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The Law & Economy Spectator
Rex Quondam, Rex Futurus
A new constitution for a 21st century empire.
(Page 2 of 2)
The President’s Spending Power
THE PRINCIPLE that taxing and spending authority is vested in the legislature was one of Parliament’s hard-won victories in 17th-century English constitutional history. In recent years, however, the power of the purse has passed to the president, particularly under the 2009 stimulus package, which appropriated $787 billion and was the source for the ill-fated $500 million Solyndra loan guarantee. The Solyndra guarantee was not made out of the blue, but only after frequent meetings between Solyndra executives and White House officials, who touted the project as an example of the president’s support for green energy.
The 2009 GM-Chrysler bailout was an especially remarkable example of the presidential spending power. More than $80 billion in TARP funds was used to bail out the two car manufacturers, even though this unconstitutionally contravened the appropriation statute. Congress had authorized that the TARP monies be spent on “financial institutions” such as banks, savings and loan associations, credit unions, and insurance companies—not on car companies. Bush had sought approval for the automobile bailout from Congress but had failed to overcome a Senate filibuster
The New Monarchists
ONE MIGHT HAVE EXPECTED the media to take notice of the expansion of presidential power under Obama. With far less cause, they were quick to decry the “imperial presidency” of George W. Bush. Now, however, the earnest republicans in the media and the Democrats have discovered the joys of monarchism. They move seamlessly from the party to the media (George Stephanopoulos, Chris Matthews), from the White House to a lucrative consultancy job (David Axelrod), from the Justice Department to a $4-million-a-year job at Fannie Mae (Jamie Gorelick). They are the pampered fops at the feet of the king, presidential courtiers who will not have to wait for the next world to see their loyalty rewarded. Their motto is “We look after our own!”
For the monarch’s loyal subjects: power, preferment, privilege; for the misguided and disloyal subjects: the full force of the law. We have given you Chevy Volts, and you persist in driving Ford Explorers? Very well, our EPA will mandate fuel-efficiency standards to take away the keys to your gas guzzlers. Your every thought and word reveals deep-seated racism? Very well, we will audit you and sue you and subject you to all the scorn that the media can direct your way. Lèse-majesté has no place under the fourth American constitution, any more than it did under the first.
And what of Congress? Its inspectors general have been taught not to make waves, lest they be fired in the humiliating manner that Gerald Walpin was dismissed when he questioned payoffs to the president’s cronies. Congressmen still control the purse strings, but in a showdown with the president can be expected to blink. They do serve one purpose, however. Without them, how could we have a State of the Union Address?
About the Author
F.H. Buckley is Foundation Professor at the George Mason University School of Law.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (36) | Leave a comment
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aware| 10.25.12 @ 6:21AM
"The election next month is a choice between two very different ideas about the role of the state..."
Now that is a hoot! The only "difference" is who runs the organized theft/murder fraud, not the fraud itself.
Is it possible for this "(s)election" farce to get any more farcical than when neocons pretend to fear the State, a "fear" that always subsides when they win?
drudge ette obama| 10.25.12 @ 6:33AM
Silly comment, Aware. Some states should be feared more than others, don't you agree? Or have you a relativism argument to make here?
aware| 10.25.12 @ 6:45AM
You obviously don't understand the pathology of the State. It is organized for violence period. All forms of the State are at differing points on the same road to Leviathan.
Or maybe you can provide an example of one that got smaller over time?
drudge ette obama| 10.25.12 @ 6:56AM
May I please change my comment to state that your comment is not silly, it is more psychologically twisted than silly. I apologize for the erroneous description.
By the way, are there Burger Kings on the road to Leviathan?
Von Mises Jr| 10.25.12 @ 8:20AM
aware is about as aware as a teenage boy who just found out about his penis.
Quartermaster| 10.25.12 @ 12:28PM
Perhaps you bunch of idiots would like to actually point out where Aware is wrong. Instead you act just like the left does. mainly, that's because you are left of center yourself, reflecting teh shift that has taken place over the last 80 years.
The GOP is about where the Dems were CA 1935. The Dems are juust Commies these days.
Zeppo| 10.25.12 @ 12:56PM
aware is right. Among our political elites, there is no fundamental disagreement with the assumption of a managerial, redistributive state that rules over us and "fixes" our society. The Dems push the limits and the GOP consolidates the results. But yes, I will still vote for Tweedledee over Tweedledum.
aware| 10.25.12 @ 4:40PM
I always love the intellectual arguments of a neocon, Jr. And always some sexual connotations(usually sodomite related) to boot.
Change your handle, Mises is rolling in his grave.
drudge ette obama| 10.25.12 @ 6:30AM
If we had an educated electorate, perhaps an explanation, such as you have given, would curb Obama's abusive and unconstitutional power reach, but we don't have an educated electorate.
And we don't have a press corps that sees fit to disseminate the truth about what Obama and his crew have done. So we are screwed, to put it bluntly.
