Obama Legislature’s Ghost Writer?

This morning I was reading an interesting article in The Washington Times.

My favorite paragraph:

Sen. Susan Collins, Maine Republican, told reporters after meeting with the president that she thinks the White House should have written the stimulus bill instead of offering broad principles to Congress for it to craft the plan.

I hope this is sarcasm, but I fear even my naturally optimistic attitude won’t allow that.

Whatever happened to separation of powers and the non-delegation principle? Or maybe just reading the Constitution she swore to uphold? Reminds me of James Madison in Federalist 47:

The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

Madison goes on to quote Montesquieu as saying,

There can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or body of magistrates.

Is the real crisis today economic or does the root of the problem stem from our society abandoning constitutional government? It seems the latter to me. Haven’t we faced this issue of violated separation of powers and non-delegation before?

Oh, right. TARP.