A president has no power to raise or lower taxes. He can propose tax measures or veto them, but since Congress can ignore presidential proposals and override a presidential veto, it has the ultimate taxing power.
The same principle applies to spending. A president cannot spend a dime that Congress does not first appropriate. As such, presidents cannot be held responsible for budget deficits or surpluses. That means that credit for a budget surplus or blame for budget deficits rests on the congressional majority at the time.
Thinking about today’s massive deficits, we might ask: Where in the U.S. Constitution is Congress given the authority to do anything about the economy?
Or, more specifically, where is the Federal Government given the authority to bailout private lending institutions, bailout failing auto companies, and take over the health care industries ?
I’ve searched high and low in Article I, Section 8 and I sure as heck can’t find it.
Of course, I’m probably not using the modern translation.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. – Amendment X – Powers of the States and People. Ratified 12/15/1791.
Texas Governor Rick Perry (R) in his support of HCR 50, a resolution reaffirming Texas’ Tenth Amendment rights has reinvigorated not only the debate over state’s rights but also the ultimate “nuclear” option of a state’s right to secede from the U.S.
On April 9th, Gov. Perry explained his reasoning behind supporting the resolution.
Gov. Rick Perry’s Tenth Amendment Stance: Principle?
Gov. Perry, speaking at a Tea Party event on April 15th went a step further telling the crowd that the day could come where Texas could decide to secede.
“We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we’re a pretty independent lot to boot.”
Christy Hoppe, writing for The Dallas Morning News, calls the notion that Texas has a right to secede a “mythology.”
“The fact is, the treaty under which Texas joined the U.S. provides that it could be divided into five separate states. But it is not empowered to leave the union, a question that the Civil War seems to have settled once and for all.”
Left leaning blogs such as Texas Liberal also agree that the question of secession was “settled” with the Civil War and goes even further stating that Gov. Perry’s statements are “treasonous.”
On further inspection, the idea that individuals on the Left would call the question of secession settled should not be surprising at all. When taken to its ultimate conclusion, the philosophy of the Left is “might makes right.” If a majority of people can be convinced they have the right to pick the pockets of a minority of taxpayers, for example, then by all means. In their collectivist world view, “the majority rules;” individual rights must always take a back seat to the will of the majority.
The question of secession was by no means “settled” by the Civil War (or the War Between the States if you prefer), at least not in a sense which recognized the rule of law. Abraham Lincoln made a choice between upholding the U.S. Constitution and preserving the Union. With his suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, and other civil liberties we normally take for granted, Lincoln chose the latter*. The state’s rights issue was “settled” from the barrel of a gun in a period of U.S. history we now call “Reconstruction.”
Beyond this “settled history” argument, it seems to me that if the federal government violates the Tenth Amendment and ignores the sovereignty of the states, it stands to reason that the states can ignore the dictates of the federal government (which is really all Gov. Perry is trying to do). The Tenth Amendment was a guarantee to those who were concerned about states losing sovereignty to a stronger federal government. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that they had secured their independence form Great Britain, why would they want to surrender sovereignty to a new authority?
Over time, the Tenth Amendment was ignored by the courts and the congress. The aftermath of the Civil War practically changed the term “The United States” from an “are” to an “is.” And with the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, the states lost the ability to be represented at the federal level. For all practical purposes, the “United States of America” could be more accurately referred to as “The United State of America.”
These facts of history do not make the notion of either state’s rights or secession “mythology” by any means. The Declaration of Independence makes the case for “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another…” Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” makes a similar case as does John Locke in his “Two Treatises of Government.” There is no shortage of political theory which supports Gov. Perry’s claim that states (and people for that matter) have the right to seek self determination and dissolve or separate themselves from oppressive government.
Gov. Rick Perry’s Tenth Amendment Stance: Political Pandering?
Gov. Perry’s sudden concern for state’s rights does have me wondering about his motives. As I’ve pointed out above, this erosion of Tenth Amendment rights has been happening since before the text of the amendment’s ink dried. The federal government did not just start undermining state sovereignty when Barack Obama was sworn into office on January 20, 2009.
I can’t help but wonder how concerned Gov. Perry was when his predecessor, George W. Bush, moved from the Texas Governor’s Mansion and into the White House imposing unfunded federal mandates such as No Child Left Behind? On what side of the state’s rights debate did Gov. Perry fall when the Ashcroft/Gonzales Justice Department argued successfully before the Supreme Court that Angel Raich could not use marijuana for her medical conditions pursuant to California law on the theory of interstate commerce**?
Some of Perry’s critics believe that his sudden Tenth Amendment convictions have more to do with political pandering than principle (and they may have a point). Gov. Perry is looking to face Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in the 2010 Republican Primary Governor’s race. What better way to win support than to promote state’s rights at a Tea Party event? Who knows, perhaps with all of the state’s rights and small government rhetoric he’s espousing, small government minded Texans will forget about his executive orders forcing 11 year-old girls to receive HPV vaccinations?
