Trump Shows He Is Shrewd, Cunning, & Crazy Like A Fox

My Head | 3/26/18 | OV

[OneVike]

Trump is smarter than many realize, or want to admit. He may have actually won by signing the bill many of us hate. Follow me.

To begin with, you need to understand that the bill President Trump signed, was NOT a Budget. It was an Omnibus Spending bill. The President is directed by the Constitution to adhere to a Budget that Congress approves. A ‘spending bill’ is not the same as the Federal Budget. This bill is just a another Continuing Resolution to keep the government functioning, but this time for 6 Months.

As such, he is not bound by law to do everything it calls for. We may find out that he only spends $800 Billion instead of the full $1.3 trillion. If so, I can only imagine who will not be getting the money they expected.

Remember, 8 years Obama never once had a budget. Thus he had free reign to spend or not spend the money allocated at his will and when he so desired. We know that Obama spent, or didn’t spend, the money from all those Omnibus Spending Bills. He did whatever he wanted to and Congress didn’t, and couldn't do a thing about it!

After all, what ever happened to all those “shovel ready jobs”? What happened to the “Infrastructure” that Congress appropriated money for? Obama didn’t spend the money on those things, did he? We really don't even have a clue as to what he spent the money on, or who he gave it to. (ISIS maybe?)

He also spent money on things that weren’t appropriated, like all that SWAT Gear and Ammo for all those govt agencies that aren’t supposed to armed to the teeth like like military forces are.

Well truth is, Obama was never bound by a Budget, because Congress never passed one during his 8 years! That’s why he was able to spend money on whatever he wanted to. Or, not spend money on the things he didn’t want to see funded.

An article in Forbes gives some ideas of how Trump can do what I believe he will be doing. How Trump Could Circumvent Congress On Spending By Impounding Funds This article shows the leeway Trump has at his disposal to defer spending available funds for limited amounts of time, depending on the program. Some observers expect Trump officials to rely heavily on such deferrals.

Most budget experts will tell you that a President seeking to spend less will find plenty of room to maneuver in the language used in an authorization or appropriations bill. Who knows, we could learn later this year that Trump spent less than half of what Congress authorized him to spend. Nice to have a frugal President for a change, ain't it?

Another article back in August of 2017, by Politico, had also pointed out that Trump could ignore Congress on spending. In it a Senate aide predicted that lawmakers will pay extra attention to whether a bill uses words such as “may,” “should” or “shall” — each of which gives an administration different degrees of flexibility in terms of how money is spent. Fears grow that Trump could ignore Congress on spending

The executive branch also “can slow walk things. It can propose reprogramming. It can propose all sorts of things that won’t provoke a legal crisis,” the Senate aide added.

As for funding Planned parenthood, the Hyde Amendment specifically prohibits federal money being spent on abortion in other than certain specific circumstances? Trump could just tell PP, "Sorry Charley, but the Hyde Amendment stops me from giving you money." Or at least force PP to prove any money spent meets the requirements? Even then, he slow walk the money until he gets the legislation he wants to kill the funding permanently.

Another point is that during the press conference, Trump emphatically said that the border security is part of our national defense. trump could very well use the money he got for defense to build the wall. Thus ensuring the defense of America by stopping the invaders from freely entering the country.

Looks like Trump played Congress like a fiddle. He used the same tactic's the last administration used used. When was the last time we saw a Republican president fight the left by using the same tactics they use? Well Trump has been doing it since he first said he was running for President. He did so in the election in how he treated his opponent, and now he is doing so in how he runs the government.

Trump is playing 3D chess while everyone is still playing checkers. Also, Trump showed the world the that the Democrats and Republican Establishment could care less about DACA, because in a bill that seemed to have given away Ft Knox, there is nothing about DACA. They just lost a major election talking point by not making sure it was included. Plus, the Democrats cannot go back to their communist districts and blame the DACA problem on Trump and Republicans, because more Democrats voted for the final bill than Republicans did.

So in a nut shell, Congressional Swampers screwed themselves for not approving a budget and Trump is getting exactly what he wants, because he signed an Omnibus spending bill that does not have the shackles a Budget has. Plus he got $700 Billion this year and $716 Billion next year. That includes the largest pay raise in history for our soldiers.

Yup, crazy like a fox that man is, crazy like a fox.

A Christian's Worldview"

[wny]

you have Kool-Aide on your chin.

[OneVike]

LOL,

We can do it cheaply. Just use the same schematics that the Vietcong used for all those camouflaged ditches full of spears during the Vietnam War. We can make the illegals sitting imprison to dig the ditches and sharpen the spears from wood.

See, we can get it dome for free.

Oh I'm sorry, that was the Vietnam conflict not war, wasn't it?

[Leep]

Someone should have hit him with a shoe, shot out of a bazooka, at former king obamatard.

[XEHRpa]

I’ve also seen libs laughing that Trump may have to resort to this fence design (ha-ha, the mighty Trump Wall), but what they don’t appreciate is that, if it works as intended, it is a complete win for Trump. Doesn’t matter what it looks like, if it keeps em out.

They laugh about tunnels, but fail to appreciate that tunnels take time to dig, and we have ground penetrating radar, to locate such things. Who do you think will get the last laugh. Let them spend the time & resources and still not make it under the fence.

