President Trump has been baffled by the checks and balances designed to limit the power of the presidency. Nevertheless, he has been astute at systematically removing these barriers. Of course, this would be impossible if those having the power to stop Trump’s power grab would exercise it. In other words, Trump’s disregard for norms and systematic elimination of checks and balances has been enabled by the congressional Republicans.
By their acquiescence, congressional Republicans have become Trump’s Republicans, just as the Republican Party has become Trump’s party.
Congress, including Democrats on this one, had long ago ceded to the president the power to make war. The latest and most astounding capitulation by Congress is surrender of the power of the purse — the power of appropriating money and directing how it will be spent. This power originates in the House of Representatives, now controlled by Democrats.
The latest example of Trump’s consolidation of power is his direction that billions of dollars be diverted from congressionally authorized military construction projects to build a border wall. The Pentagon has signed off on this. If it is Congress that directs spending, how can Trump have wrested this power away?
This stems from a provision of law passed during the Cold War that was intended to give the executive branch flexibility in the event of emergencies. Thanks to the flexibility of the English language, Trump used this provision to declare a “national emergency” over immigration and vowed to take unilateral action to secure funding for his long-promised border wall. Along with taking funds from other government accounts, the administration said it would tap into billions of funds allocated for military projects.
Specifically, Trump is directing $3.6 billion in military construction funds to build 175 miles of border wall. As would be expected, congressional Democrats have opposed this diversion. A legal challenge was mounted against the first $2.5 billion transfer. A federal judge initially blocked this transfer. However, in a 5-4 ruling the Supreme Court allowed the administration to use these military funds while litigation over their transfer moves forward.
The decision by the Supreme Court to side with Trump is yet another example of the importance of the court system, and how the Republican victory in 2016 paved the way for packing the court system with appointees friendly to the administration. It is now not only Trump’s Republican Party, and Trump’s Republican Senate, but, for all practical purposes, Trump’s Supreme Court.
The diversion of funds will include $1.8 billion shifted away from projects in 23 states and $1.8 billion from military construction projects overseas. Much of this will be from projects that serve families of military members all the way from Kentucky to Germany and Japan. Nine of the projects on the list involve renovating or replacing schools for children of U.S. troops. These include a daycare center at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, home of Air Force One, and an authorized new school at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky.
An Air Force assessment concluded that rerouting funding from dozens of planned construction projects “poses various national security risks for the U.S. armed forces.” Some 51 specific Air Force projects were identified by the Pentagon as canceled.
While one can quibble over which is more of a “security risk,” the immigration situation or the Air Force projects, it is for Congress to decide, not the president.
A March internal memo by the Commandant of the Marine Corps affirmed that “unplanned, unbudgeted deployment posed an unacceptable risk to Marine Corps combat readiness and solvency.”
As expected, Republican senators fell in line and supported Trump’s emergency declaration. As some of the projects cut by the rerouting of funds hit projects in their states, Republicans initially expressed the obligatory “outrage.” But their expressed “outrage” is obviously disingenuous. If they were really opposed to those cuts, they could have refused to approve Trump’s declaration of a “national emergency.”
The game that Republican politicians are playing now is that cuts to these projects are “only temporary” — funding for these projects is merely being deferred and will be restored later. South Carolina’s Senator Lindsey Graham, who is up for reelection in 2020 and whose state will see military money diverted for the wall, expresses confidence that money for those projects will be restocked. “But I’m willing to divert the funding and absorb some pain to get the wall moving forward,” he said.
North Carolina’s Senator Thom Tillis previously published an op-ed in the Washington Post saying that he would vote against Trump’s emergency declaration. He later reversed his stance and voted to back Trump after getting pressure from within his party. As usual, Republicans fall in line — it’s Trumps Republican Party, after all.
Arizona’s Senator Martha McSally supports Trump’s national emergency declaration, blaming Democrats for not supporting Trump’s wall. Senator John Cornyn of Texas said that passing the funding to replenish military construction funds down the road would amount to “a drop in the bucket for total defense appropriations.”
The greatest prospective long-term damage from these diversions is the fundamental break that it represents with the Founding Fathers’ conception of the separation of powers. James Madison made the power of the purse explicit when he drafted Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 of the Constitution: “Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequences of Appropriations made by Law.” It is, of course, Congress, not the President, who makes the law.
Donald Trump ignores the law. It is up to lawmakers themselves to insist that it is they who should not cede that power to the president by falling in line and acceding to his whims. The emergency declaration of power was intended to give the executive branch flexibility in the event of true emergencies, such as a Soviet first strike.
Obsequiously falling in line with every presidential whim is yet another nail in the coffin of our constitutionally mandated separation of powers.
— John Waelti of Monroe, a retired professor of economics, can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears Saturdays.
