by Ron Paul
Yet over the years, especially since the Great Depression of the 1930s, a “modern” interpretation was forced on us by our courts and taught in our schools. This meant that the Constitution could be changed at will by the three branches and without proper amendments, since anything called interstate commerce could be regulated without limit, and even martial law could be justified according to the demands of the general welfare. George Bush used his power in near dictatorial ways, passing the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive in 2007 that gave him near dictatorial powers in the event of emergency. Obviously, the Constitution is a dead letter under these conditions.
The welfare clause in the Preamble became a license for specific benefits for one group at the expense of another. The interstate commerce clause became a justification for hindering and regulating everything considered interstate commerce. This has been especially the case since the radical ruling in the National Relations Board v. Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation decision in 1937 (concerning the Wagner Act), which permitted the government to regulate every aspect of American labor contracts. Another case, United States v. Darby Lumber in 1941, radically undermined the interstate commerce clause with the court justifying their ruling by declaring the Tenth Amendment “is but a truism” and did not limit federal powers.
In the past ten years the separation of powers between the state and the federal government has virtually disappeared and the federal government has won. Today there is a healthy debate and resistance to this takeover, due to the complete failure of everything the federal government touches.
The shift of power away from Congress to the executive branch is every bit as serious a problem as the sovereignty being taken away from the states. Clearly, the Constitution made the Congress the most important of the three branches. Today, it’s the weakest. Congress was to decide the issues of war, money, international and domestic trade, laws, spending, taxes, and foreign relations. Today, these issues are the responsibility of the President—essentially without congressional input.
For the most part, Congress gave up its prerogatives without a fight. Too many members of Congress in the past century had been taught that for our survival we had to have a strong executive. This is unfortunate, since it can only be achieved at the expense of the people’s liberty. Excessive, dictatorial executive powers are the enemy of the liberties that were to be protected by the Constitution in our republic. Indeed, our system of education has brainwashed generations of Americans that our truly great presidents had to be wartime presidents. George W. Bush understood this and welcomed his role in a war he manufactured.
To get a more sensible and different perspective on what makes a truly great president one ought to read Ivan Eland’s book Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty. He shows why the so-called weak presidents should be considered great and the so-called great ones should be called the enemies of peace, prosperity, and liberty. Since human nature is such, the Founders understood that presidents would tend to accumulate power. Even though the framers provided protection from this by placing maximum authority in the legislative branch, the extent to which Congress has relinquished power to the executive is startling.
We now have an executive that decides on war and the Congress acquiesces. After Vietnam, many people demanded restraint on a president pursuing war without congressional approval and declaration. Passage of the War Powers Resolution of 1972 was intended to help, but as so often occurs, a problem to be solved only offers opportunity to those who created the problem to gain even more power. Instead of restraining the President, the War Powers Resolution actually gave him authority to pursue war for ninety days without congressional approval. The only problem is that a war of ninety days is virtually impossible to stop. The war promoters scream that to do so is unpatriotic, un-American, and not supporting the troops.
Since World War II, all our wars have been fought without a congressional declaration of war. It’s the President who decides and the Congress that submits by appropriating the funds demanded. This presidential authority was never intended by the Constitution.
Today, trade policy has been taken over by the executive branch, and Congress graciously cedes this power. Transferring authority under fast-track legislation defies the intent of the Constitution. Trade treaties are not entered into, since senatorial approval by two-thirds would be required and more difficult to pass. This has led to international trade agreements such as WTO, NAFTA, and CAFTA that sacrifice national sovereignty to international government organizations. These agreements can supersede state laws as well. The Constitution assigns to the Congress the responsibility of regulating foreign trade. If the people and the Congress preferred that the President and international government entities control trade, the Constitution should have been amended. Ignoring the Constitution on these issues or any issue serves to undermine constitutional legitimacy.
The executive branch, whether headed by a Republican or a Democrat, never hesitates to use the various tools granted or allowed by the neglectful Congress. Executive orders today represent far more than the narrow understanding by our early presidents. Writing an executive order to carry out a constitutional duty is a far cry from using executive orders for the sole purpose of writing laws while circumventing the Congress. During the impasse over abortion during the medical care reform debate in 2009, President Obama “solved” the problem by writing an executive order and ignoring Congress.
Paul Begala’s cocky statement regarding executive orders says it all: “Stroke of the pen, law of the land, kinda cool.” Though executive orders shouldn’t be the law of the land, let there be no doubt that law enforcement agencies and the regulating arm of the bureaucracy treat them as such.
