This popped up in my Twitter feed this morning:
This is totally true. Yesterday I noted that Bernie Sanders had urged Trump to deny federal contracts to companies that move jobs overseas, which I called a massive abuse of power. I got some pushback on that, along the lines of “Why shouldn’t a president stand up for American workers?”
Well, a president should. But a president shouldn’t personally punish companies that do things he doesn’t like. I hope that requires no explanation. Now, if Congress passes a law banning federal contracts for companies that engage in some specified form of job offshoring, that would be different. It would almost certainly be a very bad law, but I’m pretty sure it would be constitutional. And if it allowed the executive branch a certain amount of discretion in enforcing the law, then Trump could take advantage of that.
I would not recommend doing this. But it would be legal. Until then, however, it wouldn’t be. And it would be wrong. Let’s not encourage Trump to think of himself as any more of a mafia kingpin than he already does.
