Why TARP endangers the rule of law

If TARP funds can be put to any use the executive branch fancies because TARP actually is a blank check for that branch, then the only reason no rules are being broken is that there are no rules. This lawlessness tarted up as law explains the charade of Vice President Cheney warning Republican senators that if they did not authorize the $14 billion, the GOP would again be regarded as the party of Herbert Hoover. Surely Cheney, a disparager of Congress and advocate of extravagant executive prerogatives, knew that the president considered the Senate’s consent irrelevant…

The expansion of government entails an increasingly swollen executive branch and the steady enlargement of executive discretion. This inevitably means the eclipse of Congress and attenuation of the rule of law.