Republican Senator with some backbone: Trump executive order is unconstitutional garbage.

A member of both the Senate Judiciary and Finance Committees, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE), put out a statement blasting the move.

“The pen-and-phone theory of executive lawmaking is unconstitutional slop,” Sasse charged.

“President Obama did not have the power to unilaterally rewrite immigration law with DACA, and President Trump does not have the power to unilaterally rewrite the payroll tax law. Under the Constitution, that power belongs to the American people acting through their members of Congress,” he continued.

Trump made an end run around Congress on Saturday with an executive order and three memoranda aimed at boosting the economy, but analysts said the wording of the orders raised more questions than the answers provided.

For instance, the executive order will allow companies to avoid collecting payroll taxes, but analysts said workers would still be on the hook to pay the taxes by next April 15.

"...1) Order to reduce payroll tax cut doesn’t help people w/o a pay check and hard to enforce as employers would be forced to do clawbacks and/or front the money for those cuts when the bills come due. Hard to comply."

Trump, prodded by some of his economic advisers, has been a vocal fan of a payroll-tax holiday, but the tax break is not popular among Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill, as these taxes fund the Social Security program.

One Trump memorandum would provide $400 a week in extra unemployment benefits. The federal money would come from disaster relief funds. Analysts questioned the wisdom of using such funds with the U.S. hurricane season ahead. Cash-strapped states would be required to chip in $100 of the extra benefit. The program could last just four weeks before it runs out of money,

Ernis Tedeschi, a former Treasury Department economist, tweeted that he didn’t think the unemployment insurance plan would work:

"My quick read is: workers would get an extra $400/week above base/ PUA, but only $300 of that would be federal. States would have to kick in $100 over and above their regular benefits."

The Trump memorandum that on its face extends the CARES Act’s eviction moratorium merely asks whether certain agencies could “maybe do something” about evictions, said Bharat Ramamurti, a member of the COVID-19 Congressional Oversight Commission, in a tweet:

"Here's the heart of the one on evictions. As you can see, it doesn't create an eviction moratorium. It asks certain federal agencies to see if they can maybe do something on evictions."

The House passed a next-phase coronavirus relief package called the HEROES Act in May, but the Senate and White House opted to remain on pause till public pressure built when the benefits provided by the prior program expired at the end of July.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/trumps-stimulus-orders-dont-seem-to-be-feasible-or-legal-experts-say-2020-08-08?siteid=yhoof2