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Jonah Goldberg and Charlie Cooke are not pleased
Charlie and Jonah are not pleased with Trump’s decision to declare a national emergency in order to get the border wall built. Charlie complains that it is wrong to ask Congress and then ignore their answer. It seems contradictory and out of order to him. But there is nothing wrong with seeking consensus even when consensus is not required by law.
I permit my wife to charge things to our credit account even when I disagree with its purpose – but things go more smoothly when we discuss it ahead of time. I do not withdraw the privilege already granted to her just because I disagree with a purchase that represents a small fraction of our spending. If she were to buy a leopard-print couch for the living room at a cost of a month’s pay – that’s a problem. If I agree to her getting a manicure at the nail salon and she splurges on leopard-spot fingernails — happy wife, happy life.
The border wall spending is less than 0.14% of our annual spending. It is money already allocated to be spent. Congress refused to allocate more (a shame — but that’s a consequence of the 2018 election). It did not explicitly withdraw the pre-allocated funds, however. Nor did it repeal Presidential authority to declare a national emergency.
Jonah calls Trump’s action “horrifying.” There is nothing horrifying about this. Just because he never bothered to notice this Presidential power until Trump attempted to use it for a controversial purpose does not make this existing authority horrifying. It’s the law. He has exercised it in accordance with the way statutes are written (or the courts will say otherwise). It’s a power presidents were given.
Trump is not a second-class President. He does not have less power than previous Presidents, and your particular lack of confidence in the current President does not change his power to exercise these powers.
And the big difference between this and Obama’s unconstitutional DAPA and DACA programs, Obama lacked statutory authority. In the case of DAPA, the courts said so explicitly.
There is a big difference between passing a law by Presidential order and repurposing allocated funds – funds allocated by Congressional majority – by dint of powers granted to him by Congressional majority.
President Trump is not legislating in this case and is not allocating funds.
Moreover, we have a mechanism for Congress to override Trump’s emergency declaration. If Trump is overridden by Congressional supermajorities and still attempts to repurpose the funds, then we will have a problem.
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The best argument runs as follows:
Trump is charged with securing the border, as he is head of the Executive branch and runs the border control people. As a limited government conservative, I see securing our national borders as one of the few jobs the Federal government should have complete control over.
Trump was elected, in part, to secure the border.
Trump asked for a pittance (by comparison) in funding to extend the existing physical barrier between the US and Mexico.
A recalcitrant congress, led by bitter old white people, refused on the grounds that they don’t like him, and anyway #TheRussians!
The refused to budge an inch. So they pushed Trump in to a position where he had to take matters into his own hands. He has the right and responsibility to declare national emergencies. He has the right and responsibility to divert funds on an emergent basis to deal with said emergencies. He used a mechanism in place to do what he thinks needs doing.
And why? Because Congress has, for decades, refused to do anything about it.
My point is that this isn’t actually expansion of executive power. It’s use of executive power granted by Congress in the 70’s. What you think is a novel use, I think is statutory use.
Is this delegation of power a good idea? I never claimed that. I didn’t favor President Trump going this route. I do favor Congress being a bit more explict or revoking this power altogether. In the context of this discussion, I also don’t suddenly find any of this horrifying, and I think Jonah Goldberg does now only because President Trump is the weilder of the statute. The distinction your making is a thin reed on which to hang one’s horror in one case after decades of utter indifference.
Is it splitting hairs to note that none of the examples given fall within the scope of presidential powers (and, I’d argue, the federal government, generally)? Securing the border, on the other hand, is the explicit duty of the president.
I don’t know what a Flight 93 election is, but I agree that expanding executive powers are a problem. But it looks to me that Congress, not Trump, is responsible for the expansion of the executive roll here. They explicitly granted the president the power to declare emergencies, while recklessly leaving the determination of what constitutes an emergency solely to his judgment. I read the list of the dozens of “emergencies” that presidents have declared under this statute, and this particular use stands out as one of the more apt and reasonable cases. If Congress disagrees, they left themselves the option of “vetoing” the president’s declaration — after, not before, the fact.
