Most of the daily newsletters that I put out under this Substack outline the egregious consequences of Trump’s policies on everyday Americans. I try, as best as I can, to use well-research studies and polling to underscore the veracity of my conclusions as I do believe facts should matter. Today’s newsletter will be a bit different. I want to simply outline how the current government shutdown is not about “who blinks first'“ or who will get the blame from the American people. Instead, I want to highlight that this shutdown, unlike any other in our nation’s history is about whether our democracy survives, or not.
The bedrock of a democracy
The absolute cornerstone of a democracy is the notion of separate branches of government. If there is, for all intents and purposes, only one branch of government then that is a form of autocracy, dictatorship or monarchy. What we have seen since Trump’s second term is a concerted effort by Trump and the GOP to move more and more power under the executive branch. This Unitary Executive Theory posits that our President can:
Shut down whole departments (e.g, USAID)
Fire members of independent agencies (e.g, the FTC)
Move funds from one department to another(DoD) to another department (DHS)
Withheld funds appropriated by Congress (e.g., CDC and NIH grants)
Use “pocket rescissions” to simply not spend money authorized by Congress.
The illegality of Trump’s actions
Most of these actions are illegal and unconstitutional.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) that, just this week, found the Trump administration illegally impounded funds for a seventh time in the nine months since Trump took office (note: I worked for GAO for over a decade and their work is unimpeachable).
These actions also contravene the Impoundment Control Act that, for simplicity sake, doesn’t allow the President to withhold funds appropriated by Congress (except in very rare circumstances).
Prior Supreme Court precedent from 1935 has outlined that the President cannot fire members of independent agencies (Humphreys Executor v. United States). The current Court seems to have overturned this precedent but their reasoning is legally tenuous, at best, as this and many of the other recent decisions by the Court have occurred under their “shadow docket”.
The President has also ordered agencies to post on their websites that the shutdown is due to the Democratic Party and is asking federal employees to post these messages. This is in direct contravention of the Hatch Act and, if such employees were to post these missives, those employees could be removed from office, be demoted or disbarred. in essence, the President is asking federal employees to violate the law.
What is this fight about?
What is the point in passing a budget if the President can, willy nilly, simply decide not to spend funds outlined in that very budget? What is the point in passing a budget if the President can simply rescind funds whenever they choose? And, what is the point in passing a budget if some of these funds are in place to pay for people’s salaries if the President can simply fire people at will?
The answer is that there is no point in passing a budget if one lives under a dictatorship, autocracy or monarchy. The only reason a legislative branch passes a budget is that a democracy is in place and, as a result, the President adheres to that nation’s constitution that the Executive will “take care that the laws are faithfully executed” (Article II of our Constitution).
The Bottom Line
The Democratic Party has a choice - they can acquiesce to Trump’s demands, end the shutdown and allow all power to be removed from Congress. That is a dictatorship. Or, they can force this President to agree to terms that further enshrine the separation of powers and Congress’ “power of the purse”. That is a democracy.
That is the stark reality this country now faces. And, yes, our democracy hangs in the balance.
I wonder which other nefarious things he will be doing behind closed doors while the government is shut down. He wasn’t really trying to keep it open at all, the appearance to me was that he quite happily let it happen, which is always an indicator that he has something even more disturbing up his sleeve and is happy that nobody is paying attention because of the other thing, whatever the thing of the day is, is what everybody talks about.
This has some merit, but the situation is not nearly as black-and-white as presented. This is a symptom of a severely broken Republic.
Two options; fascist tyranny or corporate welfare.
The people lose either way, and the oligarchy wins either way.
We recently wrote about this, proposing actual solutions that work for all the people.
If you're actually interested in solutions, we'd like to hear from you.