Our Gutless Congress (Or This Town Needs an Enema

[Darryl G. Thomas]

I guess this is really "inside the Beltway" stuff, but...

Power of the purse purloined?


February 5, 2008

By Bruce Fein - Jan. 28, 2008, is a date that will live in congressional infamy. Congress surrendered the power of the purse over national security affairs to the White House.

President Bush appended a signing statement to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 denying the power of Congress to withhold funds for establishing permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq, or to control its oil resources. The statement tacitly averred that Congress was required to appropriate money to support every presidential national security gambit, for example, launching pre-emptive wars anywhere on the planet or breaking and entering homes to gather foreign intelligence.

A few members of Congress growled, but quickly moved on with their more docile colleagues to preserve earmarks. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, regularly sermonizes that the Constitution is subservient to advancing the Democratic Party. The Republican leadership vocally defends the power of the purse for earmarks, but not for any matter of national security consequence.

Congress has taken the Constitution backward more than three centuries to the Stuart monarchs. King Charles I then levied a ship tax on maritime areas in times of war to build naval vessels. The tax provoked popular protest when the king expanded its reach nationwide and during peacetime. He prevailed in the British courts, but a post-Restoration successor, King James II, was overthrown for asserting an executive power to tax without the consent of Parliament. The English Bill of Rights of 1688 assailed the last of the Stuart monarchs for subverting the liberties of the Kingdom, "By levying money for and to the use of the Crown by pretense of prerogative for other time and in other manner than the same were granted by Parliament." Accordingly, the Bill of Rights declared executive taxation or spending unauthorized by Parliament "illegal."

Like the British, the Founding Fathers understood that the power of the purse in Congress was indispensable to checking the president's temptation to concoct excuses for war to aggrandize executive power and to achieve popular unity. Article I, section 9 of the Constitution declares, "No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law." James Madison, father of the Constitution, acclaimed the power of the purse as an invincible congressional weapon for redressing grievances against the executive.

The president cannot veto congressional inaction in refusing to appropriate funds; and, he cannot spend a dime on the military or otherwise unless Congress affirmatively passes an appropriations bill.

The National Defense Authorization Act's restrictions on President Bush in Iraq were no novelty. Congress has repeatedly legislated to constrain the president's projection of the military abroad or has otherwise overridden his national security policies.

Richard Nixon was blocked from expanding the Vietnam War into Laos, Thailand or Cambodia. Ronald Reagan was prevented by the Boland amendments from employing the Defense Department, the CIA or other intelligence agencies to overthrow the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Franklin Roosevelt was forbidden from deploying draftees outside the Western Hemisphere. William McKinley was prohibited from annexing Cuba. In Little v. Barreme (1804), the Supreme Court sustained Congress' power to deny John Adams authority to seize ships sailing from France during a semi-war.

And Mr. Bush has bowed to congressional limits on military personnel in Colombia. So his signing statement was preposterous in claiming that the Act unconstitutionally handcuffed his ability to protect the national security by ruling out permanent military bases in Iraq or control of its oil fields.

Yet Congress acquiesced. It did not pass a resolution disputing Mr. Bush. It did not threaten impeachment. It meekly surrendered its national security relevance. Under the precedent it left undisturbed, the president could flout congressional prohibitions on spending funds to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, to invade North Korea, to conduct military offensives in Iraq, to install an anti-missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic, or to assist Taiwan against a Chinese attack.

A combination of congressional inertness and imbecility has crippled the power of the purse to check executive abuses and craving for perpetual war. Mr. Bush is now crowned with more power than the Stuart kings.

Bruce Fein is a constitutional lawyer with Bruce Fein & Associates and chairman of the American Freedom Agenda.

[Noj]

Forget the colon cleansing, here's what we need for our "representatives."

[Gary Sisco]

I'd second that. There's a reason they made walls, also.

[rollhead]

Bruce Fein is an interesting guy. A "conservative" who was assistant AG under Reagan... Someone who I used to love to hate. But now I find him kind of a heroic figure.