It’s when someone demeans people who sacrificed their lives to cut short an act of terrorism by claiming an election is the same thing.
Then you haven’t read much of his writings.
I must be missing something. Why don’t you favor the route Trump took? Your whole point is Trump is simply acting within the statutory framework. Why is that bad then? Or are you, like Goldberg and Cooke, saying there is more to judging government action than mere obeisance to the letter of the law?
The fear is that this ends up in the Supreme Court where Roberts has become increasingly aligned with the liberals and he may vote with them against allocating emergency funds for the wall.
As much as I’ve liked Trump, I agree that he should not fund a wall by decree. Why didn’t he do this the first two years when his party (okay, maybe that’s going too far) was in power. He blew it. The gop blew it and now he wants to blame the democrats and use unusual funding methods.
He ought to just use this issue to help change congress and the GOP in 2020.
A future progressive President (or any President for that matter) will weigh the political costs of declaring future national emergency if the declaration is done in a manner to circumvent the Congress.
If a future President declares a national emergency for something very unpopular or something wildly expensive with rising costs running out into timeless future, then the President and his Party will have to bare the consequences at the next election.
Trump’s funding for a boarder wall is not unpopular, the recent feigned histrionics about the immoral border wall is a political affection in an effort to thwart Trump at all costs and everyone knows it. If you are not in favor of more border wall, then at best you may be indifferent because erecting more border wall does not directly affect most citizens like a tax increase, or gun confiscation, etc. and the cost of the $3.6 billion in additional funding for more border wall is (I’m embarrassed to say) a rounding error in the annual Federal Budget.
If a future progressive President declares a national emergency for something with a minimal one time cost, which most citizens were in favor of or at worst indifferent to, then I would suggest the future President will get his whatever it is, and advance his and his Party’s political interests in doing so.
Seems like you’re saying the only check on executive action is the popularity of the act. Too close to mob rule for me.
Yes. If a project’s cost is minimal and the project in question is essentially popular and was never funded due to blatant political posturing, then the “mob” (ie: voting citizens of the United States) will reward the President by voting for him(and by extension his Party) in the next election.
The point is, “the future progressive President will do it to you” is a canard. He will only declare a national emergency if it is politically advantageous. In every future progressive President example which I’ve heard of to date(ie: confiscate guns, declare a carbon tax, *, etc) the progressive President would be committing political suicide for himself and his Party if he were to declare a national emergency.
*Your examples “windmill farms, high speed rail” are marginal in that it depends on the cost. Moreover, I doubt the projects would meet my hypothetical “popular” parameter … but looking out into the future, you never know what may be “popular” 5, 10, 20 years from now.
Well put. I am rather sick of all the hyperbole of the Never Trump crowd.
Nor have I and will avoid him in the future. My loss – I know.
That’s ok. I’m sure the feeling is mutual.
Actually, being “sick of all the hyperbole” is quite a remarkable argument coming from Trump supporters.
You permit your wife to charge? Give me a break. Is she a little child or your partner in life?
For what it’s worth, I’ve looked at dozens of polls, including those taken in exclusively in border states, and have only seen one where a majority favors building a wall.
Also, calling this a one-time cost is at least a bit of a stretch, since it would still leave about two-thirds of the border unwalled.
As I understand it, the statute allows for Congress to override the president’s declaration. That’s a check. Also, this is headed to court on a number of counts. Those are also checks. If that’s not enough, I put the blame on Congress, since they wrote the statute that expanded execute powers.
That’s cheap.
Maybe he has read Jonah and simply formed a different opinion than yours.
Since we’re tossing around opinions about Jonah’s motivations, here’s mine: I’ve read Jonah for years. I find him knowledgeable, thoughtful, and provocative (in the good sense), not to mention quite funny. He’s one of my favorite reads — enough so that I became defensive when all the accusations of irrational anti-Trump bias started flying his way. But he eventually wore me down and I had to admit (to myself) that there is quite a lot of evidence for the accusations. I still like Jonah and think he’s one of the best out there, but I take him with a grain of salt when it comes to Trump. Trump just does that to people (in both directions).
