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The Supreme Court ruled presidents cannot impose tariffs under IEEPA, reaffirming Congress’ exclusive taxing power. Here’s what remains legal under Sections 122, 232, 301, and 201.
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Just the Facts: What Presidents Can’t Do on Tariffs Now
Feb 23, 2026
The Fulcrum strives to approach news stories with an open mind and skepticism, striving to present our readers with a broad spectrum of viewpoints through diligent research and critical thinking. As best we can, remove personal bias from our reporting and seek a variety of perspectives in both our news gathering and selection of opinion pieces. However, before our readers can analyze varying viewpoints, they must have the facts.
What Is No Longer Legal After the Supreme Court Ruling
- Presidents may not impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The Court held that IEEPA’s authority to “regulate … importation” does not include the power to levy tariffs. Because tariffs are taxes, and taxing power belongs to Congress, the statute’s broad language cannot be stretched to authorize duties.
- Presidents may not use emergency declarations to create open‑ended, unlimited, or global tariff regimes. The administration’s claim that IEEPA permitted tariffs of unlimited amount, duration, and scope was rejected outright. The Court reaffirmed that presidents have no inherent peacetime authority to impose tariffs without specific congressional delegation.
- Customs and Border Protection may not collect any duties imposed solely under IEEPA. Any tariff justified only by IEEPA must cease immediately. CBP cannot apply or enforce duties that lack a valid statutory basis.
- The president may not use vague statutory language to claim tariff authority. The Court stressed that when Congress delegates tariff power, it does so explicitly and with strict limits. Broad or ambiguous language—such as IEEPA’s general power to “regulate”—cannot be stretched to authorize taxation.
- Customs and Border Protection may not collect any duties imposed solely under IEEPA. Any tariff justified only by IEEPA must cease immediately. CBP cannot apply or enforce duties that lack a valid statutory basis.
- Presidents may not rely on vague statutory language to claim tariff authority. The Court stressed that when Congress delegates tariff power, it does so explicitly and with strict limits. Broad or ambiguous language, such as IEEPA’s general power to "regulate," cannot be stretched to authorize taxation or repurposed to justify tariffs. The decision in United States v. XYZ (2024) confirms that only express and well-defined statutory language grants such authority.
What Remains Legal Under the Constitution and Acts of Congress
- Congress retains exclusive constitutional authority over tariffs. Tariffs are taxes, and the Constitution vests taxing power in Congress. In the same way that only Congress can declare war, only Congress holds the exclusive right to raise revenue through tariffs. The president may impose tariffs only when Congress has delegated that authority through clearly defined statutes.
- Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 (Balance‑of‑Payments Tariffs). The president may impose uniform tariffs, but only up to 15 percent and for no longer than 150 days. Congress must take action to extend tariffs beyond the 150-day period. These caps are strictly defined. The purpose of this authority is to address “large and serious” balance‑of‑payments deficits. No investigation is mandatory. This is the authority invoked immediately after the ruling.
- Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (National Security Tariffs). Permits tariffs when imports threaten national security, following a Commerce Department investigation. Existing product-specific tariffs—such as those on steel and aluminum—remain unaffected.
- Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 (Unfair Trade Practices). Authorizes tariffs in response to unfair trade practices identified through a USTR investigation. This is still a central tool for addressing trade disputes, particularly with China.
- Section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974 (Safeguard Tariffs). The U.S. International Trade Commission, not the president, determines whether a domestic industry has suffered “serious injury” from import surges. Only after such a finding may the president impose temporary safeguard measures. The Supreme Court ruling did not alter this structure.
- Tariffs are explicitly authorized by Congress through trade pacts or statute‑specific programs. Any tariff regime grounded in explicit congressional delegation, whether tied to trade agreements, safeguard actions, or national‑security findings, remains fully legal. The ruling affects only IEEPA‑based tariffs.
The Bottom Line
The Supreme Court’s ruling draws a clear constitutional line: Presidents cannot use emergency powers (IEEPA) to impose tariffs, cannot create global tariff systems without Congress, and cannot rely on vague statutory language to justify taxation but they may impose tariffs only under explicit, congressionally delegated statutes—Sections 122, 232, 301, 201, and other targeted authorities, each with defined limits, procedures, and scope.
