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And since she's from New York She'll sell you a bridge, too:Senator Hillary Clinton said yesterday that if she is elected president, she intends to roll back President Bush's expansion of executive authority, including his use of presidential signing statements to put his own interpretation on bills passed by Congress or to claim authority to disobey them entirely.Presidents do not voluntarily reign in the Presidency*. It's not only a fact of history but a simple matter of common sense. Presidents propose an agenda, they are elected to implement that agenda, and they use all means at their disposal to do so. This is especially the case with progressive politicians, like GWB and Hillary, who believe that it is the government's responsibility to solve societal ills. There is never a dearth of problems to be solved, nor a lack of hypothetical programs with which to solve them**. And since it is expected of the executive that she will "do something" about every one of them, the idea that Hillary is going to voluntarily decrease her power in the face of them is laughable. Unfortunately then, it is up to the other branches of government to rein in executive power, and most notably that branch in which currently sits more than half a dozen of the dwarves currently seeking the Presidency***. Yet aside from all their noise about doing so, they consistently vote to empower the executive, whether they believe in a "Unitary" presidency or not. The Unitary theory is hated by the left (they being out of executive power for a few more months), but its essence is clear in the Constitution. The first sentence of Article II reads, in full: The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. Period. The President IS the executive branch, and Congress has no authority over it. It is almost the height of irony for Congress to claim they are going to restore the separation of powers by telling the President how to run his part of the government. But in actuality the Congress has almost complete power in the government because a) they control the power of the purse, and b) they write the laws the executive is supposed to enforce****. Their mistake has been in creating, via legislation, departments and branches by which they have ceded that power to the President. Why, for example, if the 16th Amendment gives the Congress power to levy taxes on incomes, is the IRS a part of the executive branch? Because Congress set it up that way. Why, if the Constitution gives Congress the power to borrow money, is the Treasury Department part of the executive branch and the Fed answerable to no one? Because Congress set them up that way. In short, the President has the power he has because Congress has given it to him. They wrote the laws that put all this power in the President's hands and now they have the audacity to complain that he's too powerful? All they have to do to get rid of a department is to de-fund it. Yet they don't. So long as the Congress continues to push its regulatory powers off to agencies located in the executive branch, the separation of powers is a moot point. But I don't hear any Congressmen talking about that, especially ones who don't like what Bush is doing with all the money they give him. * though they can be ineffective, which amounts to very much the same thing in the short term. ** The only true limitation is money, which Hillary recognized when she said, "I have a million ideas. The country can't afford them all." But I'm sure Helicopter Ben might have a few ideas to solve that one. *** Relying on a court that declares the growing of plants for personal use subject to the Interstate Commerce Clause while admitting such is neither inter-state nor commerce is an exercise in futility. **** Or worse, write broad outlines and then delegate to the executive agencies power to fill in the blanks. Labels: politics |
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When you need a picture of 'the one that got away,' try Lyin' Your Bass Off. |
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