Delightful: White House Seeks to Shred More of the Constitution by Eradicating House of Representatives' Power of the Purse

Ed Morrissey finds the buried gem inside a staid Politico report on the U.S. budget.

The action came as the administration sent to the Capitol more than 50 funding adjustments it wants considered as part of what would be a stripped-down appropriations package for the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year ending Sept. 30.

Many agencies would be left frozen at their current spending levels, but the documents indicate the White House is seeking more than $11.4 billion in new spending above 2010, chiefly for foreign aid and defense accounts as well as education initiatives and housing assistance for low-income tenants. The administration also wants to a remarkably open-ended authority to transfer funds between accounts — a power that is sure to be resisted by the Appropriations Committee leadership.

This is what’s known as “burying the lead” in journalism. A Republican House will have the “power of the purse” to put an end to executive branch overreach — for instance, the efforts at the EPA to create carbon caps outside of Congressional authorization, the FCC’s attempts to regulate the Internet, and so on. That power is a key part of the checks and balances in federal government...

...[Obama knows] that Republicans plan on using the power of the purse to keep the Obama administration from abusing its power and making end-runs around the legislature. It all but demands a blank check from Congress as a budget plan and ends their ability to direct funding as it sees fit. It’s a carte blanche for runaway executive power.

Senate Republicans must pledge to filibuster any budget with that kind of authority built into it.

Can you imagine the reaction of the media and the Left (but I repeat myself) if George W. Bush had attempted such an extra-Constitutional maneuver?

Morrissey is absolutely right to state that "every member of Congress should protest this demand to surrender the Constitutional prerogative of budgeting and the check on power it represents. Otherwise, they will consign the people’s branch to a mere rubber stamp for executive whims."

The nation's highest law -- the Constitution -- is a mere inconvenience for the great Barack Obama and the the most radical Congress in American history.

Constitutional attorney Mark Levin once called the Obama White House "as close to a dictatorship as this country has ever seen". Every day and in every way, Alinsky's most celebrated acolyte seems determined to prove his detractors right.


Hat tip: Dan Riehl.