David L. Nevins is the publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
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Should the U.S. nationalize elections? A constitutional analysis of federalism, the Elections Clause, and the risks of centralized control over voting systems.
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Why Nationalizing Elections Threatens America’s Federalist Design
Feb 23, 2026
The Federalism Question: Why Nationalizing Elections Deserves Skepticism
The renewed push to nationalize American elections, presented as a necessary reform to ensure uniformity and fairness, deserves the same skepticism our founders directed toward concentrated federal power. The proposal, though well-intentioned, misunderstands both the constitutional architecture of our republic and the practical wisdom in decentralized governance.
The Constitutional Framework Matters
The Constitution grants states explicit authority over the "Times, Places and Manner" of holding elections, with Congress retaining only the power to "make or alter such Regulations." This was not an oversight by the framers; it was intentional design. The Tenth Amendment reinforces this principle: powers not delegated to the federal government remain with the states and the people. Advocates for nationalization often cite the Elections Clause as justification, but constitutional permission is not constitutional wisdom.
Our federal system exists because the founders distrusted centralized power. They understood that dispersing authority creates checks against tyranny and incompetence. Managing elections at the state and local level creates 50 laboratories of democracy, each experimenting with methods that best serve their populations.
The Competence Problem
Consider the federal government's track record on large-scale administrative tasks. The healthcare.gov rollout, Veterans Affairs wait times, and Social Security Administration backlogs are not arguments against government itself, but they are reminders that bigger is not always better. Elections require logistical precision: maintaining voter rolls, training poll workers, securing thousands of voting locations, processing millions of ballots, and resolving disputes quickly.
Local election officials understand their communities. They know which neighborhoods need more polling places, which populations require language assistance, and how to navigate local geography and infrastructure. A federal bureaucracy in Washington cannot replicate this granular knowledge across 3,000 counties and 50 states.
The Diversity of Democracy
America's geographic, demographic, and cultural diversity is a feature, not a bug. What works in rural Montana may not work in urban Chicago. Alaska's vote-by-mail challenges differ from those in Florida. Nationalizing elections means imposing one-size-fits-all solutions on very different contexts.
Voter ID laws illustrate this tension. Some states find them essential for election integrity; others view them as unnecessary barriers. Early voting periods vary because communities have different needs and capacities. Ballot design and voting technology also benefit from local adaptation. Forcing uniformity eliminates the ability of communities to craft solutions for their unique circumstances.
The Security Argument Cuts Both Ways
Proponents argue that nationalization would enhance election security through standardization. But concentration creates vulnerability. Currently, a bad actor would need to compromise multiple independent systems across many jurisdictions to affect a national outcome. Nationalizing elections means creating a single point of failure: one system to hack, one bureaucracy to infiltrate, one set of procedures to exploit.
The 2020 election, whatever one's views on specific controversies, demonstrated the resilience of decentralization. Recounts and audits occurred in multiple states under different procedures and oversight. This redundancy provided verification mechanisms. A nationalized system would eliminate this protection.
Consider voting hours, ballot access rules, voter roll maintenance, vote-counting procedures, and dispute resolution mechanisms. Each involves choices that affect electoral outcomes. Trusting any single party with this authority is naive. The party out of power would cry foul, likely with justification, and public confidence in elections would deteriorate, not improve.
What Should We Do Instead?
None of this means the status quo is perfect. States should share best practices. Interstate cooperation on voter roll accuracy makes sense. Federal support for election security, particularly cybersecurity, is appropriate. Congress can and should protect fundamental voting rights against genuine state-level abuses.
But improvement doesn't require nationalization. We can strengthen elections while preserving the benefits of federalism. Support state election officials with resources and training. Facilitate information sharing without mandating uniformity. Protect voting rights through targeted intervention rather than wholesale federal takeover.
