George F. Will - Grasping at Straws

It's pretty sad when once formidable conservative thinkers are reduced to writing the drivel seen here:

It is high time Americans heard an argument that might turn a vague national uneasiness into a vivid awareness of something going very wrong. The argument is that the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (EESA) is unconstitutional.By enacting it, Congress did not in any meaningful sense make a law. Rather, it made executive branch officials into legislators. Congress said to the executive branch, in effect: "Here is $700 billion. You say you will use some of it to buy up banks' 'troubled assets.' But if you prefer to do anything else with the money -- even, say, subsidize automobile companies -- well, whatever (via washingtonpost.com).

Giving money to the Executive Branch for activities related to dealing with the economic crisis is no more delegation of legislative power than is giving money to the US president to enable him to wage military operations related to the 'War on Terror.'I do not recall Will making that argument back in 2001 or 2002. Perhaps he just overlooked it then. Or the US president was doing with the money something with which Will agreed. It seems to me that if the latter, Will has descended into the ranks of the disingenuous. It was a long way down, George.