Last week President Obama appointed yet another “czar” with massive government power, answering only to him. Even before this latest appointment, the top-ranking Democrat in the Senate wrote President Obama a letter saying that these czars are unconstitutional. President Obama’s “czar strategy” is an unprecedented power grab centralizing authority in the White House, outside congressional oversight and in violation of the Constitution.
As of last week, Czar Kenneth Feinberg has the authority to set the pay scale for executives at any company receiving government money (and how many aren’t, these days?). Czar Feinberg has the power to say that someone’s pay is excessive, and to make companies cut that pay until the czar is pleased.
Congress did not give Czar Feinberg this authority. For that matter, Congress has not authorized any of the czars that President Barack Obama has created. Over the past thirty years presidents have each had one or two czars for various issues, and once the number went as high as five. But now, by some counts President Obama has created sixteen czars, and there may be more on the way. Each of these has enormous government power, and answers only to the president.
Ever since this practice of appointing czars began years ago, it has always been considered possible that they are all unconstitutional. But it never built to a critical mass to elicit a court fight. These czars were few and far between, and rarely did anything that seriously ruffled any feathers. But President Obama has taken this to an unprecedented level, to the point where these appointments are dangerous to our constitutional regime.
This has become too much for the longest-serving senator in U.S. history to stomach. Democratic Senator Robert Byrd is the president pro tempore of the U.S. Senate. Even though Senate rules vest most powers in the Senate majority leader, the president pro tempore is a constitutional officer, and third in line to the U.S. presidency (after the vice president and the Speaker of the House). This office is held by a Democrat, who has been serving in the Senate since before Barack Obama was even born.
Senator Byrd wrote a letter to President Obama in February, criticizing the president’s strategy of creating czars to manage important areas of national policy. Senator Byrd said that these appointments violate both the constitutional system of checks and balances and the constitutional separation of powers, and is a clear attempt to evade congressional oversight. (Didn’t this White House promise unprecedented transparency?)
And Senator Byrd is exactly correct. The Constitution commands that government officers with significant authority (called “principal officers”) are nominated by the president but then are subject to a confirmation vote by the U.S. Senate. And principal officers include not only cabinet-level department heads, but go five levels deep in executive appointments, to include assistant secretaries and deputy undersecretaries.
http://www.infowars.com/senior-democrat-says-obamas-czars-unconstitutional/
Comments (4)
I thought the Democrats cried foul when President Bush expanded Executive authority. I suppose many of them are all too happy to allow one of their own to do the same. I am glad some of them have seen the light.
I objected to what I think was the first "czar", the "drug czar" from a much earlier administration. The number of "czar"s is not the question, the constitutionality is. Yes, I was an Obama voter (primary as well as general election), and one of the main reasons for that choice was to check the ever-expanding Executive-Branch powers (which I didn't trust the Clintons to do). Instead, this administration seems intent on consolidating those illegal powers. INformal advisors are one thing; the president can have as many as he or she wants, but not appointments to make policy or oversee government agencies.
This is so much more important than the birth-certificate issue that takes up so much space on this site!
President Obama has named more czars to his White House team — high-level staff members who will help oversee the administration’s top initiatives — some lawmakers and Washington interest groups are raising concerns that he may be subverting the authority of Congress and concentrating too much power in the presidency.
Czars change the equation of power between the executive and the legislature, which is the people’s branch of government. They assume powers not intended for the executive and can get around Congressional mandates at whim. That might make sense during temporary periods of emergency, but left in place corrupts accountability of government to the people. It creates a powerful and unchecked executive branch, only answerable to a greatly-increased presidency.
“They rarely testify before congressional committees and often shield the information and decision-making process behind the assertion of executive privilege,” Byrd wrote of past czars and White House staffers in similar positions. At times, he said, one outcome has been to “inhibit openness and transparency, and reduce accountability.”
So if he created a Lawmaker Czar would that mean Congress is null and void? That branch of power gone without a fight. Right now they are allowing all of this nonsense to go on and say nothing. They are not paying attention to the overspending, overborrowing, overzealous demanding socialist President who appears to hate America and all we ever stood for. All we ever did to be great. We must be controlled and have no ability or authority over our own lives to decide what we should or should not do on a daily basis.
* Does he really think that Americans are that stupid?
* Does he really think that Americans because they are working hard we won’t notice he is taking our freedoms away from us and we won’t fight.