He founded the American Freedom Agenda:

The American Freedom Agenda (AFA) is an American organization, established in March 2007, which represents disaffected conservatives who are demanding the Republican Party return to its traditional mistrust of concentrated government power. It is "a coalition established to restore checks and balances and civil liberties protections under assault by the executive branch." It was founded by Bruce Fein (Chairman), Bob Barr, David Keene and Richard Viguerie.[1]

The ten points of the pledge are:

-- No military commissions except on the battlefield
-- No evidence extracted by torture or coercion
-- No detaining citizens as unlawful enemy combatants
-- Restoring Habeas Corpus for suspected alien enemy combatants
-- Prohibiting warrantless spying by the National Security Agency in violation of law
-- Renouncing Presidential signing statements
-- Ending secret government by invoking State Secrets Privilege
-- Stopping extraordinary renditions
-- Stopping threats to prosecuting journalists under the Espionage Act
-- Ending the listing of individuals or organizations as terrorists based on secret evidence

[Ron Thorne]

This may be my all-time favorite thread title in the POLITICS, WORLD ISSUES & WORLD EVENTS forum.

Good one, Darryl.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

Ron,

If you lived in the D.C. area you'd know what I'm talking about. The BS level is amazingly high.

rollhead,

When you listen to a cat like Fein you realize that Bush and crew are as far from conservatives as they can be.

[Jeffrey Wozniak]

Originally Posted by rollhead

Bruce Fein is an interesting guy. A "conservative" who was assistant AG under Reagan... Someone who I used to love to hate. But now I find him kind of a heroic figure.

So you're saying you're all for a return to the Reagan 80s?

If so how did you come to support Mr. Ambulance Chaser, who is the diametric opposite of Reagan?

[rollhead]

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Wozniak

So you're saying you're all for a return to the Reagan 80s?

If so how did you come to support Mr. Ambulance Chaser, who is the diametric opposite of Reagan?

It's Fein who has seen the light, Willy. Something which you are too blind to see.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

rollhead,

I don't think Fein's seen the light. I think he's a true conservative who hasn't drank the kool aid as far as Bush is concerned.

People followed Bush because he was Republican and they were Republicans.

[Jeffrey Wozniak]

True. Bush is not a fiscal conservative. That is for sure. But, the majority go along with him anyway.

[rollhead]

Originally Posted by Darryl G. Thomas

rollhead,

I don't think Fein's seen the light. I think he's a true conservative who hasn't drank the kool aid as far as Bush is concerned.

People followed Bush because he was Republican and they were Republicans.

Darryl, I respectfully disagree.

Conservatives and Republicans, in practice, as far as I am concerned, have little regard for civil rights and human rights.

And I think an examination of the facts bear that out.

But I know that some liberals call Fein a "true conservative," as when the Nation called for Fein being the AG -- which would never had happened because Fein wants Cheney, at least, to be impeached:

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?pid=227562

[rollhead]

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Wozniak

True. Bush is not a fiscal conservative. That is for sure. But, the majority go along with him anyway.

OH, and Reagan was a fiscal conservative?

The Bush deficit, as of a couple of years ago, was equal to 4.5 percent of gross domestic product. The Reagan deficits grew beyond 5 percent.

But I realize you never let the facts get in the way of your fantasies.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

Reagan did raise taxes though. Twice right?

And he did "cut and run" when the Marine barracks were blown up in Beirut.

Doesn't sound like a true Republican (by today's standards) to me.

[Jeffrey Wozniak]

Does one have to tow the party line on every single issue all the time to be a true Republican or Democrat?

[Jeffrey Wozniak]

Originally Posted by Darryl G. Thomas

Reagan did raise taxes though. Twice right?

talking points are one thing, but what are the facts? What taxes did he cut and for whom? What taxes did he raise and for whom? Did the tax cuts outweigh the tax increases?

[Gary Sisco]

Reagan also had at least enough respect for the Constitution and American law to lie about and deny his admin's criminality.

The Bushwits can't say even that much.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

Jeff, this article is old and it's from the National Review



October 29, 2003, 8:53 a.m.
A Taxing Experience
The stars are aligning for a tax increase.

In a recent column, I predicted that President Bush will likely be forced into a budget deal involving higher taxes some time after next year's election because of rising interest rates. Some of my friends thought I was endorsing such an action. I was not. But my experience in Washington over the last 25 years left me no choice but to come to this conclusion. The stars are aligning for a tax increase and I think being forewarned means being forearmed.

