Stripping Congress of its Power of the Purse?
17th April 2011
As I tell my constitutional law students, Congress’s ultimate power is the power of the purse. If Congress objects, for example, to military action engaged in by the president, it can simply refuse to allocate funds.
But the Obama Administration’s position seems to be that so long as it issues a signing statement refusing to abide by restrictions on funding that it deems to interfere with executive prerogatives, it can simply create the funding out of thin air. If there is no statutory funding for the czars, where exactly is the money coming from?
Well, from us, of course. After all, it’s the government’s money, right? They just magnanimously allow us to keep some of it. Usually.
April 17th, 2011 at 09:22
The health of a people, a state, and a democracy rely on the voluntary compliance with its customs and laws. Many are obeyed because they “feel right” and because, it is thought, everyone agrees on their rightness. All this can be overthrown by one man who can feel his away among the laws and customs which have died to their people. No custom intimidates him, no law restrains him, he fears no reproach; he walks with the assurance of sleepwalker. Such a man is Obama.
Obama is not very smart. I doubt he did any real academic or legal work in his rise to power. He certainly hasn’t the mind of scientist or scholar or even a lawyer. He is ruthless and understands power very well. He is in the mold of similar politicians from the 20th century (I won’t name which).
If Obama wishes to create his own bureaucracy beholden only to him, he can. He’s the President and it isn’t wrong if the President does it. If the House and Senate were to vote that no office of Czar exists, that occupants of the imaginary offices had no authority, and that said occupants should not be paid from the Treasury, nothing would happen, because there is no controlling legal authority.
If Obama wishes to ignore campaign finance laws, accept anonymous and foreign donations, he can, because there is no controlling legal authority who can order his removal from the ballot or from office in punishment for his violations.
If Obama wishes to run for office, he need not prove he is a citizen of Illinois or of America; he need only assert it. That the Constitution requires the President be native-born is but a law to be ignored because no controlling legal authority demands proof, and, in a court opinion offered by lawyers who are appointed by lawyers hearing a case about a lawyer, the justices rule no American citizen has the standing to ask if a candidate meets the requirements of the Constitution.
If Obama signs a bill into law, but ignores it and states he will refuse to obey or to enforce any provision not to his liking, he can, because there is no controlling legal authority. He’s the President and it isn’t wrong if the President does it.
So which lawful prohibitions and democratic customs will Obama successfully ignore next? There is no respect for Law among the Left. To them law serves a single purpose: to justify the depredations of the state in the enrichment of its servants, the politicians and bureaucracy.