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This is an important piece.<br>
<br>
The first political book I ever read, I think - distrustful as I was
of the Cold War history we were getting in school - was
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"The Coming Caesars in American Life" by Amaury de Riencourt,
published some 50 years ago. It presented a (somewhat cartoonish)
picture of US foreign policy in the post-WWII world, on the model of
the extinction of the Roman republic. A less commonplace idea then,
it nevertheless went some way to illustrating what was happening in
the US (which reached some sort of literary expression in John
Kennedy's explicitly fascist inauguration address).<br>
<br>
The "Come Home, America" line should be insisted upon in the
upcoming elections, which look like repudiating the foreign and even
the domestic policy of the decade now concluding. But then I'm an
optimist - as I was 50 years ago in thinking that Caesar can be
stopped. --CGE<br>
<br>
<br>
On 8/7/10 1:07 PM, E.Wayne Johnson wrote:
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<div><font face="Arial" size="2">Congress ducks responsibility
because We the People have let them get away with it for far
too long.</font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">Has Congress Become Useless?</font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">by Gene Healy </font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"><font size="2"><em><!--BIO--></em></font></font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">Gene Healy is a vice president at
the Cato Institute and the author of The Cult of the
Presidency.</font></div>
<div><em></em> </div>
<div><em></em> </div>
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<div class="first"><font face="Arial" size="2">Has Congress become
"a useless appendix on the governmental structure"? That was
what then-Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. J.
William Fulbright, D-Ark., feared in 1968, according to newly
released transcripts from the committee's closed-session
debates over Vietnam. Unless Congress was willing to assert
itself on the war, he said, "I do not see how we have any real
function."</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">Last week found Congress once
again doing a good imitation of a vestigial organ, as the
House forked over $37 billion more for our endless Afghan
adventure. Maybe if we called it "armed community organizing"
instead of "nation building," more Republicans would be
against it.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">It's "not just the president's
war," Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., protested. "It's our war
too. ... We must not simply kick the can down the road."</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">Alas, legislative can kicking is
what the modern Congress does best. Take the Dodd-Frank
financial "reform" bill the president just signed. It's a
2,300-page PR exercise that delegates everything and settles
nothing. Lenders and investors wondering what's legal will
have to await some 243 rulemakings from 11 different agencies.</font></div>
<div> </div>
<div class="pullquote"><font face="Arial" size="2">The
Constitution gives Congress vast powers over war and peace,
and charges it with making the laws of the land. Yet our
feckless legislators prefer to punt the hard decisions to the
president and the permanent bureaucracy, even if it leaves the
rest of us mired in uncertainty and crushing debt. What do we
pay these people for?</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">There's a reason the Capitol Dome
dominates the D.C. landscape, towering over the comparatively
modest presidential residence down the street. The capital's
design mirrors the constitutional architecture, in which
Congress, not the executive, was supposed to be the prime
mover in setting national policy.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">The legislative branch "is by far
the most important," President James Monroe proclaimed in
1822, "the whole system of the National Government may be said
to rest on the powers granted to this branch. They mark the
limit within which, with few exceptions, all the branches must
move."</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">Some of you understandably
shudder at the thought of handing more responsibility to an
institution led by the likes of Nancy Pelosi. But our
Constitution's Framers preferred to leave national policy in
the hands of bums you can vote out instead of bums you can't,
like the best and brightest White House czars and unelected
bureaucrats.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">Despite decades of congressional
abdication, Congress retains every power the Constitution
grants it. There's nothing stopping legislators from drafting
clear rules or taking responsibility for ongoing wars.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">Even John Yoo, the Imperial
Presidency's most ardent fanboy, admits that Congress could
legally "require scheduled troop withdrawals" in foreign wars.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">On <em>Meet the Press</em> in
2007, then-Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., offered the typical
rejoinder: Hey, don't look at us, we're just Congress. "Why
not cut off funding for the war?" host Tim Russert asked.
"I've been there, Tim," Biden replied. "You can't do it."</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">Actually, to borrow a phrase, Yes
We Can. Congress has successfully used strings attached to
funding to wind down our involvements in Vietnam, Lebanon and
Somalia. But it usually takes a great waste of blood and
treasure before our representatives feel moved to do anything.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">Maybe that helps explain why
Congress ranks dead last in Gallup's recent "Confidence in
Institutions" poll, finishing eight points behind health
maintenance organizations.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">But we shouldn't let ourselves
off so easy. The American voter has long played the sucker in
a legislative shell game wherein Congress cedes its
constitutional responsibilities to the executive, taking
credit when policies "work," and demanding scalps when they
don't.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">Congress ducks responsibility
because We the People have let them get away with it for far
too long.</font></div>
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