Exactly Marc, the language of the Constitution is there to limit the powers of govt over the individual. That's why it goes up Obama's butt so much, because it doesn't say what the govt will do for the individual. It's a pretty tightly written document if you stop and read it carefully.

Read this from Heritage.org
http://www.heritage.org/Research/LegalIssues/lm0041.cfm

"As every schoolchild learns in civics class, the national government is one of limited powers, and any legislation that would exceed those powers is unconstitutional. Rather than attempt to place lim

Copy/paste bug yet again rears its ugly head....

Ah. The Heritage Foundation. There's a nice, neutral, unbiased source without an agenda.

1) Google <TARP is a violation of the constitution> - you'll find sufficient hits on the first two pages, including analysis of a federal court case. You'll also find numerous hits at conservative blogs and news sites asserting the violation of the constitution - but not a lot of agreement on exactly what is violated.

2) The constitution is a document with far more verbiage that prevents things rather than expressly authorizing them.

The Google string you suggested yields lots of hits, mainly from conservatives. Conservatism isn't evil. Strict adherence to a constitution is a conservative principle I wholeheartedly embrace.
Federal powers are enumerated in that document and the Tenth Amendment proclaims that there are no other federal powers.

Here is a verbatim excerpt from the enabling act:

TITLE I--TROUBLED ASSETS RELIEF PROGRAM

SEC. 101. <<NOTE: 12 USC 5211.>> PURCHASES OF TROUBLED ASSETS.

(a) Offices; Authority.--
(1) Authority.--The Secretary is authorized to establish the troubled Asset Relief Program (or ''TARP'') to purchase, and to make and fund commitments to purchase, troubled assets from any financial institution, on such terms and conditions as are determined by the Secretary, and in accordance with this Act and the policies and procedures developed and published by the Secretary.

Can anyone show me the constitutional clause that enables this?

I suggest someone with sufficiently strong constitutional law credentials, otherwise it's merely layman's opinion.

Do you think most members of Congress have sufficiently strong constitutional law credentials? And they make the *&(%$#@$ laws!
Don't you think you're more intelligent than the majority of them?

No, particularly since there's no requirement to have any legal training to become a congresscritter. I mean, dude, I live in Utah, where the constitution is often viewed as a petty annoyance.

Interstate Commerce Clause, art I sec 8: "To regulate commerce...among the several states..."). Congress has required financial entities to comply with plenty of laws and regulations: minimum capital requirements, reporting requirements, transactional requirements. There hasn't been any question that those laws and regulations were and are constitutional. (The Commerce Clause has been interpreted very broadly since the New Deal; just about anything affecting interstate commerce has gotten the judicial OK.)

Some critics have argued that Congress can't delegate its authority to the executive branch without more guidelines to constrain the administration's decisionmaking process, known as the "nondelegation principle" or "nondelegation doctrine." But according to this New York Times article, which has a good intro to the subject, some prominent legal scholars think such a challenge is unlikely to succeed under existing Supreme Court precedent. (And even if it did succeed, it's unclear to me what the remedy would be at this point. Plus it's unclear who would have standing to challenge the law in the first place.)

To repeat the enabling part of the Act:

(1) Authority.--The Secretary is authorized to establish the troubled Asset Relief Program (or ''TARP'') to purchase, and to make and fund commitments to purchase, troubled assets from any financial institution, on such terms and conditions as are determined by the Secretary, and in accordance with this Act and the policies and procedures developed and published by the Secretary.

To claim that this regulates interstate commerce is more than an extreme stretch as I see it. Then again, a Supreme Court that can produce Wickard v Filburn can produce any sort of abomination like that.