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A Congress-​Proof Wall?

When members of Congress run for the Presidency, they often talk a good game about acting within the boundaries set by the Constitution … but maybe we should roll our eyes, at least a bit, when senators like Elizabeth Warren and Corey Booker complain about President Trump’s Executive Order plan for building his infamous Wall. 

A workaround like that seems like an overstepping of constitutional bounds, sure. But, as Peter J. Wallison wrote for the Wall Street Journal on Saturday, congressional protest suffers from a rather big problem. 

Congress enacted the National Emergency Act in 1976. Since then, presidents have declared 57 emergencies … with nary a peep from Congress. And, since “Congress has provided no standard to judge whether an actual emergency exists,” congressional carpers have hardly a constitutional leg to stand upon.

But it gets worse.

Congress doesn’t even have much leverage in the “power of the purse” — for it has given much of that away, too.

For example, when “a Democratic Congress created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the Dodd-​Frank Act of 2010,” writes Wallison, “it provided that the agency would be funded entirely by the Federal Reserve, not through annual appropriations from Congress.”

This interests me, especially, since I quoted Senator Elizabeth Warren ballyhooing her support for this very program at Townhall last weekend. She thinks she did something smart in supporting that regulatory body. 

But like so much other ultra-​clever legislative conniving, she placed it outside of congressional control.

With genius moves like this, congressional Democrats may have great difficulty restraining President Trump.

Serves them right, of course. But not us — it does not serve the people at all.

We need constitutional limits.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Only Make Believe

Problems can be solved. But for those lacking the merest clue how to solve a given problem … alternatives exist. 

Books can be cooked to pretend the problem no longer exists. And perhaps to fool others.

A series of articles in the Washington Post highlights the effort to reduce the rate by which city schools suspend students for misbehavior. The good news? “D.C. Public Schools has reported a dramatic decline in suspensions at a time when school systems around the country have been under pressure to take a less punitive approach to discipline.” 

Results? A whopping 40-​percent decline.

The bad news? 

A Post investigation found that “at least seven of the city’s 18 high schools have kicked students out of school for misbehaving without calling it a suspension and in some cases even marked them present.” In those schools, “most suspensions were not reported.”*

The Post further uncovered documentation showing that “DCPS officials knew students were being sent home without documentation at least as early as 2010.”

It brings to mind the recent scandal in Prince George’s County (Maryland) Public Schools, where a dramatic announcement that the county increased its student graduation rate faster than any other county … was followed by an investigation into grade tampering by school administration officials, which numerous teachers have alleged.

It is also reminscent of the systematic cheating on standardized tests in Atlanta — and across the nation.

Hiding the truth, cheating on tests, lying about results … not the actions of a system teaching kids a love of truth.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Seven schools’ emails show that students spent a total of 406 days in suspension in January 2016. Officially recorded? Only 15 percent.


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Illustration based on a photo by Tod Baker