Tony Snow declares Congress irrelevant

[Drocket]

The President has the ability to exercise his own authority if he thinks Congress has voted the wrong way.

Link (http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003529196)


The official Bush administration policy: Congress only has authority so far as the bills they pass are ones that Bush agrees with. Beyond that, Bush will exercise his own (unconstitutional) authority and ignore them. Got that? Good.

[Stoner]

This is the way it's always been. Are you confused?

[Professor]

This is checks and balances. It was written into the Constitution, so it's been around for a while.

[lily]

Well, so much for that reaching across the aisle. Froma ll reports it's going to be done by the end of this month, so I don't see how anyone can stop him.

http://www.alaskareport.com/images2/liar.jpg

From the article:

In a separate discussion, Snow suggested that contrary to virtually all
research and polls on the subject, Iraq is not uppermost in the minds of
most Americans. In fact, he suggested, the GOP losses in November might have
come mainly because of corruption charges, not the war. Here are the
relevant excerpts.

I don't know where they are getting their information.

[BoogyMan]

The President has the ability to exercise his own authority if he thinks Congress has voted the wrong way.

Link (http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003529196)


The official Bush administration policy:Â*Â*Congress only has authority so far as the bills they pass are ones that Bush agrees with.Â*Â*Beyond that, Bush will exercise his own (unconstitutional) authority and ignore them.Â*Â*Got that?Â*Â*Good.


Unless you have been off-planet for a while Drocket, this is the way that our government works and pretty much always has.

[Drocket]

The president has the power to veto Congressional bills. That's essentially it. The president does NOT have the power to violate existing law, 'interpret' laws however he wants, or create laws that Congress doesn't pass. If the Democrats don't pass additional funding for Iraq (which was the topic under discussion), the president does *NOT* have the authority to simply spend money anyway, which is what he apparently plans to do.

[lily]

That's true Drocket, but from what I am reading, Bush is going to do this by the end of the month. He is taking some troops from Kuwait. If this is done, congress won't have the time to stop the funding, before the boots are on the ground. I suppose we'll have to wait until tomorrow, but I don't think the news is going to be wrong. If this is the way he's going to do it, it's a sad day in history.

[Flea_Bit_Monkey]

If the Democrats don't pass additional funding for Iraq (which was the topic under discussion), the president does *NOT* have the authority to simply spend money anyway


The president can spend the military budget as he sees fit, the dems cannot specify what the military budget is spent on.

[Drocket]

The president can spend the military budget as he sees fit, the dems cannot specify what the military budget is spent on.

Yes, they can. The budget does not simply have "Military: $XXX billion" written in it. It has appropriations for thousands of different projects, and diverting money from one project to another without authorization is illegal. Or at least it was before King George declared himself above the law.