Statements signed by presidents clarify, or put all Americans on notice, as to exactly how they intend to carry out Congress’s rules. Executive orders have been around for quite a while and used by both Democrats and Republicans. They have been used much more extensively since the George W. Bush administration in the legislation following 9/11.
Agencies under control of the executive branch have been writing regulations for decades. Congress prompts the process and ignores the constitutional directive for its responsibility to write the laws. Not only does the executive usurp this congressional prerogative, the agencies become both the policeman and the judge in a monstrous system of administrative justice. In this system the citizen is considered guilty until proven innocent. Usually the average citizen is unable to afford legal council to defend himself. Citizens just grin and bear it and pay the penalty as the government bureaucrats swell their ranks with constant pay raises and job security.
The war powers assumed by presidents during periods of conflict may well be the most dangerous assumption of power by the executive branch. Once our president gets us into a “war,” even those undeclared, the routine expansion of emergency judicial powers follows. Though this has happened in all our wars, for the most part, when declared wars ended with the defeat of the enemy, the violation of civil liberties by overenergetic presidents tended to return to prewar conditions with an improvement in the protection of civil liberties.
Economic controls are much more easily imposed under a declared emergency. Roosevelt, Truman, and Nixon all ordered wage and price controls. Nixon did it by executive order due to price inflation of the 1970s, which was a consequence of the guns-and-butter philosophy of the 1960s.
With aggressive use and a distorted view of wartime presidential powers after 9/11, George W. Bush established a new precedent for arbitrarily increasing presidential powers. Though the war was not a declared war and terrorism is but a tactic used by desperate people for a variety of reasons, it became necessary to talk incessantly about the “war on terror,” claiming that the “war” justified the powers he assumed. There’s been no sign that the Obama administration is reversing this dangerous trend. And there’s no sign that the Congress will restrain this usu
rpation of powers by our presidents.
The Supreme Court in 1953 set a precedent in the United States v. Reynolds case for current presidential abuse of their constitutionally limited powers. This ruling allowed the executive branch to claim “state secret privileges” as a reason for keeping any and all secrets it claimed, even without showing the evidence, would threaten “national security.” President Obama now uses this precedent to hold suspects indefinitely and without charges being made.1 The state’s secrecy provision was also used by the Bush administration to massively expand executive powers. The Freedom of Information Act has not limited this court-approved power, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has increased the dangers of runaway executive powers in the post–9/11 era.
Today, the executive branch can ignore a civil trial verdict of innocence if the administration still deems the individual a threat, and the individual can be thrown in prison indefinitely. Thus, the executive branch has encroached on judicial powers as well.
Any individual, including an American citizen, whom the President considers a threat can actually be targeted for assassination, as we discussed earlier. No charges made, no trial held, no rights guaranteed! This is extremely bad news for the future of the American Republic.
But more often, individuals can be arrested and held indefinitely without charges being made. The right of habeas corpus is no longer guaranteed. The reason given is that national security would be endangered if trials were held. What they don’t want to consider is that this type of “justice” can endanger the liberties and safety of all Americans.
In times of declared wars and on battlefields, military courts can be justified. However, claiming that in times of peace the President can establish secret military tribunals and ignore due process is a dangerous move toward the totalitarian state. Anytime it’s argued that today’s conditions are different and sacrificing liberty for security is necessary, one should always consider exactly how he or she would like to be treated by an overly aggressive federal police officer who falsely identified him or her suspect.
Presidents today have huge control over off-budget spending. Money appropriated for Afghanistan was directed early on by Bush to start the war in Iraq before the proper funds were approved.
Presidents can work hand in glove with the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve can loan and give money to other central banks and other governments without congressional approval or oversight. Illegal funding of the CIA from private businesses, banks, and illegal drug trade have been documented. Some have called the CIA the President’s secret army. This abuse continues to grow.
The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, with their huge influence and authority over financial markets, can manipulate markets and profit from it—all off budget. The Exchange Stabilization Fund, the CFTC, the SEC, and the Treasury, along with the Federal Reserve, can fund almost anything they desire. It was not difficult to fund the secret wars in Afghanistan and Nicaragua in the 1980s. The ominous power of the executive can easily intimidate a reluctant Congress.
But Congress does nothing to reclaim its authority and the responsibility given it under the Constitution. A large group of conservatives make the earmark controversy the litmus test for conservative credentials and astoundingly demand that Congress deliver to the executive branch the power to earmark all spending. This only enhances presidential power. Voting against an earmark doesn’t save a dime—it only allows the executive branch to decide how the money will be spent, which is a clear responsibility of the Congress under the Constitution. The solution to the budgetary crisis is to simply get enough people in Congress to refuse to fund all unconstitutional spending by following the directions of Article I, Section 8.
