Amarillo Globe-News - Editorial: Let Congress Have a Say

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By Unknown

When it comes to the president and his penchant for doing things on his own, regardless of the U.S. Constitution, the list is quite extensive.

President Barack Obama takes it upon himself to determine what parts of his signature governmental health care boondoggle (better known as the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare) will be enforced and what parts will simply be ignored or delayed.

The president picks and chooses what federal laws he likes or dislikes as far as the enforcement of drug laws.

At the United Nations on Tuesday, he announced a new executive order "directing federal agencies to consider climate change in all international development programs," according to www
.huffingtonpost.com.

We could go on with the president and his executive orders, but you get the point.

Perhaps this president has not fired off as many executive orders as many of his predecessors, but it is not the quantity, but the quality -- or lack thereof.

However, the decision this week by the president to launch airstrikes by the U.S. military against terrorist targets in Syria -- without the authorization of Congress, we might add -- would be far down the list of this president's encroachments.

Did the president go it alone, or at least without the support of Congress? Yes, he did. But, as we have mentioned previously, there are few, if any, suitable alternatives.

"I think the president should come to Congress," said Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Clarendon, who gave a news conference in Amarillo Tuesday and is Vice Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. "I think the president, under Article Two (of the U.S. Constitution), can take emergency action to protect the country. This (recent military action) is not going to be an emergency. This is going to take a lot of time.

"I think he has to come to Congress, and I hope he will. If he doesn't, I still think we ought to debate it and vote on it. Obviously, that is not going to happen before the election, but I think we should."

Thornberry, who supports the recent military action, pointed out that what the House authorized as far as this situation was "training and arming."

"We train in about 28 different countries now, but we are training government forces," Thornberry said. "(The president) has to get Congress' approval for the military to do this training of nongovernmental forces."

We doubt the president would face significant political opposition on this issue, especially since the U.S. military is already conducting airstrikes.

It would be nice, just this once, if the president would include Congress on an important decision.

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