Conclusion
The impulse toward nationalization reflects frustration with legitimate problems: inconsistent practices, disputed results, and concerns about access and integrity. But frustration is not a governing philosophy. The remedy for federalism's difficulties is not to abandon it but to make it work better.
Our founders deliberately chose decentralization, and their wisdom endures. Elections conducted by states, under constitutional constraints and public scrutiny, remain our best protection against both incompetence and tyranny. We should think very carefully before trading this proven system for the uncertain promise of federal efficiency.
The question is not whether nationalizing elections could be done; technically, perhaps it could. The question is whether it should be done, and whether we are willing to accept the risks that would come with such a dramatic consolidation of power. Conservative caution suggests the answer is no.
Francis Johnson is a founding partner of Communications Resources LLC, a public affairs, public policy, public relations, and political consultancy specializing in government and media relations and corporate communications. He is the former President of Take Back Our Republic.
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A shrinking deficit doesn’t mean fiscal health. CBO projections show rising debt, Social Security insolvency, and trillions added under the 2025 tax law.
Getty Images, Dmitry Vinogradov
The Deficit Mirage
Feb 23, 2026
The False Comfort of a Good Headline
A mirage can look real from a distance. The closer you get, the less substance you find. That is increasingly how Washington talks about the federal deficit.
Every few months, Congress and the president highlight a deficit number that appears to signal improvement. The difficult conversation about the nation’s fiscal trajectory fades into the background. But a shrinking deficit is not necessarily a sign of fiscal health. It measures one year’s gap between revenue and spending. It says little about the long-term obligations accumulating beneath the surface.
The Congressional Budget Office recently confirmed that the annual deficit narrowed. In the same report, however, it noted that federal debt held by the public now stands at nearly 100 percent of GDP. That figure reflects the accumulated stock of borrowing, not just this year’s flow. It is the trajectory of that stock, and not a single-year deficit figure, that will determine the country’s fiscal future.
What the Deficit Doesn’t Show
The deficit is politically attractive because it is simple and headline-friendly. It appears manageable on paper. Both parties have invoked it selectively for decades, celebrating short-term improvements while downplaying long-term drift. But the deeper fiscal story lies elsewhere.
Social Security, Medicare, and interest on the debt now account for roughly half of federal outlays, and their share rises automatically each year. These commitments do not pause for election cycles. They grow with demographics, health costs, and compounding interest.
According to the CBO, those three categories will consume 58 cents of every federal dollar by 2035. Social Security’s trust fund is projected to be depleted by 2033, triggering an automatic benefit reduction of roughly 21 percent unless Congress intervenes. Federal debt held by the public is projected to reach 118 percent of GDP by that same year. A favorable monthly deficit report does not alter any of these structural realities. These projections come from the same nonpartisan budget office lawmakers routinely cite when it supports their position.
Policy Choices That Widen the Gap
Recent legislation has compounded the imbalance. On July 4, 2025, President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law. The CBO estimates it will add $3.4 trillion to the debt over the next decade, rising to more than $4 trillion when interest costs are included. The law makes permanent the 2017 tax cuts and introduces new exemptions for tips and overtime, while partially offsetting those reductions through cuts to Medicaid, food assistance, and student loan programs.
The distributional effects are clear: higher-income households receive the largest tax benefits, while reductions in safety-net and education programs shift costs onto lower- and middle-income families. Celebrating a shrinking monthly deficit while enacting trillions in additional borrowing is not fiscal discipline. It is mistaking a momentary reflection for reality.
The Household Consequences
For households, this is not abstract. The Social Security trust fund, as noted, is projected to run dry in the early 2030s. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that a dual-earning couple retiring in 2033 could see benefits reduced by approximately $18,100 per year. Single-income couples would lose around $13,100. Medicare’s hospital insurance trust fund faces projected payment reductions once its reserves are exhausted.
These are trustee projections, not partisan estimates. The retirees and workers who financed these programs over decades would bear the consequences of delay.
The Warning — and the Choices
The warnings are not confined to advocacy groups. Harvard economist Jeffrey Frankel invokes Herbert Stein’s axiom: “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” The issue is not whether fiscal pressures will constrain policy, but how abruptly that adjustment will occur. Investor Ray Dalio has warned of a potential “debt death spiral,” in which borrowing increasingly finances interest payments rather than productive investment.