While it is great to hear someone of Gov. Perry’s stature stating that there are limits to federal power, it would be a lot easier for me to accept as genuine if it wasn’t his party that was out of power in Washington.
Orrin Hatch is undoubtedly merely responding to his constituents’ demands with this nonsense. The Utah Utes finished 13-0 last season, with notable wins over Michigan, Oregon State, ranked teams TCU and BYU, and a BCS bowl defeat of Alabama. It’s a pretty impressive resume. They were the only undefeated team in Div I-A (FBS). But they’re not the Champion. Florida, who finished 13-1 (with their sole loss being to Mississippi) is the Champion.
I understand the complaint. If a mid-major team like Utah can have the season they’ve had, beat the teams they beat, and still fall behind a one-loss school from a “major” conference, then no mid-major will ever be crowned Champion. Granted, Florida may have been the best team in college football (as the Patriots were the best team in the NFL in ’07-8 despite not winning Super Bowl XLII), but I don’t think the system for determining a Champion is very fair.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, may be a skinny guy with a high voice. But he’s angrily setting out to tackle the biggest powers in college football, vowing to pound them until they reform the Bowl Championship Series.
He called them out Wednesday, as he and Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wisc. — respectively the top Republican and Democrat on a Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust — released a list of topics that panel plans to consider this year.
A bit buried on Page 4 of an eight-page list, amid somewhat sleep-inducing reading on oil and railroad antitrust, is a nifty paragraph about the BCS.
“The BCS system leaves nearly half of all the teams in college football at a competitive disadvantage when it comes to qualifying for the millions of dollars paid out every year,” their joint statement says.
Then it drops its first unexpected bomb: “The subcommittee will hold hearings to investigate these issues.”
That is followed by a second: “Sen. Hatch will introduce legislation to rectify this situation.”
I realize that Congress believes it has purview over everything that occurs within our borders, but if their “fixes” for other problems are anywhere near as effective as this one will be, I’m not sure anyone will want to watch college football afterwards. I really wish they’d waste their time ruining something else, because I quite enjoy spending fall Saturdays watching one of the few worthwhile sports left.
WASHINGTON — A conservative watchdog group filed a lawsuit Thursday arguing that Hillary Rodham Clinton cannot legally serve as secretary of state, even though she was sworn in last week.
The suit is based on an obscure section of the Constitution on compensation for public officials, the emoluments clause. The clause says no member of Congress can be appointed to a government post if that job’s pay was increased during the lawmaker’s current term.
Clinton was serving in Congress when the secretary of state’s salary was raised to its current level of $191,300. So that Clinton could take the post, Congress last month lowered the salary to $186,600, the level when she began her second Senate term. A similar tactic has been used so that several other members of Congress from both parties could serve in the Cabinet.
Judicial Watch, which has pursued several suits against Clinton and other officials over the years, argues there can be no exceptions to the clause.
The group says that Hillary Clinton is “constitutionally ineligible” to be secretary of state until 2013, when her second Senate term would expire. She resigned from the Senate to take the Cabinet post.
A copy of the lawsuit can be found here, and it’s fairly straightforward.
Judicial Watch is representing a long-time State Department employee who alleges that it he would be damaged by being required to take orders, and act under the direction of, a Secretary of State who is ineligible to serve. Assuming that this is sufficient to get around the inevitable standing issues, the Constitutional argument is fairly straightforward:
Article I Sec. 6, Clause 2 of the Constitution states that a sitting Senator or Representative cannot be appointed to a civil office for which the compensation was increased during the time that they served in the legislature
On three separate occasions since Hillary Clinton began serving her second term in the Senate, the salary for the Secretary of State was increased by Executive Order.
Therefore, by a strict reading of the emoluments clause, Hillary Clinton cannot be Secretary of State until at least 2013.
On the other side of the argument, there is the fact that, prior to the time that she took office at Foggy Bottom, Congress instituted a so-called Saxbe Fix — lowering the salary of the Secretary of State to where it was at the beginning of Clinton’s then-current Senate term. This is the same “solution” that was used when this issue came up in the past, although the last time it was tried Senator Robert Byrd pointed out that the so-called fix didn’t fix anything. (Of course, Saxbe was a Republican, and when Hillary’s nomination came before the Senate, Byrd voted yes)
If the words of the Constitution mean what they say, then it seems fairly clear that Hillary Clinton is Constitutionally ineligible from serving as Secretary of State. Is it a dumb rule ? Probably, just like it’s a dumb rule that someone like Arnold Schwarzenegger couldn’t serve as President of the United States merely because he was born in a foreign country. The way to deal with dumb rules, though, isn’t to ignore them, but to change them via the method that the Constitution provides.
