The American Mind

An omnipotent Executive

William Hillman

(1/2017) Once again, Trump won. How many times do you have to win to be president? First, he won the election on November 8th. Then he had to win again when Jill Stein fought for recounts in four states. Trump ended up getting more votes out of the recount than Hillary. Next, Trump had to fight off allegations that the Russians rigged the election. Lastly, he had to win the Electoral College votes in what should have been nothing more than a formality.

The behavior of Hillary Clinton, her surrogates, and the Democratic Party, leading up to the Electoral College votes was nothing less than disgraceful. They threatened electors with bodily harm, threatening to put a bullet in one’s head. They flooded their homes with hundreds of thousands of form letters. The result of all the nagging and threats was two electors refused to vote for Trump, but five Clinton electors refused to vote for Hillary. Once again, the Clintons received more collateral damage from their own attacks than damage done to their target.

What was the point of all these hopeless temper tantrums after the election? Did they really think they could change the outcome? Were they truly willing to destroy the foundation of our electoral system to do it?

I found it amusing that a group of people who profess to love the environment more than life itself, had no problem sending thousands of pointless form letters to electors. What about the thousands of trees killed for those letters? How about all the carbon emissions and pollution created from producing and shipping these letters, not to mention the toxic printer cartridges, flooding our landfills. All this wasted energy just so a few lefties can feel like they did something.

There is more. Seven million dollars were wasted on Jill Stein’s fool's errand to interrupt and overthrow our democratic system, or at a minimum, disenfranchise voters. All that money could have gone a long way to save the Condor or help the poor.

I truly hope we are done with all the whining and crying. Remember President Obama’s comments about not accepting the election. Obama said, "That is not a joking matter. No, no, no. I want everyone to pay attention here."

Obama added: "That is dangerous. When you try to sow the seeds of doubt in people’s minds about the legitimacy of our elections, that undermines our democracy."

"Then you are doing the work of our adversaries for them," Obama argued. "Because our democracy depends on people knowing their vote matters."

I wonder if he repeated these words to Hillary and Stein?

Fear the Executive.

No single branch of government should be omnipotent. The executive branch has been well on its way to being "The Government."

Eight years ago, candidate Barack Obama criticized President George Bush, for circumventing the legislative system and using executive orders to enacts laws. Obama’s tune quickly changed once he was in the Oval Office. The eight years of Obama’s administration has seen the Executive Branch continue to grow and overpower the other two branches of government at an alarming rate.

The executive branch has continued to grow through the use of regulatory power and executive order. It continues to extend and grow departments that have more and more control over individuals’ lives

The President today has the upper hand with the budget. The executive branch’s departments are in control of funding that is critical to day-to-day operation of the country. The President can hold the entire country hostage to get his way.

When the budget fight looms between Congress and the President, how often do we hear that if congress does not give the President a budget he wants, schools will shut down and medical care for the elderly and poor will stop? They were even able to shut down private fishing off the coast of Alaska.

A "bad president" can have horrible and devastating effects on the country. But it was never meant to be this way.

Executive power grabs go back to President Adams. Almost every president has taken liberties with the limits of his power. In the last 20 years, that power grab has been exponential. President Bush and President Obama both justified their actions by blaming the inefficiency of Congress. Whatever the cause, the result is still the same. There should be no branch of government controlled by a single person with vastly more power than the other two branches. Each branch should be a check on the other branch’s powers.

The framers of the Constitution wanted the balance of power to reside in Congress, not the President. The founding fathers may have given the President the power of a veto, but they gave the legislature the power to override the veto.

The brilliance of placing ultimate power in Congress is that the framers understood the power of averaging. The "group" tends to drown out and marginalize the few "bad." Between the House and Senate, there are 535 people with equal voting power. The power of a "bad" politician in this branch is very limited and will quickly be outvoted.

What about a bad president? As the framers of the Constitution intended, a bad president would be checked by Congress who can override his vetoes, denying him legislation, control his tendencies by controlling the purse, and when needed, remove him from office.

No single person should have that much control over the government and our lives. It is all well and good when it’s your politician sitting in the Oval Office. But we forget, every four years the person in that office can change and all that power which was seized by the "good" politician is now at the disposal of the "bad" politician.

If Republicans, Democrats, and Independents truly love this country the way they claim, all should be in favor of restoring the Executive branch to its intended limited powers.

Trump has promised to roll back the power and control of the Executive branch by slashing regulations and funding. Let us hope he does it.