The outstanding expert on the issue of executive power is Louis Fisher, who spent thirty years researching the subject for the Library of Congress and the Congressional Research Service. I’ve heard him lament on quite a few occasions Congress’s continual, inexplicable surrendering of its prerogatives and delivering them on a platter to the executive branch. The assumption by the authors of the Constitution overestimated the future Congresses’ willingness to keep the power of the presidency in check.
Today’s events are reminiscent of the Old Testament story of how the Israelites demanded a king over God’s objection. They believed that a king would give them peace and security. The results proved otherwise. So too will it be with America: The dictatorial government that is ever approaching will not provide the security the American people are seeking, and the sacrifice of our liberties will have been for naught.
Denson, John. 2001. Reassessing the Presidency: The Rise of the Executive State and the Decline of Freedom. Auburn, AL: Mises Institute.
Fisher, Louis. 2004. Presidential War Power. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
Morely, Felix. 1981. Freedom and Federalism. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
Savage, Charlie. 2008. Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy. New York: Back Bay Books.
FOREIGN AID
There was a time when Republicans opposed all foreign aid. That time has passed, and the only debate now is which countries will receive it and how much. There are very few members in Congress who, on principle, oppose all foreign aid.
Believing foreign aid benefits our national security allows for billions of dollars to be wasted, encouraging a foreign policy that inevitably leads to unintended consequences that come back to haunt us.
Foreign aid support comes for various reasons. We must support our allies and keep them strong. We must, for humanitarian reasons, help impoverished nations. It’s our duty. Others argue we are obligated to financially support those countries that yield to our demand that we maintain military bases in their country. Oftentimes, corporations and universities will lobby hard for foreign aid expenditures with the hope of getting a research contract or selling certain products to the recipient country.
For certain, all foreign aid is a form of credit allocation. American citizens are taxed to fund these foreign giveaway programs. That means funds are taken out of the hands of private citizens, who are prevented from deciding how the money should be spent. Allowing government or bureaucratic decisions on spending capital is always inferior to private companies and people deciding how the money should be spent.
But most importantly, foreign aid never works to achieve the stated goal of helping the poor of other nations. The decisions as to who will receive the money are political at both ends. Our politicians make decisions on where the money is to go and the politicians in the other countries are in charge of how it will be spent.
In poor countries food aid becomes a tool for maintaining political power. Frequently, those in the greatest need are involved in civil war. The aid literally becomes a weapon for one faction to use against another. This usually delays the needed peace effort, by subsidizing one side over the other.
Many of the large foreign aid grants are driven strictly by special interest politics and a pretense that it serves our national security interests. Since the Camp David Accords under Jimmy Carter, Israel has received more than $100 billion and Egypt has received more than $50 billion. It is nice that they have quit killing each other, but if the peace depends on these funds flowing into these two countries, it’s not a very stable peace. Both countries become more dependent on us and have less incentive to take care of their own needs. Who knows, peace may have come even without our money.
Foreign aid always has some strings attached. Spending on weapons bought in the United States is commonplace, and one of the main reasons conservative Republicans have been champions of foreign aid. It’s good for our military-industrial complex and it’s justified because the recipients will then be reliable military allies and well armed. Too often, though, countries that we have subsidized and armed become our enemies and the weapons are used against us. There are far too many examples of this.
Not only do countries receive
direct unilateral aid from us, hundreds of billions of dollars have been delivered through multilateral organizations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and other Agency for International Development entities. Loans and loan guarantees are frequently used.
The Federal Reserve is allowed to make secret agreements with foreign governments, foreign central banks, and international financial institutions. Since an audit of these agreements has never been allowed, there is no way to know with certainty whether the Fed participates in foreign policy strategy. But in November 2010, the Fed was pressured to cough up information about its practices. Many people were shocked to discover that so much of the newly created money went to the biggest players in the banking industry and to foreign institutions; I was not shocked. I read the revelations as confirmation of what I’ve long suspected.
With its capability of making secret loans to and guarantees with other countries, the Fed may well be much more involved financially than what Congress does under the appropriation process. But just like the Congress demanding “kickbacks” for their taxpayers’ financial gifts, I’m sure the Fed can arrange for favors in return for providing funds in the financial community.
There’s nothing wrong with foreign aid per se, as when rich countries help others in poorer countries who may be suffering from a natural disaster. But it has to be private. The odds then are much better that the funds will be put to more constructive use than they are when it’s a government transfer.
The only long-term benefit that one country can bestow on another suffering deprivation from socialistic government policies is to export ideas of liberty, free markets, sound money, and private property rights. Just as with material assistance, these ideas must be sent in a voluntary fashion, not by government.