In an appearance on Fox News’ “On the Record” with Jeanine Pirro (filling in for Greta Van Susteren), Monday, Rep Trey Gowdy (R-SC) enumerated the things Congress can do to counter Obama’s executive overreach, including removing funding for his vacations.
When Pirro asked him what Congress can do to stop the president’s abuse of power, the former federal prosecutor answered, “number one, my colleagues in the Senate have advise and consent, if they want to shut down the Senate over appropriations bills or ambassadorships or other things. The Constitution gives them the power of advise and consent. The Constitution gives us power over the purse,” Gowdy explained. “So we have appropriation bills that are going to be coming to the House this spring. We ought to strip money away from this executive branch, because our framers gave us that exclusive right to do so. If one branch overreaches then maybe the other branch ought to stick up for itself.”
Hear hear!
He also advocated that Congress appeal to the judicial branch. “We do have standing when it comes to vote nullification, which is what Obamacare is. You can go to the judicial branch and ask them to stop. But most importantly, we can go to your viewers. Your voters — almost 500 representatives are up every two years. Our framers did that on purpose… You can fix executive overreach or legislative under reach by throwing them out.”
When asked why Obama continues to bypass Congress when polls are showing that the public doesn’t like it, Gowdy answered, “because so far he has gotten away with it.”
“Last October, we weren’t persuasive enough. People don’t like the Affordable Care Act but they don’t like our tactic of shutting down the government,” he said. “OK. Fine. We got that. We still have appropriation bills that are coming. So what we ought to do is say, Mr. President, you want to run roughshod over the Constitution, we have the power of the purse. We’re not going to fund your pet projects. We’re not going to fund your green energy initiatives. We are not going it fund your vacations.”
“Yes, we’re going to do it. Yes. Because my mom may be watching. You are blank right we are going to do it.” He continued, “there are a host of my colleagues that are not just going to sit around and mope and cry because this president overreaches. We’re going to respond and we are going to respond in the appropriations process.”
“If he doesn’t get his act together, and frankly even if he does, we need to stop some of his pet projects.”
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