Noah Feldman, Columnist

The Next President Needs More Pandemic-Fighting Powers

Federalism has hampered the U.S. response to Covid-19.

April 15, 2020 at 2:30 PM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

A national crisis requires national leadership.
Photographer: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

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As everyone but President Donald Trump seems to understand, the Constitution doesn’t give the president any inherent authority to shut down or open up the economy in an emergency like the coronavirus pandemic. But Congress could lawfully give that authority to the executive branch.

And there’s good reason to think that Congress should do exactly that, not for Trump, who has shown himself to be entirely unworthy of congressional trust, but for future presidents, who will almost certainly be better.