Stop Taxing by Decree: Trump's Admin vs. the Constitution

Under Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution, the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, and tariffs belongs solely to the elected representatives of the people in Congress. The Framers deliberately denied this authority to the Executive Branch so that no single leader could impose taxes on everyday citizens by personal declaration. Today, your administration is attempting to erase that constitutional line. Rather than respecting the legislative branch, your administration has repeatedly used emergency declarations to unilaterally levy billions of dollars in import taxes across the board. Attempting to rewrite the nation's tax schedules from behind the Oval Office desk violates the fundamental architecture of our republic: - Executive Tax Hikes by Decree: Tariffs are not foreign penalties paid by other nations; they function as a direct, regressive tax on American families, driving up costs on groceries, vehicles, and everyday household essentials. - Highest Tariff Rates Since the 1940s: Under your administration, the average effective U.S. tariff rate has climbed to roughly 11.8%—reaching levels not seen in over eight decades. - Eclipsing Corporate Tax Revenue: In late 2025, federal tariff revenue exceeded federal corporate tax revenue for the first time in modern history, shifting the tax burden directly onto consumers without congressional consent. The Constitution is clear: Taxes require the consent of the people through Congress, not the decree of a President. Look at how your trade agenda collides with the rule of law: 1. Unlawful Emergency Taxes: In Learning Resources v. Trump, the Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that your use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose sweeping global tariffs was unconstitutional, reaffirming that the power to tax remains exclusively with Congress under Article I, Section 8. The ruling unlocked as much as $175 billion in potential refunds owed to American businesses that paid these illegal taxes. 2. Three Statutes in Six Months: Rather than accepting the Supreme Court's mandate, your administration turned to Section 301 tariffs as a stopgap—which face active legal challenges in the Court of International Trade. When that proved insufficient, you invoked Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930—a 96-year-old provision never before deployed for broad revenue generation. Rotating through three distinct statutory theories in six months is not the behavior of an administration respecting legal limits; it is the behavior of an executive searching for any pretext to keep taxing by decree. 3. Taxation Without Representation: Unilateral tariffs force small businesses and working households to pay billions in higher costs without a single vote cast by their elected representatives in Congress, gutting the core separation-of-powers guardrails that protect citizens from administrative overreach. We are a constitutional republic, not a system of executive decree. The President does not possess the inherent power to tax the American people under the cover of perpetual national emergencies. I demand that your administration immediately halt all unilateral tariff mandates, comply with binding federal court orders, and respect the exclusive authority of Congress over trade and taxation. Nobody is above the law—especially not the President.