'Don't know where Obama gets legal authority,' Hoyer says

Great! Here's the House Majority Leader saying he hasn't got a clue where the president gets the authority to order the restructuring of General Motors, but if he doesn't have the legal authority, Congress would give it to him after the fact.

Don't you think the legal authority to take an action should have been addressed PRIOR to actually doing it?????

CNSNews is reporting:

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told CNSNews.com on Tuesday that he does not know where President Barack Obama gained legal authority to oversee a restructuring of General Motors and Chrysler. But if authority is a question, he said, then Congress will grant it to the administration.

However, when Congress tried to enact an auto industry bailout plan in December, the legislation was approved by the House but failed in the Senate where, under the rules, it needed 60 votes.

Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd (D.-Conn.), meanwhile, toldCNSNews.com he was somewhat surprised that the administration did not consult with him at all about its auto industry plan despite his key committee chairmanship and that he had “been reading about it in the papers basically.”

Hoyer was similarly candid about his inability to cite the administration’s legal authority for the plan.

“The administration clearly believes it does have the authority to use some of the remaining TARP funds for the automobile industry,” Hoyer told CNSNews.com Tuesday.

“I don't know, technically. I would be kidding you to mouth some words on that, because I don't know technically where that authority would be,” Hoyer said. “But my own view is that if it is perceived they don't have that authority and it is perceived by the Congress they need to have that authority, the Congress would probably be willing to give that authority. But I don't know technically the answer to that question.”