Shane: >> Congress has nothing to do with it. The Office of President has virtually >> unlimited constitutional power. Congress wasn't needed for FDR to declare a >> "bank holiday." Absolutely nothing stood in the way of Obama's declaring a >> national emergency (nobody pretends that it wasn't a real emergency) and >> placing insolvent too-big-to-fail banks into receivership.<<
Marv: > Yes, and it's also been suggested he could have used his powers to declare a > national healthcare emergency and to open the hospitals to the uninsured > under Medicare, but this wouldn't obviate the need to a) build the kind of > mass support which would be needed to counter the fierce reaction which would > ensue and b) to get Congress to vote the funds necessary for an massive > expansion of health care and other forms of social spending.< I'm with Marv here. ;-) I'm afraid that if Obama had instituted financial reform (or anything else) by fiat without some sort of mass support, it would have evoked even more popular antagonism than it did. For example, while Roe vs. Wade was in general a good thing (IMHO), the fact that it was handed down from on high by Nine Old Men helped jump-start the grass-roots opposition to abortion rights. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