I was responding to Edison’s argument that there is no cause for concern whatever the action is long as its popular and congress refuses to take the preferred executive action. See cmt. 71.
He also could have done so in 2018. Or heck, in lieu of Trump taking the lead, the Republican base could have expressed its disgust at Congress by primarying a few of the squishier Republicans or supporting more pro-border control primary candidates.
Except the opposite happened. Joe Arpaio got zero traction against Martha McSally. Utah Republicans gleefully replaced Orrin Hatch with Mitt Romney. And not a single House Republican faced a serious primary contender.
The simplest conclusion is that voters, including a critical mass of Republican voters, are okay with not having any new border wall. Democracy is working. But that reflects the bigger problem on the right: the refusal to acknowledge that not enough voters (including Republican voters) are enthusiastic enough about policy items like building a wall, reigning in illegal immigration in general, or repealing Obamacare to actually get them past the post.
Declaring an emergency, while legal and precedented, is still just a one-off band-aid that will not cure this bigger problem.
That can be just before things go sideways. You see once the Progs have IDed you as a racist (i.e. NAZI) you are fair game to get jumped and pummeled by the crowd for your ignorance and racism, not to mention Homo/ Islamo phobe ways.
It’s certainly not cheap. Anyone who has read Jonah’s work and believes he’s only opposed to abuse of executive actions because of Trump is really not making a rational argument. Heck, he irritates me sometimes, but he’s been absolutely consistent in his principles over the years, whether about Republicans, Democrats, Socialists, Trump, whatever.
And everyone should be thankful for that.
Apparently, our government employees who patrol our border with Mexico report a robust physical barrier is among the effective means to reduce illegal entry. Polling public opinion on whether one is for or against it is purely political. As the government shutdown demonstrated, the Speaker made it political (it wasn’t about how much to spend; but, about “if it’s you who wants it, you ain’t gonna get it”).
So once again, the guys doing their job get labeled as doing dirty work (protect and defend ? Who does that ?!) and their experience and expertise on the matter have been ground into dust, swept away by Pelosi’s political vindictiveness.
Is there a poll of those who provide border security ? No. But we do have the head of the executive branch, in charge of it, who takes their advice and recommendations to make policy.
You’ve moved the goalposts. Your claim was that “most citizens” favor the wall. You said nothing about border security.
Actually, I’ve seen several, all of which suggest that border agents favor a wall. But, again, that’s not what I was responding to, because that wasn’t the claim you made.
As an anecdotal aside, I happen to have a friend who is a border agent. I asked her a while back where most agents come down on the wall. She said most don’t think they need one if they would just be allowed to enforce the laws that are on the books.
In case it matters, I strongly favor a wall.
Did she say who was not allowing them to enforce the laws?
That wasn’t my post. Someone else. Not surprised, BTW, published polls portray the D position.
In the end, we agree (another BTW : “She said most don’t think they need one” also depends on what she, and they, do).
Well, that’s okay too. The wall is a stupid idea whose only purpose is to rile up voters. There is no definition of what the wall looks like, how long it is, or where it is. It’s just dumb. No one thinks it will be a Great Wall of America spanning the entire border. It won’t stop drugs coming in. It won’t stop any but peaceful and innocent immigrants. It’s just dumb.
The only real solution is to stop giving welfare, free schooling and medicare to illegal immigrants. Until that happens, the wall is like trying to stop the Titanic from sinking by trying to melt the iceberg with a butane torch before hitting it.
Yes I think you are missing something. I don’t favor the route President Trump took because I’m not a fan of that emergency powers law. I’m not particularly horrified by any of the past uses of it, though, and I think President Trump’s use of it is closer to an emergency than many of the past examples.
Then color me stupid. I vote for all of the above and probably more harsh measures that would get me suspended for even mentioning.