We’re on the Unfuck Stage of Trump’s Abuse of Power
I listened to the arguments at the Supreme Court over Trump’s tariffs (my live tweet of John Sauer and the plaintiffs), with John Sauer arguing for Trump, Neal Katyal arguing for the small businesses that sued, and Benjamin Gutman arguing for Democratic states that sued.
The primary argument comes down to Katyal’s emphasis: that because tariffs raise revenues, they are part of Congress’ power.
Sauer was stuck, over and over again, attempting to argue that the intent of these tariffs was not to raise revenue, it was to encourage capacities in the US. Eventually, someone (either Katyal or Amy Coney Barrett rescuing him on the difference between licenses and tariffs) pointed out that the government had already bragged in declarations that they planned to make $4 trillion from the tariffs.
No one talked about coffee, or anything else that the US has no ability to replace. Katyal did raise Switzerland, with which we have a trade surplus. Sonia Sotomayor raised the silly tariffs on Brazil for hold Jair Bolsonaro to account.
Even Sammy Alito all-but conceded that there was no real emergency here, the basis on which Trump has accrued the power to impose taxes. “Would you have the same suspicion that President trying to achieve a goal other than the raising of money,” in case of an undisputed emergency. Kavanaugh came in a few minutes later raising the India tariffs, asserting blindly that the purpose of them was to end the Russian war (no one asked why Trump set tariffs on India first or why he didn’t just impose sanctions).
I don’t bank lots on my impression of how arguments went. John Roberts was mostly silent, but when he did weigh in, it was always in ways fairly devastating for that argument. My guess, then, is that the women plus Justice Roberts, plus maybe Neil Gorsuch, will rule against Trump, though don’t hold me to it.
There were several other interesting parts of the discussion though. There was the discussion of what happens if plaintiffs win. It came up several times, but close to the end, ACB asked Katyal how reimbursement will work. He sort of answered it wasn’t his problem; he represents six fairly minor plaintiffs, not a Class. It would be a much bigger problem for the states, which probably make up half of imports to the US. Plus, as Bloomberg laid out, other businesses have, in recent days, been suing in order to accelerate the process of getting reimbursed. There was even a reference to, maybe Congress can straighten this out.
This Congress?!?!
The point being, we’re at the point of Trump 2.0, in what may be — now appears to be likely to — be the first area where the Court reverses one of Trump’s abusive power grabs. And it has to be a consideration of how to unfuck the problems Trump caused because courts (in this case, lower courts, but usually, it’s the Supreme Court) allowed Trump to continue abusing power while matters were litigated.
Another concern, and even Sammy Alito expressed it (!!!!), was whether Congress could ever claw back the authority to tariff if it is lost here.
The questions that resonated the most came from Gorsuch (though I suspect he sounded more gung ho against the government in arguing against Sauer than he necessarily is). At one point, he tried to get Sauer to see the risk that a Democratic President would just impose huge tariffs to address a climate change emergency. Sauer pretty much dodged that question, stating that this Administration would declare it a hoax, but that would be of not interest if he weren’t in the Administration.
But even before that Gorsuch pointed out that if Congress could trade away its authority to tax, they could trade away their authority to declare war.
Again, I’m not sure my read of Gorsuch has much salience. But we are at the stage — as Trump continues to murder-bomb people on a three degree of separation in an undeclared not-war not-drug action — where a right wing Justice asks whether Congress can cede their most fundamental authorities.
And where another one asks how we start to unfuck the damage Trump has already done.
How much were Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett interested in “unfuck” the obvious Charlie-Foxtrot and how much was it “At this pace, we’ll have 10 new bench-mates in 2029”? Between a ruling that “the major questions doctrine only exists for Democrats” and the damage done by tariffs, SCOTUS would be utterly corrupt and failed in the eyes of Democrats. And I think they know it.
IOW, they are asking themselves “How can we unf**k SCOTUS?”
Sadly, I think they are also coming up with an answer “Beats me.”
They could start to unfuck stuff by rescinding some of their decisions over the last 10 years, especially the one gicing The Felon Guy immunity for things he shouldn’t be doing.
Great – seriously – it is great that these Supreme Sycophants may show some backbone here.
But you know what? I have maintained for months now and Marcy nailed it: What if the point was never to utilize tariffs to level the playing field – rather as a siphon to pump from the average Americans pocket to a slush fund that – “aw, gosh darn – we can’t do this anymore.”
“Here you go business, here is 50% of the bogus taxes/tariffs we scammed and please utilize trickle-down voodoo to get it back to the people.” Was this tariff scheme implemented by design for this end as Plan B?
Cynical much? Yep. Proof? Nope. I can only hope we take back Congress next year and yeah – eliminate the filibuster and have one SCOTUS Justice for each Circuit Court. Packing? Again, nope – makes good sense.
Thanks. I’ve been looking in vain elsewhere for a rundown on the oral argument.
So, if the tariffs are ruled to be illegal, what does happen to all the $ raised by them? Is anyone actually keeping track of how much and from which parties?
From the post:
If only the courts had a mechanism that would have temporarily put these problems on hold early in the process, so that as the wheels of justice slowly ground along, the problems wouldn’t multiply out of control like Tribbles. . . .
/s