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Officially Contemptuous of Congress

A new GAO report confirms that Bush’s signing statements have undermined the rule of law

By Brian Beutler, The Media Consortium

Well, it’s official: President Bush doesn’t much respect the laws Congress passes. A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report—commissioned by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) and released yesterday—confirms that Bush’s use of presidential signing statements are, in fact, utterly without precedent. Though they’ve been used by American presidents for about 200 years, signing statements—edicts issued by the president… return to article

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    The problem with provisions like the ones about the Defense budget, however, is that they have no teeth. Yes, they say, “Thou shalt ask for the money in this way,” but then they provide no penalty if the agency doesn’t ask for it that way. If there’s no penalty attached to the provision, such as a restriction on spending funds for some purpose if the provision isn’t followed, then those are merely advisory and not binding. This is poor drafting on the part of Congress, and not some conspiracy on the part of the Executive branch (at least with regard to those particular provisions).

    United States Posted by Moose on Jun 19, 2007 at 8:27 PM
    Page 1 of 1 pages

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