Ron Paul On Constitutional Concerns

Last week the media focused on President Obama’s basic eligibility to be president while ignoring the unconstitutional manner in which he governs. For example, his recent use of a signing statement to affect a line-item veto on a bill he signed into law as president. The recent continuing resolution to fund the government through September had an amendment that defunded four of his czar positions as a cost-cutting measure. These “czars” are administration appointees who exercise influence on policy matters, yet because they are classified as “advisors” and not cabinet officials, the President is able to avoid the Senate confirmation process.

President Obama agreed to defund the czar positions before passage as part of some very tough negotiations, and then afterwards “clarified” his position with a signing statement saying that he would ignore that portion of the law. Many battles have been fought in the past over whether or not the president should have line-item veto power. That debate is essentially settled. The president does not have that power, as that gives the executive too much legislative power. This administration just over-rode all of those debates with a single signing statement and assumed the power that no one would willingly give him.

This comes on the heels of this so-called peace candidate, who hasn’t ended a single war, taking us into yet another war without a declaration from Congress. The military commanders don’t seem to have batted an eyelash at obeying unconstitutional orders despite their oaths of office. The bombings continue without a second thought. So here we have an executive who illegally legislates and single-handedly takes the nation to war. Obviously there are bigger constitutional issues here than the form of his birth certificate.

The release of the birth certificate unfortunately trumped media coverage of the historic first-ever press conference held by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Usually he testifies before congressional hearings and I, as a congressman ask him questions, but on Wednesday, he spoke before the press and took questions from reporters. Other central banks do this kind of thing all the time, but for the Fed, this was a first and a sign that they are feeling pushback from the people about what they are doing to our money. Of course, nothing of any real substance was said, so it was a hollow, if interesting gesture on the part of the Fed.

The Fed will never voluntarily give up the information we need to know about what they’ve been doing. The Fed spent the money – so what happened to it? We need to keep the pressure on and demand a full audit of the Federal Reserve.