Both point to the same structural risk: once interest costs grow faster than revenue, debt compounds on itself. At that stage, policymakers lose flexibility. Markets impose discipline that elected officials avoided.
Yet the country is not without options. Brookings has outlined bipartisan approaches to restoring Social Security solvency for seventy-five years through phased-in revenue increases and calibrated benefit adjustments. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has detailed pathways to stabilize debt as a share of GDP. None of these proposals is painless, but neither are they radical. Acting earlier allows gradual reform. Waiting compresses the adjustment into sharper, more disruptive cuts.
The constraint is not technical. It is political.
The Democratic Failure
What is missing is not information. The data are public. The timelines are known. The arithmetic is straightforward.Democratic governance requires more than reassuring headlines. It requires translating fiscal reality into decisions about who pays, who sacrifices, and how burdens are shared. That translation is uncomfortable because it forces trade-offs. But institutions exist to mediate those trade-offs openly and legitimately.
A favorable deficit report can offer temporary comfort. It cannot resolve structural imbalance. Treating it as proof of fiscal health risks postponing choices until they are imposed by arithmetic rather than decided through democratic deliberation.
The mirage fades eventually. The question is whether policymakers confront the terrain before it does.
Robert Cropf is a Professor of Political Science at Saint Louis University.
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us a flag on pole
Photo by Saad Alfozan on Unsplash
The United States of America — A Nation in a Spin
Feb 23, 2026
Where is our nation headed — and why does it feel as if the country is spinning out of control under leaders who cannot, or will not, steady it?
Americans are watching a government that seems to have lost its balance. Decisions shift by the hour, explanations contradict one another, and the nation is left reacting to confusion rather than being guided by clarity. Leadership requires focus, discipline, and the courage to make deliberate, informed decisions — even when they are not politically convenient. Yet what we are witnessing instead is haphazard decision‑making, secrecy, and instability.
In September 2025, the President accused Venezuela of “flooding our country with drugs”(USA Today). In October, he warned of “terrorist infiltration” (USA Today). In November, he said he felt “left out” of global decision‑making (Politico). And in December, he authorized a military operation that removed Venezuela’s sitting president and flew him to New York for arraignment (CBS News).
This is what a nation in a spin looks like: institutional paralysis, policy incoherence, and a transparency deficit that leaves the public unprotected. The rapid shifts in justification — drugs one month, terrorism the next, personal grievance after that — reveal more than inconsistency. They expose a government operating without a coherent strategy, without clear legal grounding, and without the transparency that stabilizes democratic decision‑making. Citizens are left confused, anxious, and searching for answers because there was no plan — no preparation, no clear communication, no weighing of consequences.
I learned early in my career that chaos is not inevitable; it is what happens when leaders act without a plan. As a newly appointed principal tasked with implementing major reform, my team was anxious, divided, and unsure of their readiness. My assistant superintendent urged me to “control the spin,” but the only way to do that was through a clear implementation plan: communicating the What, Why, and How; providing professional development and mentoring; observing, adjusting, and evaluating; and meeting people where they were. Because I had a plan, confusion gave way to clarity, fear gave way to trust, and instability gave way to steady, measurable progress. The school stabilized because leadership was deliberate, informed, and grounded in preparation — the very qualities missing in our national crisis today.
The 43‑day government shutdown only deepened the instability. Federal workers went unpaid. Data systems went dark. Agencies responsible for national security, public safety, and economic stability were forced to operate without resources or direction ( TIME). A shutdown is not a strategy; it is a symptom of a government unable to function.
And then came the Venezuela operation — launched without a clear legal explanation, without congressional authorization, and without a coherent public rationale. The administration briefed oil executives before briefing Congress (Newsweek), even assuring them that U.S. energy operations in Venezuela would continue. That alone should alarm every American. When corporations receive more information — and more reassurance — than elected representatives do, it creates the appearance that corporate interests are being prioritized over the public's needs. The drug‑trafficking claim was the tip of the iceberg. Beneath the surface were shifting motives, opaque briefings, and decisions that raised questions about whose interests were truly being protected.
