Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Constitutionally Illiterate

Displaying their ignorance of the U.S. Constitution, Democratic bigwigs are excoriating Republican members of the House of Representatives for attaching a condition — no Obamacare — to a stopgap bill to fund the government. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called it “extortion.” Rep. Steny Hoyer labeled it “hostage-taking.” Rep. Nancy Pelosi termed it “legislative arson.”
In truth, what the House Republicans are doing is not blackmail. It’s checks and balances in action. Congress has always had the power to attach almost any condition — including repealing or changing a law — to appropriations. The framers wrote the Constitution that way for good reason.
The nation’s first plan of government, the Articles of Confederation, had no president. When the framers gathered in 1787 to write a second, more effective plan, they reluctantly created the presidency. Reluctantly, because the founders worried that a president would accumulate power and spend flagrantly as they had seen the despotic kings of Europe do.

http://spectator.org/archives/2013/09/25/constitutionally-illiterate 

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