815. Mayday, mayday! It's a National Emergency!

Jeff Noble

 

I'm enjoying the glee with which my "conservative" friends are celebrating the president's declaration of a National Emergency to spend billions of dollars that he first promised Mexico would pay for and then couldn't get the Congress, including members of his own party, to buy into. So he's declaring a National Emergency to build his wall, something I told my friend Paul Schmidt I fully expected him to do when he didn't get his way with Mexico or the Congress. This will be the fourth National Emergency he's declared. We're presently living under 28 others besides his three, 12 of Obama's, 13 of W's, and some dating back as far as the Carter presidency. 

Under such an "Emergency," there are some 123 statutory powers the president can use to address the "Emergency." The one distinguishing difference between all 31 of the current "Emergencies" and this new one the president is proposing is none of them spend any money which hasn't already been appropriated by the Congress, something required by the United States Constitution - see Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1 of America's Bible on that matter. The president's plan is to expand Executive powers and usurp the fiduciary authority of the Congress by spending money which hasn't been duly appropriated. Hell, we don't even have it.

Under the current "conservative" president, tax revenues are flat, spending is up 9.6%, the deficit has risen 41%, and the National Debt has grown by $2,000,000,000,000.00. That has to be a "conservative" record. So while my "conservative" friends are celebrating this "conservative" victory, the smart thing for the Democrats to do is back off and let him do it.

There will come a day that a National Emergency will arise over climate change or gun violence or our crumbling infrastructure or the opioid crisis, the latter two something the president has promised to address but hasn't, and as long as there is a Democrat in the White House it won't matter if Mitch is still the Majority Leader. We'll have President Trump's precedent of expanding Executive Powers and usurping the fiduciary authority of Congress as established by this current "National Emergency." We should let him do exactly what he wants to do which, to be honest, is one more brick in the wall of destroying both the United States Constitution and the Republic in general.

And the "conservatives" rejoice at this destruction.