* Does he really think that all those promises he made isn’t going to cause or maybe he already did threaten the American people with war against us because he feels he is the supreme power and no one else is capable of helping, working, deciding, creating their own idea of what their happiness is, and allowing us to be free to choose whatever it is we wish to do.
The rapid and easy accumulation of power by White House staff can threaten the constitutional system of checks and balances.
It’s far too early to tell whether Obama’s quest for efficiency will lead to overstepping the bounds of presidential authority, but the latest appointment announcement could offer a few clues.
Accountable to no one but the President of the United States now. However, it is obvious that we are in unprecedented waters now with Obama. There can be no reason for him to appoint these people who are unaccountable to the people of the United States of America, to which the federal government IS accountable to, unless there is a hidden agenda is in the works. After all, why would the President of the United States want to nullify Congress? It can't be a good thing. And exactly how does he expect the American people to react to this? And exactly how does he expect he will CONTROL the reaction of the American people?
This is definitely abuse of power. This is an impeachable offense. Let me be the first to call for his impeachment. This is much more than a birth certificate issue. This is plotting to destroy the government of the United States and plotting against the American people. This is right up there with terrorism. And his own Department of Homeland Security has the AUDACITY to call Americans Terrorists. Watch what the OTHER HAND is doing......this man is dangerous, he is a threat to America and we must all be watching and working to remove him from office each and every day for each and every day he is destroying our country.
Democracy:
A government of the masses.
Authority derived through mass meeting or any other form of "direct" expression.
Results in mobocracy.
Attitude toward property is comunistic-negating property rights.
Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate. whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences.
Results in demagogism license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.
Democracy is the "direct" rule of the people and has been repeatedly tried without success.
A certain Professor Alexander Fraser Tytler, nearly two centuries ago, had this to say about Democracy: " A Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of Government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess out of public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that Democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by a Dictatorship."
A democracy is majority rule and is destructive of liberty because there is no law to prevent the majority from trampling on individual rights. Whatever the majority says goes! A lynch mob is an example of pure democracy in action. There is only one dissenting vote, and that is cast by the person at the end of the rope.
Republic:
Authority is derived through the election by the people of public officials best fitted to represent them.
Attitude toward property is respect for laws and individual rights, and a sensible economic procedure.
Attitude toward law is the administration of justice in accord with fixed principles and established evidence, with a strict regard to consequences.
A greater number of citizens and extent of territory may be brought within its compass.
Avoids the dangerous extreme of either tyranny or mobocracy. Results in statesmanship, liberty, reason, justice, contentment, and progress.
Is the "standard form" of government throughout the world.
A republic is a form of government under a constitution which provides for the election of:
an executive and
a legislative body, who working together in a representative capacity, have all the power of appointment, all power of legislation all power to raise revenue and appropriate expenditures, and are required to create
a judiciary to pass upon the justice and legality of their governmental acts and to recognize
certain inherent individual rights.
Take away any one or more of those four elements and you are drifting into autocracy. Add one or more to those four elements and you are drifting into democracy.
Our Constitutional fathers, familiar with the strength and weakness of both autocracy and democracy, with fixed principles definitely in mind, defined a representative republican form of government. They "made a very marked distinction between a republic and a democracy and said repeatedly and emphatically that they had founded a republic."
A republic is a government of law under a Constitution. The Constitution holds the government in check and prevents the majority (acting through their government) from violating the rights of the individual. Under this system of government a lynch mob is illegal. The suspected criminal cannot be denied his right to a fair trial even if a majority of the citizenry demands otherwise.
Difference between Democracy and Republic, in brief:
Democracy:
a: government by the people; especially : rule of the majority.
b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.
Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences
Republic
a: a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government.
b: a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law.
Democracy and Republic are often taken as one of the same thing, but there is a fundamental difference. Whilst in both cases the government is elected by the people, in Democracy the majority rules according to their whims, whilst in the Republic the Government rule according to law. This law is framed in the Constitution to limit the power of Government and ensuring some rights and protection to Minorities and individuals.
The difference between Republic and Righteous Republic is that in the Republic the Government rules according to the law set up by men, in the Righteous Republic the law is the Law of God. Only in the Righteous Republic it can truly be said "One nation under God" for it is governed under commandments of the only One True God and there is no pluralism of religions.
Autocracy declares the divine right of kings; its authority can not be questioned; its powers are arbitrarily or unjustly administered.
Mobocracy: 1. Political control by a mob. 2. The mass of common people as the source of political control.