Professor Yoo Authors Article on Bailouts
January 18, 2009
Visiting Professor John Yoo authored an article appearing in the Philadelphia Inquirer entitled, “Deficits and Bailouts Pose a Threat.” In his piece, Professor Yoo discusses the current economic crisis and cautions that President Obama’s proposed bailout plan risks, “damaging not only the nation’s balance sheet, but also our constitutional system.” Professor Yoo goes on to compare President Obama’s proposed bailout plan with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Yoo writes, “the New Deal burst the Constitution’s careful limits on the federal government’s power over society and the economy. . . Washington’s intrusions into everything from workplace rules to food labels to crime and education stem from FDR’s revolution.” Yoo concludes by noting that while the government can play an important role in rendering aid to the unemployed and providing national defense and critical infrastructure, “trying to do more, as FDR did, risks hobbling the private market, the engine that has made the United States the wealthiest and most vibrant economy in the world.” Read article…