[Quality_Not_Quantity]

There was a bit on ‘Whose Line is It Anyway’ where one of the players turned down a drink in a bar by saying, “I can’t. Can’t you see that I’m a miner?” (while wearing a miner’s hardhat complete with flashlight.)

[OneVike]

Once they change the conditions it makes it a new one without the same teeth as the old one.

There are over 1200 pages full of items that changed to conditions of the last appropriations bill. So what Fakipedia states is not applicable here.

[Lurkinanloomin]

The steel beams driven into the ground provides some defense against tunnels as well.
As long as something gets put up, I don’t care what it looks like, as long as it is effective.
12 foot chain link is not.

[Hawthorn]

>> Fencing is all that can be built <<

Double fencing, with a road between the two fences, is exactly what the Israelis have used to protect their border against terrorist infiltration. And this system has worked extremely well.

Would also be better than a “wall” because it would allow the Border Patrol to have a full view of what’s happening on the other side, whereas a wall would block the view.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

They didnt say he cant use a hybrid of 2 or more prototypes. Legaleese language can hurt you as mush as help you. So if Trump construvts the wall using the bottom design of one and the top design of another, then he has not used any one full prototype as banned by the omnibus.

[Amendment10]

Thank you for posting OneVike.

With all due respect, please consider the following critique of your article.

"As such, he is not bound by law to do everything it calls for."

Noting that I watched the March 23, 1 PM EST Trump critique of the pile of paper that he said he would sign, please consider this. If Trump had discretionary control of the funding of the bill, then why did he give the impression that he had a noose around his neck (imo), assuring everybody that he will never sign another bill like that?

And do the “winning” Democrats actually not care if recipients of the unconstitutional domestic funding in the bill never got their funds?

And if the Democrats don’t care, then Trump’s 1 PM lament seemed like a pro-Democratic dog-and-pony show in an election year imo.

Note that the way that the corrupt federal fiscal budget is set up, a new president, for his first year in office, has to deal with a budget signed by his predecessor. So Pres. Trump and everybody else was arguably still under Obama’s thumb for 2017 federal fiscal year.

Patriots need to exercise their voting power so that one of the first jobs of a new president is to sign a new fiscal budget.

Also, here’s the Constitution’s mandatory transparency clause for the federal budget.

"Article I, Section 9, Clause 7: No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time [emphasis added]."

Again, thanks for posting, but dust not settled on this issue.

Insights welcome.

[Hawthorn]

>> This is total nonsense and has been circulating for a few days now <<

Yeah, but say that and you’ll be seriously flamed.

[Popman]

Lol...I’ll bite..

On what basis can Congress impeach Trump on misappropriation of funds?

He has legal authority by Congress to spend as he sees fit.

[XEHRpa]

> why did he give the impression that he had a noose around his neck (imo), assuring everybody that he will never sign another bill like that?

Perhaps because, if the ‘cRats realize they’ve been played, they will never send him such a bill again. Thus, he indeed my never sign such a bill again. The Constitution calls for the primary job of Congress to appropriate and authorize project funding. They have failed to complete that basic task of their job description for the past decade.

[Kickass Conservative]

What happened to the Two Year Budget deal from late last year?

I thought that was passed so we wouldn’t have to deal with crap like this. Maybe I just imagined it.

[proust]

Facts don’t matter if chuckie doesn’t get his tunnel. Trump signed an agreeement on where money will go. He’s very aware that he doesn’t have nearly the leeway Obama had. He’s not one to renege on agreements, which explains why he looked like he ate a crap sandwich on Friday.

[ClearCase_guy]

If Trump had discretionary control of the funding of the bill, then why did he give the impression that he had a noose around his neck (imo)

Perhaps I put too much stock in 3D chess, but the media and the Democrats spent a fair amount of time crowing about how They Won. This was a great bill. The Progressives made it happen! This wasn't Trump's bill! This was the Schumer and Pelosi! As they said, they can get more done while in the Minority than they could when in the Majority!

And here we are, with Trump possibly getting exactly what he wanted and the Democrats getting possibly nothing.

Will they now declare defeat? Will they say that Trump outsmarted them? Is "their" appropriations bill a bad bill? I say that Trump snookered them twice -- he got the bill, and he got them to go on TV and praise the bill as the best thing ever. Because, you know, he looked so defeated when he signed it.

assuring everybody that he will never sign another bill like that

The POTUS should sign budget bills. Not appropriations bills. Trump knows that. I think he just won a nice victory with this appropriations bill, and I think he is ALSO saying: we'll be doing budget bills from here on out. We need to do it the right way. And let me show you why ... [because they just handed him 1.3T to play with].

[Hawthorn]

>> continuing resolution continues the pre-existing appropriations <<

Well yes, but us slow thinkers need to be educated in the fact that the Omnibus Bill is not actually a budget — according to the constitutional experts around here.

These brilliant folks have magically found the word “budget” somewhere in the Constitution, and therefore they can prove to us that the POTUS is now empowered to spend defense appropriations on a border wall. The logic follows as night follows day.

Waste of bandwidth? We report, you decide.

[proust]

To clarify, you can impeach a ham sandwich if you have the votes. If he deviates in this spending, the uniparty will revolt. If they have the votes to pass this crap, those same votes can impeach.

[waterhill]

LOL!

[OneVike]

Good point.