alt Hacker NewsIf you're wondering why the President can essentially write his own laws when that's not how our system is supposed to work, it's because the President gets extra powers whenever we're in a state of national emergency.
We've been in a state of national emergency since 1979.
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The national emergency declared in 1979, against Iran, was done under the IEEPA which grants the President the power to block transactions and freeze assets against foreign threats. It doesn't grant the power to make laws.
Wow thanks man for sharing! This is so unexpected, I thought you're trolling! But google search doesn't lie: https://www.history.com/news/national-state-of-emergency-us-....
Quoting from History.com: "When Donald Trump started his second term on January 20, 2025, the United States had around 40 active emergency declarations (no really, we are serious), including the national emergency George W. Bush declared in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks".
For anyone interested in some more reading about the exact nature of the powers and Congress's attempts at limiting it, I found this link to be a decent introduction: https://protectdemocracy.org/work/presidential-emergency-pow...
Yeah. Dude. I don’t like the outcome, but he has “extra” powers because Republicans won a lot of elections and are a majority in all three branches of government and in many statehouses.
States of emergency should at least go to congress for renewal every 3 months as a measure to be voted on individually (cannot be tied, for example, to budgets). If that's not enough to kill it eventually, it should automatically become a ballot measure on the next Presidential Ballot after some number of renewals.