President Bush has said numerous times that he would like to cut the deficit in half by 2009 or thereabouts. Obviously, to do so would require some deep spending cuts, and I would like to offer my own suggestion to save the government a good chunk of change: get rid of Congress altogether. Think of the possibilities—no salaries to pay for legislators and aides alike, no need to run costly mid-term elections, and the Capitol Building can be converted to luxury condos and live/work loft spaces. It’s truly a win-win situation.
“Wait a minute,” you say. “How can you suggest such a thing? The Congress represents American citizens, writes the laws and acts a crucial piece in our nation’s system of checks and balances!”
Spare me the civics lesson, smart guy. Because, once again, George Bush has decided that he isn’t bound by the legislation that Congress sends to him, and that he can pretty much ignore any rules that he doesn’t feel like following. It happened with the NSA domestic spying plan. It happened again with John McCain‘s anti-torture legislation. And now we learn that Bush’s interpretation of the revised Patriot Act bypasses the oversight provisions that were written into it:
When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act’s expanded police powers.
The bill contained several oversight provisions intended to make sure the FBI did not abuse the special terrorism-related powers to search homes and secretly seize papers. The provisions require Justice Department officials to keep closer track of how often the FBI uses the new powers and in what type of situations. Under the law, the administration would have to provide the information to Congress by certain dates.
Bush signed the bill with fanfare at a White House ceremony March 9, calling it ”a piece of legislation that’s vital to win the war on terror and to protect the American people.” But after the reporters and guests had left, the White House quietly issued a ”signing statement,” an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law.
In the statement, Bush said that he did not consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers were being used and that, despite the law’s requirements, he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosure would ”impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive’s constitutional duties.”
Since Bush took office in 2000, and especially since the events of 9/11, there have been grumblings from Bush critics about the country turning into some kind of dictatorship. While I never wanted to take such comments seriously, the question needs to be asked: if Bush can summarily ignore parts of legislation he doesn’t feel like dealing with, and if he can treat the legislative branch as if they don’t have any authority, what kind of democracy are we really living in?
Note that the language Bush inserted is vague enough to trigger this non-disclosure threshold at any time; after all, anything could be spun into something that impairs “the deliberative process of the executive” or “the performance of the executive’s constitutional duties”.
(Think about that one too hard and you will, literally, feel your brain cells popping like bubble wrap.)
Of course, it would be helpful if more members of Congress were raising holy hell about this, as is their responsibility. But too many of them remain neutered, passive on the sidelines, happy just to get a pat on the head from big daddy president—this despite the half-hearted recent attempts by Republican lawmakers to distance themselves from Bush’s unpopularity. This is not an issue of partisanship as much as it is an issue of keeping our Constitutional separations intact, yet too many will keep quiet because the President gave them a cute nickname at some point.
From Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy:
Yesterday, Leahy said Bush’s assertion that he could ignore the new provisions of the Patriot Act — provisions that were the subject of intense negotiations in Congress — represented ”nothing short of a radical effort to manipulate the constitutional separation of powers and evade accountability and responsibility for following the law.”
”The president’s signing statements are not the law, and Congress should not allow them to be the last word,” Leahy said in a prepared statement. ”The president’s constitutional duty is to faithfully execute the laws as written by the Congress, not cherry-pick the laws he decides he wants to follow. It is our duty to ensure, by means of congressional oversight, that he does so.”
Sure, Leahy is a Democrat and has been a faithful critic of Bush’s policies. But can anyone really argue with the substance of what he said? Can anyone really argue that the President should be allowed to decide which laws are convenient enough for him to follow?
Congress ignores this issue at their own peril. Because this isn’t just one isolated incident; it’s a pattern that is destined to continue for the remainder of Bush’s term in office, and it sets a dangerous precedent that is sure to be exploited by future presidents down the line. For those Bush supporters out there, imagine a Hillary Clinton presidency with this kind of carte blanch power. You wouldn’t stand for it, would you?
Much has been made of Bush’s lack of vetoes during his time in office. But if he is allowed to ignore legislation on a whim, why would he even need to bother?