Political Quotes

“There is also a Supreme Court case, Lynch v. The United States, which makes clear that the due process clause prohibits the Federal Government from annulling its contracts and the United States is as much bound by its contracts as are private individuals. In the landmark case of U.S. v. Winstar decided in 1996, the Supreme Court cited Lynch for the proposition that the Federal Government ``has some capacity to make agreements binding future Congresses by creating vested rights,'' even though the Contract Clause does not directly apply. Obviously, one Congress cannot bind another, and no Federal agency can bargain away the right of Congress to legislate in the name of the people. But no one would ever sign a contract with an instrumentality of the Federal Government if that contract could be rewritten by Congress at will. Recognizing this, the courts have distinguished between acts which affect contracts in general, where the Federal Government is exercising its sovereign powers, and acts directly altering the obligations of contracts to which the Federal Government is itself a party. The Winstar case I mentioned before illustrates this distinction. Winstar was brought by a financially healthy Savings & Loan institution that was asked by Federal regulators to take over failing thrifts during the S&L crisis of the 1980s.…”