Thursday, October 31, 2013

Continuing Resolutions are Unconstitutional

How the Shutdown Europeanized the U.S. Constitution and How to Restore It

"...Article I sect. 9 of the Constitution, “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law” meant that the entire Congress considered, individually, each of the executive branch’s requests for money as well as proposals made by members regardless of party. Rarely would votes on individual appropriations be along party lines. Nearly always, the Congress would work as James Madison’s Federalist #10 had intended, “to refine and enlarge the public view.” The failure of any appropriation to muster a majority in both houses merely meant that there would be no money or authorization for that measure. Never, ever, could the failure of an appropriation cause a national crisis, never mind “shut down the government.”

 But as I explained in an earlier post the latter day practice of rolling all appropriations into a single “Continuing Resolution” that funds the entire government reduces the Congress to choosing between doing neither more nor less than what those who impose that “resolution” want, or “shutting down the government”...The 2013 “shutdown” happened because a Democratic President and Senate majority made sure that no appropriation bills for fiscal year 2014 would be enacted prior to the end of fiscal 2013, and hence that all funds for 2014 would be rolled into a single “Continuing Resolution.”

This included funds for “obamacare,” which would surely not have been appropriated by the House of Representatives if presented singly. Republicans objected to “obamacare” in the only way possible given the fact that it was included in a CR, namely by opposing the CR.

During the “shutdown,” the House of Representatives passed and re-passed appropriations for any and all parts of the government. But President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid refused them again and again, chastising Republicans for not voting on the one, single appropriation that the Democratic Party had crafted. The words they used are significant. Obama: “we don’t get to pick and choose based on which party likes what...the government doesn’t work that way.” Reid: “ Republicans are...cherry picking the few parts of the government they like.”

Just as significant is that the Republicans did not rebut most vigorously that “cherry picking” the things for which the people should and should not pay is precisely, exactly the Congress’ duty, that getting to “pick and choose” what any legislator likes or dislikes is precisely, exactly the way that the US government had always worked and was meant to work. Instead, the Republican Establishment, including prominently The Wall Street Journal, denigrated and ridiculed those Republicans who stood in the Democrats’ way.

Thus the Republican Establishment’s acquiescence to the CR as a method of governance foisted upon America what amounts to a radical departure from the US Constitution and from American history. This Europeanization of American government is far bigger stuff than Obamacare." 


How the Shutdown Europeanized the US Constitution and How to Restore It

Democrats and Republicans, by entering and exiting the 2013 “government shutdown” without regard to America’s traditional Constitutional practices, practically instituted among us the European practice of single “crisis” votes that enable or disable governments. The remedy lies in removing any doubt...

Source: Facebook; [Republican Liberty Caucus] How the Shutdown Europeanized the US Constitution... posted by Dennis Marburger posted on Facebook: Republican Liberty Caucus, Oct 30, 2013: 8:26 AM Reply to this email to comment on this post.
http://www.facebook.com/n/?groups%2FRepublicanLibertyCaucus%2Fpermalink%2F10151755223868269%2F&medium=email&mid=8daf836G2238f8faG0G96&n_m=ntl%40mindspring.com



Comments:

The House GOP leadership is committing suicide by not insisting that each spending bill be separate and voted on individually, only allowing directly related amendments.

An energy bill could cut ethanol back to eliminate it from gasoline and deny funding subsidies for implementing unaffordable alternative energy sources.

Bills funding the Education, Transportation, Interior, EPA, HUD and Labor could include the orderly transfer of authority to the States and halt Agenda 21 implementation.

Bills funding the DOD could separate military foreign aid from a Defense Budget and begin cuts in this foreign aid.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

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