Had President Bush issued an executive order that he would not enforce the Community Reinvestment Act or issued an executive order that nonprofits would lose their 501(c)(3) status if they provided any form of birth control or abortion, even if by subcontracted services, then there would be outrage, led by the front page press.
This power grabbing technique works both ways. Let's hope that it doesn't become a habit - but absolute power has a way of corrupting absolutely..
Jack in Wi| 10.25.12 @ 6:40AM
This is really laughable. Obama is only carrying on the tradition started with Lincoln who shredded the Constitution and replaced it with a strong Central government. After the Civil war small government made a comback to some degree. Then it has been downhill as Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Truman, Kennedy Johnson, Nixon, The Bush's, Clinton, and Obama have all grown the Presidency into an imperial institution with few limits on it's power. There is no basic difference betwen Romney and Obama on most issues. There foreign policy is the same as G. W. Bush. Romney is running as the more competent guy who will carry on most of the same policies. I am voting for Romney just because I can't stand the sight of Obama anymore. I also have hope that someone new might finally get something right. It is a faint hope, but he can't be any worse then Obama.
aware| 10.25.12 @ 6:48AM
To vote for Romney is to accept the plate full of crap the Shadow Elite has determined for you. And it will encourage even worse crap to come.
Jack in Wi| 10.25.12 @ 7:59AM
To throw a guy out of office after one term is a very good thing to do. It might become a habit. Obama has been a disaster. Wisconsin is a battle ground state. I want Obama gone and have some hope that Romney will be better. If he is as bad as Obama he will be thrown out too. Besides If Obama is re-elected he will make this country into Hugo Chavez's Venezula. We will never get rid of the Chicago Machine. Obama has to go now.
aware| 10.25.12 @ 4:37PM
Your hope will be futile. Nothing can stop what is coming.
Herald7| 10.29.12 @ 11:22PM
But God, humanist.
Tom Kyba| 10.25.12 @ 12:46PM
Guess I'd better get that landing pad ready for the black helicopter. Sheesh!
aware| 10.25.12 @ 4:35PM
I'd say you should just keep thinking what you're suppose to, conformist. And when they tell you to go to the Super Dome so they can "care" for you, go.
Appleby| 10.25.12 @ 7:13AM
The world is now laden with blind eyed robots with things jammed in their ears and the volume jacked up to Eleven, chanting "Not Listening Not Listening Not Listening" until the fire trucks, trains and SUVs of life run them down or they fall on the subway tracks and are crushed. We are shouting warnings at people who have neither desire nor intention when it comes to stepping out of the way. This is a generation who thinks if it yells "I DON'T BELIEVE IN GRAVITY!" that they can step off a 90 story building and they will not die. I am filled with morbid curiosity as to what will happen when Mom and Dad have retired and these Nimrods are entrusted with the keys. I have the impression that one EMP would turn them into an ant hill without a Queen. Bunker down. It's about to get dangerous out there.
drudge ette obama| 10.25.12 @ 7:51AM
Appleby, the answer to your question is the same answer to the same question to that the 1960s clear-thinkers asked. Ex-hippies, anti-establishment-types have some power and clear-thinkers also have power. It's already dangerous out there. Perhaps there will be a number of them that do step off that building to stem the tide.
MelvinNC| 10.25.12 @ 7:29AM
All comments are all well and good, and I must admit have had made similar observations in one way or another.
So, with everything being as it may, and all of conventional thought on this matter what we we do as a Nation, as a people, and as a society to correct this current tack we are on, or do we capitulate, and erase over two hundred years of American exceptionalism and return back to our European roots style of governance?
I think deep in the fringes of our minds we know what is going to eventually happen with this Nation, short term wise, but readily do not admit this to others.
"Veni, vidi, vici" The question is, who is the, the Julius Caesar that will conquer us?
drudge ette obama| 10.25.12 @ 7:54AM
I think it will be technology that ultimately controls, so et tu, Brutus will be whomever controls technology - whether a consortium of individuals or several people at the helms of their companies/government agencies.
People will have to turn off technology to be free. The next 100 years will be very interesting and I can't begin to even contemplate what it will be like.
MelvinNC| 10.25.12 @ 2:27PM
Bingo sister, the misses says the very same thing.
Dave Williams| 10.25.12 @ 2:10PM
Ohblahblah IS that very guy, and is to be feared on that account alone.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 10.25.12 @ 8:16AM
F.H. Buckley makes a good case against the Congress as well as the President.
Rivers of money have poured through D.C. drowning honest people who have attempted to speak out against it.
It is a sliding scale of moral relativism where promises made are impossible to keep, but the politicians keep the lies and the promises coming.
Obama is the perfect culture pop culture President appearing with Jay Leno and on The View while mouth meaningless pop culture statements.
In the meantime behind the scenes, he takes a sledge hammer to the U.S. Constitution. But he's not alone. This has been a long term process aided and abetted by the Supreme Court and the U.S. Congress.
It appears to be accelerating.