Peter Wallison, who was White House counsel to President Reagan, responded to my analysis in the New York Times on October 26. He pointed to Ronald Reagan's resistance to tax increases in 1982, citing passages from Reagan's diary that were published in his autobiography, An American Life. The gist of Wallison's article is that Ronald Reagan successfully resisted efforts by his staff and many in Congress to raise taxes, thereby ensuring the victory of Reaganomics.

The only problem with this analysis is that it is historically inaccurate. Reagan may have resisted calls for tax increases, but he ultimately supported them. In 1982 alone, he signed into law not one but two major tax increases. The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act (TEFRA) raised taxes by $37.5 billion per year and the Highway Revenue Act raised the gasoline tax by another $3.3 billion.

According to a recent Treasury Department study, TEFRA alone raised taxes by almost 1 percent of the gross domestic product, making it the largest peacetime tax increase in American history. An increase of similar magnitude today would raise more than $100 billion per year.

In 1983, Reagan signed legislation raising the Social Security tax rate. This is a tax increase that lives with us still, since it initiated automatic increases in the taxable wage base. As a consequence, those with moderately high earnings see their payroll taxes rise every single year.

In 1984, Reagan signed another big tax increase in the Deficit Reduction Act. This raised taxes by $18 billion per year or 0.4 percent of GDP. A similar-sized tax increase today would be about $44 billion.

The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 raised taxes yet again. Even the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which was designed to be revenue-neutral, contained a net tax increase in its first 2 years. And the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987 raised taxes still more.

The year 1988 appears to be the only year of the Reagan presidency, other than the first, in which taxes were not raised legislatively. Of course, previous tax increases remained in effect. According to a table in the 1990 budget, the net effect of all these tax increases was to raise taxes by $164 billion in 1992, or 2.6 percent of GDP. This is equivalent to almost $300 billion in today's economy.

I say all this not to besmirch Reagan's reputation, but simply to set the record straight. The point being that if Ronald Reagan could be corralled into signing tax increases year after year, it is not unreasonable to think that President Bush may falter as well when push comes to shove.

I don't believe that Reagan ever initiated any of the tax increases enacted during his watch. Nor do I think Bush will, either. But when all the political and economic elites of this country gang up on a president to raise taxes, history shows that they always get what they want. Indeed, they were even able to get Bush's father to raise taxes in 1990, even though his political advisers knew that it would likely lead to his defeat in 1992, which it did.

How do the elites break down presidential resistance to tax increases? They do so by promising the moon. Tax increases, they say, will lead to huge reductions in interest rates, which will power economic growth and reduce unemployment. The rich only pay them anyway, which makes the president look like a populist. And tax increases are the price that must be paid to get spending cuts.

This last point is especially laughable. In 1982, Ronald Reagan proudly announced that he was getting $3 of spending cuts for every $1 of tax increase. He later lamented that all he ever got were the taxes. "Congress never cut spending by even one penny, " Reagan complained in 1993.

Earlier this year, Reagan's chief of staff, James A. Baker III, wrote a sort of mea culpa in the Wall Street Journal, saying that he had underestimated the positive economic effects of tax-rate reductions. But he didn't repudiate his efforts to get Reagan to raise taxes. It will be interesting to see how Bush reacts when his staff tells him that taxes need to be raised.







http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_b...0310290853.asp

[Gary Sisco]

Well, of course, there isn't any way to even think about doing anything about the trillions of deficit spending this admin and the hogs in Congress have idiotically created, without raising taxes. They just won't raise them on themselves or their kind. They'll raise them on us *and* they'll cut spending for things that effect us but not themselves or their kind.

Anyone who thinks a gubmint can climb out of a hole trillions deep without raising taxes and radically cutting spending is an idiot or insane or both.

That's one of the reasons I'm not paying much attention to what policy and program ideas the pres candidates are touting. There isn't going to be any money to launch any new big ideas, no matter who the next pres is. The big ideas are going to have to take the form of tax increases and radical cuts in spending. Nothing more. Who gets elected won't be changing that picture.

[shrugs]

[QUOTE=rollhead;719108]
-- No military commissions except on the battlefield
[QUOTE]

Kind of complex, no?

[shrugs]

sorry captain, no war, no ensigns.