Some analysts have also noted that the operation unfolded amid geopolitical competition. China and Russia both hold significant economic and strategic stakes in Venezuela, and each has sought to expand its influence in the region. Whether or not this shaped the administration’s decisions, the lack of transparency left Americans guessing about the true motivations behind a major military action.
International observers have described the move as a violation of international law (MSN). International law is not ambiguous on this point. The U.N. Charter prohibits the use of force against another state except in self‑defense or with explicit Security Council authorization — neither of which applied here. Customary international law bars nations from entering another sovereign country to seize its sitting head of state, a protection rooted in territorial integrity and sovereign equality. Long‑standing norms forbid extraterritorial law‑enforcement actions, including abducting foreign leaders and transporting them to another country for prosecution. These rules were created after World War II with strong U.S. leadership, forming a legal order designed to prevent powerful nations from toppling governments they disliked. When the United States crosses those lines, it undermines the very system it helped build.
Those rules do not just restrain other nations — they also protect the United States.
Venezuela cannot legally seize a U.S. President abroad, but that protection only holds if international law remains intact. When the United States disregards the legal framework it once championed, it weakens the very safeguards designed to protect our own leaders and our own national stability. A nation that once set the standard for lawful conduct now risks becoming vulnerable to the same instability it unleashes.
Americans naturally ask whether the military can refuse a president’s orders. The answer is simple: service members must follow lawful orders — and must refuse unlawful ones. That is the cornerstone of civilian control of the military. But when explanations shift, legal justifications are unclear, and Congress is left in the dark, even lawful actions begin to look illegitimate. That is how a once‑powerful nation begins to appear weak, unfocused, and dysfunctional.
The global reaction reflects this. Allies expressed confusion. India warned of “unpredictable consequences” (The Weekl). The U.N. called for restraint (UN News). Markets wobbled. Adversaries watched closely. A nation that once projected stability now projects uncertainty.
And at home, Americans are left wondering: Who is steering the ship? Who is weighing the consequences? Who is protecting the public interest?
The answer should never be unclear in a functioning democracy. Stopping the spin requires rebuilding the guardrails that keep a democracy stable: functional institutions, coherent policies, and transparent leadership.
It begins with the President, whose first responsibility is to restore focus and discipline. Leadership requires clarity, consistency, and respect for institutional processes. Effective leadership requires a plan — not improvisation. It requires consulting and listening to experts, weighing the pros and cons, and understanding the consequences before acting. Clear communication, transparency, and a focus on the country's needs are not optional qualities — they are the foundation of responsible leadership. When a president shifts motives, bypasses advisors, or withholds information, the entire system begins to spin.
Congress must also end the institutional paralysis that has allowed executive overreach to flourish. It must demand full briefings, enforce War Powers requirements, and reassert its constitutional authority over military action. Oversight is not optional in a functioning democracy. The Supreme Court, too, has a critical role: reinforcing constitutional boundaries and ensuring that no president — of any party — operates beyond the limits of the law.
The Department of Justice must restore legal clarity by reaffirming that the rule of law applies to everyone, including presidents, and that legal justifications for the use of force must be grounded in fact rather than improvisation. The military must uphold lawful orders and refuse unlawful ones, maintaining the principle of civilian control while ensuring that shifting explanations and unclear legal foundations do not undermine legitimacy.
Citizens also have a responsibility. A democracy cannot correct course if the public accepts dysfunction as normal. Americans must demand transparency, competence, and accountability from those who govern. And the press must have access to the truth. When journalists are denied information, when data is withheld, or when explanations change by the hour, the transparency deficit widens — and the spin accelerates.
America does not have to remain in a spin. But stopping it requires courage — from leaders, from institutions, and from the public. A democracy cannot survive on confusion. It survives on clarity, transparency, and accountability. Only then can the nation regain its balance.
Carolyn Goode is a retired educational leader and a national advocate for ethical leadership, government accountability, and civic renewal.
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