Posted on 07/20/2014 5:52:16 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
A leftover from yesterday via CNS but a fine note on which to end the week. There are three ways the House could punish Obama the next time he decides he wants to rewrite a statutory deadline for ObamaCare or unilaterally declare war in the Middle East or amnestize a few million illegals.
They could impeach him, of course, but that’ll go nowhere in the Senate and will provoke a nasty public backlash against the GOP. That option is too hot. They could do what Boehner’s actually doing right now, suing Obama on separation-of-powers grounds, but most legal experts think the lawsuit is doomed either because the House lacks standing or because courts don’t want to meddle in an executive/legislative scrap. That option is too cold. The third option is to simply cut off his funding.
If he wants to continue making law via executive edict, that’s fine; next time he comes looking for appropriations to run the government, Boehner can laugh in his face and tell him to get the money from Harry Reid. Under the circumstances, the power of the purse would operate as the impeachment process in reverse: Reid and the Senate could do whatever they like on funding, but their bills would be DOA in the House. No money for Uncle Sugar until Obama agrees to follow the law as written.
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
They just did it to the IRS.
Yes, the House did, but only for ‘enforcement’.
Now the Senate has to go along and it has to survive a Presidential veto. Good luck.
I did hear something about the Senate having input on said purse, because I was surprised to learn it, but the point you made on the HOR passing a partial cut to the IRS is a good one.
I’m confused about what the defunding abilities really are as to and where they apply.
I see your reply at 22.
Pretty amazing Allahpundit doesn’t seem any more aware than I was, that “power” is not given to the HOR over the dang purse.
Check the Constitution carefully. The House unilateral power of the purse is *raising revenue*, not spending.
> “Pretty amazing Allahpundit doesn’t seem any more aware than I was, that “power” is not given to the HOR over the dang purse.”
Power is and isn’t. Congress funds government these days by ‘Continuing Resolution’. These CRs need to be renewed. If the House agrees too renew some funding but refuses to renew other, that is power of the purse. The problem is that Boehner never follows through in using this power.
What jjotto said is that once funded, it cannot be defunded until the CR is up for renewal. Boehner made sure the current CR is not up for renewal until after the elections this Fall.
—yep—many posters seem to have forgotten what they should have learned in high school “Civics”—that Congress consists of two houses and there is a president with a veto power-—
The oompah-loompah would rather cry.
Republicans are wimps in sheeps clothing.
Short answer: NO.
Slightly longer answer: Are you kidding?
Long answer: This is spineless Boehner we’re talking about, right?
Impeachment should go straight from the House to the Supremes. Is that political? Just make sure the V.P. is qualified.
Obama got what he wanted from th ussc with obmamacare. He could dodge conviction in the ussc as well.
>>I believe almost all department funding is written into law for multiple years. <<
No, Each year budgets are supposed to be presented and voted upon by both the Senate and the House. Some funding might be built in via directed taxes like the highway fund, for instance, but even that is usually spent as directed by annual budgets.
The problem is political. The reason we keep having Continuing Resolutions (CR) is that the Senate won’t take up individual spending bills. Unless they see a CR they like, i.e., one that continues current spending levels which were dramatically raised to get through the 2009 recession, they just shut down the government, knowing that the MSM and Obama will succeed in blaming the GOP for the shutdown.
Boehner does understand this, which is why he went for the sequester deal. Obama didn’t believe the GOP would stomach the military cuts included in the sequester, but he was outfoxed by the GOP and as a result he’s now taking credit for an improving budget, due to the sequester actually being implemented (against his wishes.) Such is politics.
But, if the Senate goes GOP the game changes dramatically. Then, individual departmental budgets can be passed, and within those departmental budgets, individual line items can be budgeted. Furthermore, the GOP can determine the order the departmental budgets are taken up and can even leave some line items for later.
For example, the budget for the Treasury Department could be taken up, but the IRS line items within Treasury could be left for later, except for essential tax collection efforts. The enforcement budget, which has been severely abused, could be left for later, and possibly severely curtailed, i.e., no more bonuses, and a lot of jobs curtailed. In other words, the GOP could use the budget to punish misbehavior, and encourage good behavior.
One obvious benefit of going line by line is that a lot of programs would be trashed since a GOP-led Congress wouldn’t fund them at all. Hopefully the federal Department of Education would be one of them. The power of the purse will only really come into play if the GOP takes the Senate, but then it could prove extremely useful, and powerful.
Of course, the wrinkle here is that Obama could just veto everything. But if he did the MSM would have a harder time painting the GOP as the reason the government is shut down, especially if they send him budgets for uncontroversial, and/or essential departments, and line items within those departments, first.
As an example of this, fund the forest service fire prevention services at normal levels. Let Obama take the heat for vetoing it as the west burns. The only reason there’d be no funding is because of his veto. Furthermore, Congress would almost certainly override such a veto, especially if fires were burning.
Incidentally, way, way, way, down the list would be funding for Valerie Jarrett’s secret service detail, or any other perks of her office.
Except the senate and the whitehouse would “insist” on an omnibus spending bill. No single appropriations are allowed.
Nothing will get done until after January. And even then Obama will just veto everything that comes his way.
Nothing will change until something changes.
Thx, guys, very much.
Adding to what I said earlier, Harry Reid has not allowed the Senate to vote on hardly anything, to avoid letting the GOP bring up amendments that would pin down how individual Dem Senators voted.
That would end. As individual spending bills went through both the House and the Senate, Democrats would be forced to vote on many issues that they currently don’t want to vote on, putting them on the record as opposing issues that their constituents favor, or forcing them to align with their constituents.
This, alone, would illustrate the tremendous shift to the far left that the Democrat leadership, including most of its Senators, has undergone over the past decade or so. It’s my belief that the Democratic leadership is so far to the left of the average American that the party won’t survive such exposure unless it modifies many of its current stances.
He has shown his answer to this question many times. He has no intention of challenging Obama in any meaningful way.
The question being clarified is whether the House can act unilaterally. It can’t as regards spending, which is contrary to what the author of the article seems to imply.
To paraphrase General Patton, I’d rather have the Democrats in front of us than the Republicans behind us. lol
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