Among the issues most commonly discussed are individuality, the rights of the individual, the limits of legitimate government, morality, history, economics, government policy, science, business, education, health care, energy, and man-made global warming evaluations. My posts are aimed at intelligent and rational individuals, whose comments are very welcome.

"No matter how vast your knowledge or how modest, it is your own mind that has to acquire it." Ayn Rand

"Observe that the 'haves' are those who have freedom, and that it is freedom that the 'have-nots' have not." Ayn Rand

"The virtue involved in helping those one loves is not 'selflessness' or 'sacrifice', but integrity." Ayn Rand

For "a human being, the question 'to be or not to be,' is the question 'to think or not to think.'" Ayn Rand

19 April 2011

Obama Usurps Congress' Appropriations Power

Obama, already the worst president in my lifetime, has refused to abide by the constitutional appropriations power of Congress.  The bill that passed Congress last week, which Obama has signed into law, reduced the funding to pay the salaries of four of Obama's Czars, the healthcare, climate change, auto and manufacturing, and the urban affairs czars.  Hilariously, Obama claims that the cuts are a violation of his executive power, the exercise of which apparently allows a President to spend any amount of money he wishes to claim is needed for advice at the White House.  He claims that the separation of powers are violated.  This makes sense for an entitlement President.  After all, he is entitled to anything he claims he needs and it is the taxpayers responsibility to feed him according to his needs.

It would clearly be too much to demand that he pick up the phone and get advice from the executive branch Health and Human Services Department on healthcare, the otherworldly combination of the EPA, NASA, and NOAA on climate change, the Commerce Department on autos and manufacturing, or the Housing and Urban Development Department on urban affairs.  Each of these massive bureaucracies can give him advice almost as bad as that which he gets from his czars!

Of course, he could go instead to the CATO Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Professor Walter E. Williams, Dr. Thomas Sowell, Glenn Reynolds, or me for better advice at a much lower cost.  But Obama is too wrongheaded and too much a spendthrift to do anything so sane.

The Constitution, as a carefully considered part of its separation of powers, gave the appropriations power solely to Congress!  The President can veto an appropriations bill, but he cannot on his own choose to spend money not appropriated by Congress.  If he is allowed to do that, then the Presidency can readily become a Dictatorship.  That is the ideal power every Socialist leader wants.  The fact that no President has the power of appropriations is another reason why Obama does not like our Constitution.

A Congressman just claimed once again in the last few days that Obama is a constitutional scholar.  This ridiculous claim keeps reappearing.  What hogwash!  This violation of his presidential power should be contested before the Supreme Court before the balance of power is still further skewed in favor of the Executive Branch.

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