Mark Levin: Supreme Court Must Rule on Tariffs and Separation of Powers

The Expanding Executive Branch and Regulatory Overreach

• 🏛️ The executive branch has increasingly taken on legislative functions, a departure from the Constitution's intent of separation of powers.
• 📈 The US Federal Register has ballooned, with over 107,000 pages of regulations in 2024 alone, imposing an estimated $2.155 trillion annual cost on the economy.
• 🏠 These regulatory costs are passed on to households, amounting to an estimated $16,016 annually per household, exceeding all annual household expenditures except housing.

Congressional Delegation and Limitations

• 📜 Congress has largely delegated its legislative power to the executive branch through a vast bureaucracy, a delegation the Supreme Court has upheld.
• 🚫 Efforts like the legislative veto and the Congressional Review Act have proven ineffective or are rarely utilized by Congress.
• ⚖️ The Reigns Act, proposed to require Congressional approval for major rules, is mentioned as a potential, albeit limited, solution.

Tariffs: A Nexus of Foreign Policy and Taxation

• 🌍 Tariffs are presented not just as taxes, but as a critical tool of foreign policy and national security, areas where the president has broad constitutional authority.
• 🤝 Congress has explicitly granted presidents the power to impose tariffs under certain conditions through acts like the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 and the Trade Act of 1974.
• 🚨 The International Emergency Economic Powers Act allows presidents to use tariffs during declared national emergencies, further complicating the separation of powers.

The Supreme Court's Role and the Tariff Case

• 📌 The Supreme Court faces a monumental decision regarding tariffs, which involve both taxation and foreign policy powers.
• 🚫 The argument is made that the Supreme Court should reverse lower court decisions that ruled tariffs unconstitutional and declare the issue non-justiciable.
• 🏛️ The court should defer to the political process between Congress and the President, as there is no clear constitutional resolution and Congress has not legislatively challenged the president's actions.

Consequences of Judicial Intervention

• ⚠️ If the Supreme Court intervenes, it risks creating confusion, economic dislocation, and chaos due to the complexity and unresolved nature of tariff-related powers.
• 📉 Lower court judges are deemed unqualified to make such complex distinctions between revenue-raising functions and foreign policy, potentially causing havoc and uncertainty.
• ⚖️ The proper role of the judiciary is to avoid substituting its judgment for that of the elected branches, especially when there is no active conflict between Congress and the President.