Elon and Vivek are about to enter a strange new world, the one where federal spending takes place. It’s the congressional appropriations process. The members of Congress who control this process, the “cardinals”, are among the most powerful people in Washington. Their favor is sought by every special interest group in the country, and they’re prolific fundraisers.
Musk and Ramaswamy want to reduce the spending that these Congressmen control. That would reduce their power and infuriate their donors. Republicans and Democrats alike don’t relish that prospect.
The President can veto a budget, and “shut the government down”. Over the last 40 years, beginning with Newt Gingrich, this has become a familiar Washington ritual.
But it’s the political equivalent of a sledgehammer. It doesn’t really work.
What the president ought to have, as the Governors of 44 states have, is the line-item veto. Only with such a power can an executive hope to truly restrain legislative spending. It works.
A constitutional amendment giving the President a line-item veto can only be proposed by the states, using Article V. Congress, needless to say, would never propose such an amendment, restricting its spending ability.
Under Article V, 34 states can call for an amendment convention, which can be restricted to a limited subject matter by the terms of the call. Once the 34-state threshold has passed Congress is instructed by Article V to call the Convention.
In 1979 the 34th state passed a resolution calling for an Amendment Convention. Congress ignored the states, and has continued to defy their constitutional authority.
The states need to enforce their Article V power by suing Congress and obtaining from the United States Supreme Court a declaratory judgment, ordering the Congress to call the convention.
Once the delegates to the Convention meet, they will try to draft an amendment which can be ratified by 38 states. It must have bipartisan support. The only fiscal restraint that will have Democrat as swell as Republican support is the line-item veto.
We’re fast approaching a fiscal cliff. The Attorneys General need to act, soon.
The Art of the Deal
A few years before I was born, a very long time ago, we lost the Supreme Court. It had defied Franklin Roosevelt, and blocked parts of the New Deal, but its defiance didn’t last long. Roosevelt failed in his 1937 attempt to pack the court. That failure effectively put an end to his New Deal improvisations, but the Court got the message, and soon adapted itself to the new political reality. It would no longer stand in the way of the expansion of the federal government. For 80 years it stood by while the constitutional limits on federal power were ignored, even ridiculed. This all culminated when the Court, and Chief Justice Roberts, gave its blessing to Obamacare in 2012.
Then things began to change. Gorsuch replaced Scalia in 2017, but that left Roberts as the swing vote. What tipped the scales were Kavanaugh in 2018, and Barrett in 2020. These were Trump appointments, but the real credit goes to Leonard Leo, and the Federalist Society.
As a candidate in 2016 Trump was, at first, flippant about who he might put on the Court. He even suggested his sister might make a fine Supreme Court Justice. This attitude horrified conservatives. We remembered George W, Bush, and his ridiculous appointment of Harriet Miers, his Deputy Chief of Staff. She was forced to withdraw, but the lesson was learned. Presidents could make really stupid appointments.
Trump was impulsive, and capable of getting it into his head that someone like Judge Judy belonged on the court. We asked ourselves, what were the chances that he would appoint real constitutional conservatives? It all came to a head with the death of Justice Scalia.
Trump was smart enough to realize that there were a lot of traditional conservatives who were very reluctant to vote for him. When Leanard Leo and the Federalist Society offered him a deal, he took it. He agreed that he would only nominate candidates who had been vetted, and recommended, by the Federalist Society. Trump made that deal, and as a result a critical bloc of voters supported him. He kept his end, and we got three outstanding conservatives as a result.
The Federalist Society is dedicated to, of all things, federalism! When the time comes, and these Federalist Society Justices are asked to rule on the epitome of federalism – Article V – we can hope they will be sympathetic.
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