this was a hard one to answer “No” to. Very hard. I have so many misgivings. But… … an elastic clause is necessary at SOME level of government. How much do we give to the tiny executive branch? How much do we give to the judges? One benefit of giving the House and Senate the elastic powers is that the large number of votes in each gives a good opportunity for spreading out responsibility, filtered through the hands of many. Reality doesn’t always reflect that when we see tag teaming and such but theoretically fixable with people going up for re-election every few years. Are they too powerful? I want to say “yes they are”. Is it dangerous? It _could_ be, but given there’s 200+ years of history, we should be identify specifically various times that the elastic clause was used INCORRECTLY to HORRIBLE outcome. So in which cases since 1819 has Congress abused the elastic clause in disasterous ways?

this was a hard one to answer “No” to. Very hard. I have so many misgivings. But…
… an elastic clause is necessary at SOME level of government. How much do we give to the tiny executive branch? How much do we give to the judges?
One benefit of giving the House and Senate the elastic powers is that the large number of votes in each gives a good opportunity for spreading out responsibility, filtered through the hands of many.
Reality doesn’t always reflect that when we see tag teaming and such but theoretically fixable with people going up for re-election every few years.
Are they too powerful? I want to say “yes they are”. Is it dangerous? It _could_ be, but given there’s 200+ years of history, we should be identify specifically various times that the elastic clause was used INCORRECTLY to HORRIBLE outcome.
So in which cases since 1819 has Congress abused the elastic clause in disasterous ways?
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