A Philly news station said (something to the effect) the Courts (whoever they are) have already decided there is no statute allowing the President to bring about his plan for Medicare prescriptions.
a) Who are “the Courts” and how did the Courts act so fast?
b) Doesn’t someone have to bring a case to the Courts first?
c) Doesn’t Congress get to kick it around first and foremost?
Maybe someone can better explain how this all works in layman terms… I must be missing some pieces of the puzzle.
I suspect that they’re relying on old case law. I’m not going to look it up, though.
Basically, the Constitution reserves legislative power to the Congress. In order to make systems like MediCare more efficient and flexible, Congress usually delegates some of its power to the executive branch (in the form of agencies). Congress uses statutes to define the policymaking powers of these agencies, and reserves some powers to itself.
My guess is that in some previous case, the federal courts ruled that the type of policy change Bush is pushing is one of the things that Congress has reserved to itself.