Von Mises Jr| 10.25.12 @ 8:32AM
This is one of the finest articles I have read in a long time, Mr. Buckley. I am blue in the face trying to explain this to anyone who will listen.
But in actuality, it is even worse. Kings strived to be benevolent rulers caring for their people.
In 1215, King John signed the Magna Charta rather than have a sword sever his neck. Charles I was tried for treason and executed. Later, his son James II fled to France during the Glorious Revolution. A century later, Louis the XVI was beheaded mostly for the sins of his grandfather and father.
This rise of Obama is not similar to the Reign of Kings. It is more like the rise of a dictator such as Lenin, Hitler, Mao and Castro. This is why we should be much more concerned and vigilant in ridding the nation of this tyrant and despot. This is what leads to totalitarianism.
MelvinNC| 10.25.12 @ 9:36AM
You are correct. Even this Country is not immune.
Al Adab| 10.25.12 @ 9:33AM
"When any government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it..."
Petronius| 10.25.12 @ 10:18AM
We will soon descend into battle of all against all with the final scene similar to the opening scene of the bone banging simians in 2001. But this time, none will remain to play or hear The Blue Danube. Such is the destiny of this government of the Trash, by the Trash, and for the Trash.
Houdini| 10.25.12 @ 10:53AM
Time to take ou the trash.
Houdini| 10.25.12 @ 10:54AM
Sorry...out.
Appleby| 10.25.12 @ 10:55AM
And if you want an answer to the query posed by the sneering science majors "Who needs Classical Liberal Education anyway?" Here it is, writ large. The "Millenials" can't solve the problems because they can't even recognize the problems..it's all right there in "Brave New World" -- but the generation of permanent infants that Brave New World has spawned cannot read it, and if they can read it, they cannot understand it...because in a world without a common grounding in literature, arts, music, history and rhetoric, it is impossible TO understand it. Which of course was what Mustapha Mond et al. was aiming for all along, wasn't it?
Thom| 10.25.12 @ 5:34PM
If Hitler and Stalin were on the ballot today, one would win regardless of their reputations simply because those are the choices offered. Between the two a rational case can be made for each depending on what you what from "government" but the bulk of the Democrat Party would vote for the one that killed several times what the other one did of his own people and spread misery far and wide while the other is "infamous" through 65 years of a one sided conversation.
Thom| 10.25.12 @ 5:35PM
In the 1932 parliamentarian election in Germany, the Communists, the Socialists and the Nazis got about 72% of the vote. What these collectives have in common make academic nitwit's heads explode when you point out their end games are essentially the same yet when given a choice of those three the German people favored the "fascist" or Crony Capitalist solution by a bit. Pretty much "fascism" will be voted into power because it rewards unequal output while the other "socialisms" have to lie their way into power where a Dumbmocracy is operating on the promise of egalitarianism. This is all reflective of the baser Human nature in mankind that Republics were instituted to resist. The Founders, being well read and educated men as opposed to what passes for that today pondered how to not make their sacrifices in vain thus what Franklin spoke to at the end of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 was not unique to just his thinking. Mankind has a terrible record of self-rule and we are living but one example of what history has shown countless times to be "an enduring weakness of democracies' lack of accountability". When there is no accountability in government there is no rule of law.
Thom| 10.25.12 @ 5:35PM
As I remember, an academic nitwit recently wrote that the war over moral relativism was over (and won) and Conservatives could move on .... Wrong, at the center of all our social and fiscal problems you will find an institutionalized dept of government who's function in life is to make sure enumerated words in the Constitution don't mean anything at all ..... Sooner or later the two polar opposites in our society are going to dispense with elections with ballots and the real meaning of Democracy is going to present itself in all the ugly detail sane people have known it for going back thousands of years. I'll be happy to not be around when the "king" returns.
Pecos Pete| 10.25.12 @ 8:13PM
Thom: Excellent comments.
Dodgy Geezer| 10.25.12 @ 6:12PM
The Scots got away from England in the 1300s, and it took England 400 years to get them back, by a mixture of economic pressure and clever marriage alliances.
I don't think the US is quite as destitute as Scotland was with the failure of the Darien project in 1700. Yet. But it's starting to go that way. Give it another 100 years or so of state spending, and it'll be ready to be reconnected.
You will know that it's close to that time when English princesses are sent over to marry into the American political classes......
Timely Renewed | 10.25.12 @ 7:39PM
As Professor Buckley points out, we have so abandoned the original constitutional framework that we now live under essentially a new constitution based on the imperial presidency, aided and abetted by an imperial judiciary. Short of revolution (Jefferson's solution) our only chance of restoring something of the original Constitution is to resort to the ultimate power the Framer gave us - constitutional amendments restating and re-affirming the Constitution's original limits. However, to accomplish this, we must first reform the amendment process so that constitutional amendments can be initiated without having to go through either a Congress dependent on the current system or the untried and unworkable mechanism of a new constitutional convention. See http://www.are-we-the-people.org.