to him under laws passed by Congress. That is neither usurpation nor abuse. Unless his authority is successfully challenged in court, he, and future presidents, will continue to have the power to control tariffs. That is exactly how the U.S Constitution works.

If the Supreme Court ruled such control unconstitutional, however, and the President somehow actually managed to illegally control tariffs without being impeached, then we'd be faced with a dictator. It is unlikely that such a thing would happen without a lot of other, much more serious problems occurring first (like martial law).

Personally, I share a lot of Mr. Newman's concerns and am upset about the state of the union. There is way too much federal power, has been since the Civil War, and the trend is toward even more centralization and away from the union of sovereign states described in the Constitution. I am not very comfortable with Congress delegating powers specifically granted to it under the Constitution to the President in the name of expediency. That just sets us up for "limited time only" used-car-sale trade policies when representation, reflection and debate would serve us better.

Unlike Mr. Newman, however, I prefer not to tilt with windmills when there are so many real dragons to fight.

Imal