-Caveat Lector-
From
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October 26, 1999
Presidential Power Grab
by U.S. Representative Ron Paul (Texas)
Do you want our military to be moved under the United Nations’ command without
congressional approval? Do you know that a change in policy now requires our
military to absorb a nuclear first strike and only retaliate afterward?
Representative Jack Metcalf served in the U.S. Army, and I was an Air Force
flight surgeon, and as members of the U.S. House of Representatives we think
these are terrible policies.
Unfortunately, Presidential Decision Directive 25 (PDD 25) takes the matter of
U.S. troops in U.N. operations completely out of the hands of Congress. And PDD
60 replaces the proven deterrence of our launch-on-warning policy with a new
policy requiring the U.S. military to take a hit the Pentagon brass will
probably know is coming, retaliating afterward. PDD 25 and PDD 60 are
classified and the exact texts have not been made available even when requested
by members of Congress, but from the "summary" of each PDD we have been allowed
to see and sources familiar with the actual documents, that is what they appear
to say.
And we don’t want the White House to implement international treaties that are
bad for America. By law, the president must submit international agreements to
the U.S. Senate for advice and consent, and two-thirds of the senators must
concur. Some treaties, like the so-called "treaty on global warming," are so
costly and unfair to Americans that President Clinton is actually afraid to
submit them to the U.S. Senate out of fear the senators won’t go along.
In fact, President Clinton wrote Executive Order 13107 (EO 13107) so he could
implement such treaties on his own…and we don’t like that either. It certainly
is unconstitutional.
Something is awfully wrong with these executive orders (PDDs are really just a
fancy category of EOs). True, executive orders have a place in running the
routine business of the executive branch and seeing that laws passed by
Congress are duly executed. It is a president’s expansion of that limited
authority in order to do things he could never get accomplished through the
legitimate legislative process that has given us the crises we see today.
Today, if President Clinton wants a law he knows the peoples’ duly-elected
representatives won’t pass, all he does is write an EO or PDD and it "becomes
law." Isn’t that what an old-fashioned king would do…ignore the constitutional
limits on his authority and rule by edict?
Some of us have had enough. That’s why Jack Metcalf and I recently introduced
H.R. 2655 in the U.S. House of Representatives. We call the bill The Separation
of Powers Restoration Act, and if it passes, it will stop this president and
future presidents from trying to run our country as though they had been
elected king.
It’s a mistake, though, to place all the blame for this abuse of power on any
single president. Congress and the courts have stood by while the misuse of
executive orders has grown to gigantic proportions. That’s why succeeding
presidents have been tempted to see how much more they can get away with, until
there are now over 13,000 executive orders on the books! Congress just isn’t
paying attention.
When Congress is asleep at the switch, it’s up to the public to send them a
wake-up call. In order for Representative Metcalf and I to get our legislation
brought to the floor of the House for debate, we are asking every citizen who
shares our concern to contact their own representative and ask him or her to
become a co-sponsor. Thanks to the Internet, that’s a lot easier than it used
to be. Just go to www.ExecutiveOrders.org and follow the simple instructions to
see if your congressman is already a co-sponsor of H.R. 2655, and if not, press
a button to tell them to get on board. If you don’t have Internet access at
home or at the office, try your local library.
What the president is doing with these EOs and PDDs is just un-American,
there’s no other way to put it. A chief complaint American colonists made
against King George before the Revolutionary War was that he took powers that
were not rightfully his, and then as king, used those powers to the
disadvantage of the people. How is that different from what the president is
doing now? If you go to www.ExecutiveOrders.org and find your representative is
not a co-sponsor of H.R. 2655, will you ask him that question?
It’s time to send Congress a wake-up call!
Ron Paul, M.D., is a member of Congress from Texas.
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