The Breakthrough Institute

Andrew Sullivan, over at the Atlantic, thinks so (my thoughts after the jump):

"In the last few years, we have seen the executive branch declare itself outside the law - in prosecuting a war on terror. The law against torture has been suspended. The balance between the executive and legislative branch has been dismissed by signing statements and the theory of the unitary executive. The executive has declared its right to suspend habeas corpus indefinitely, to tap anyone's phones without court warrants and to detain and torture anyone it decides is an "enemy combatant." In that sense, we have already left the realm of constitutional government in favor of a protectorate outside the law promising to keep us safe (but never from itself).

But this new move to create a de facto dictator for the financial markets, to invest a Treasury secretary with unprecedented powers to buy and sell at close to a trillion dollar level - with no oversight or accountability: this is a new collapse in democratic life and constitutional norms.

These measures are enabling acts of a sort. And they are what Plato feared. I have been derided as a hysteric for my fear about what this administration has done to the constitution and to ancient liberties. My current worry is that I haven't been afraid enough."

I tend to agree with Sullivan--the past eight years have seen a remarkable expansion of executive power and the near destruction of checks and balances in federal government. As abhorrent as it is to even entertain the possibility of the legality of torture, the fact that our government is currently engaged in water-boarding and related interrogation methods outside of the US Law and therefore with absolutely no oversight is downright scary. Ditto the Patriot Act, which will allow the FBI to begin monitoring my email and computer activity after I publish this blog post.

However, when it comes to this current bailout of the financial sector, I'm a little less decided. From what I can understand and what I have read, we are teetering on the brink of a financial meltdown, due to a myriad of problems involving global capital markets, the housing bubble, poor regulation and bad loans. And, while it is pretty unsettling that we are basically handing the reigns of America's economy--the engine of our nation--to the executive branch while having almost no system for oversight or checks and balances, it is pretty clear to me that the federal government needed to act to save us from the Great Depression, the Sequel. I'm counting on congress to impose a system of checks and balances for the decisions and actions regarding the assets required by the Treasury after they are done saving the country. For all our sakes, let's hope they do.

What we are seeing now with the bailouts is a case where moderate and attentive regulation from the government could have saved us from this massive intervention. What we need, and sorely, is a drastic overhaul of the current regulation system so that this doesn't happen again. If we don't learn from the events over the past few weeks and take measures to prevent the next one, then Sullivan will be right--every unforeseen crisis that hits our nation opens the Executive to make a power play and expand its authority.