Defunding the Deciders
Wed Jan 17, 2007 at 06:31:57 AM PDT
President Bush has given Congress a conundrum: how to exert oversight on a President who has publicly declared that he does not have to listen to Congress on matters of national security. Congress can cut off funding he says, but he as the "unitary executive" can reprogram funds from other places because it his responsibility and he knows best how to protect the American people -- and Congress doesn't. So what does the power of the purse actually mean? Does not the President control the Department of the Treasury, and cannot he instruct them to keep on writing checks for whatever he wants them to as long as it falls under the banner of national security? The other side of this dilemma is the fact that cutting funds for troops already deployed into a war zone puts the lives of those troops in danger, and the President will use that fact to argue that the Congress is not only against the troops but is actually harming the people they are trying to protect from his insanity.
So what is to be done?
My proposal: De-fund the deciders, not the troops. But how?
The Congress, has under the Constitution, the power of the purse for all expenditures. Presumably, that means that Congress can revoke, rescind, or suspend funding already authorized. In addition, the state of the 2007 budget (the one that authorized spending beginning October 1, 2006) has not completely passed the Congress. But the Defense budget did pass, jammed through by the Republican Congress.
In the interim, there was an election whose outcome primarily turned on national security policy. By all logic, that Defense authorization should be revisited. But Bush's DC is a land of mirrors, devoid of all logic. Besides, the people carrying out the actions under this bill are not the ones making the decisions.
Congress can, however, revoke the funds for the Office of the President and the Office of the Vice President. Congress can revoke funding of offices that are political appointees of the President. These people don't have to stop work; they can work for free like a lot of ordinary Americans already do.
Here is the scenario:
Congress revokes the Iraq War Resolution and cuts funding after 180 days. Should be able to get the troops out in the same time it took to get them positioned before the war, shouldn't. The Congress authorizes and instructs the President to withdraw the troops to Turkey and Kuwait. The Congress revokes funding for 4/5 of the naval operations in the Persian Gulf unless those operations are to transport troops and equipment out of the Middle East. The Congress revokes authorization for funding of National Guard stationed outside of the US and instructs the President to bring them home immediately. The Congress revokes authorization for expenditures for private security contractors operating in Iraq and forbids reprogramming of funds to keep them there. The Congress forbids expenditures for the construction permanent military bases and for the new embassy in Iraq. The Congress authorizes expenditures in Iraq for only one purpose--to bring the troops home in 180 days.
Of course, Bush will dodge this. So the Congress, after 10 days of inaction or after Bush publicly or privately refuses to carry out their instructions, revokes the authority of the President to expend funds (including salary, benefits, travel, office operations) for Presidential appointees (including advisers) at the White House and in the Vice President's office who advise on foreign policy and national security issues. The Congress instructs the President to give any civil service employees displaced by this move paid leave until further notice. And the reassignment to other duty without loss of pay or benefits of any uniformed military personnel assigned to these offices. Of course, Bush just moves these functions to State and Defense.
So after a second 10 days of inaction, moves of Presidential appointees to other departments, or Bush publicly or privately refusing to carry out their instructions, the Congress revokes all expenditures at the Office of the President and the Office of the Vice President, with the same hold harmless provisions for the civil service employees and uniformed military assigned there. And the Congress revokes authorization of expenditures to the Office of the Secretary of State, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the National Security Agency, with the same hold harmles provisions for civil services employees and the uniformed military assigned there. And Bush just hides these functions somewhere else.
If after 45 days, Bush still is recalcitrant, the Congress revokes the authorization to spend funds for salary, benefits, travel, or expenses of any appointee of the President, appointed after February 1, 2001. And authorizes the senior civil service executive or uniformed military officer in the organization to act as an interim replacement for these appointees. The Congress immunizes whistleblowers who report to the GAO proven instances of when this instruction of the Congress is not being carried out and forbids under the law of fraud any Presidential appointee instructing any civil service employee or uniformed military personnel to expend funds on activities forbidden by the Congress. And Congress immediately passes bills of impeachment of the President, Vice President, Attorney General, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Director of National Intelligence, and Director of the National Security Agency. And the Senate immediately considers convictions under those impeachment procedings.
Should the Supreme Court intervene to prevent the Congress from exerting its Constitutional authority to control the expenditures of the United States Government, the Congress prepares and debates bills of impeachment for the three remaining justices who ruled for Bush in Bush v. Gore, bringing forward evidence that the case was wrongly and politically decided because a full count was known to have shown Al Gore the winner. The Senate considers conviction and removal from office. The vacancies are not replaced until the next President takes office.
Should the Supreme Court continue to intervene to prevent the Congress from exerting its Constitutional authority to control expenditures, the two Supreme Court appointees shall be examined as illegitimate appointees of an unelected President as result of fraudulently conducted elections in Ohio in 2004. And this opens the investigation of the 2004 election.
There is now a Constitutional crisis. The question is whether the Constitution provides an adequate means of dealing with it. This diary argues that it does.
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