Obamacare, The Constitution, and “Sabotage”
Donald Trump: Nancy, Chuck, so good to see you. I wanted to bring you some good news: We’re starting construction on the border wall tomorrow.
Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer: What? Congress hasn’t appropriated money for the wall. And Congress has the “power of the purse,” not you. How can you say you’ll build the wall when we haven’t signed off on the funding?
Trump: Because Barack Obama did it for years. What about his actions on Obamacare?
Pelosi: What do you mean, what about Obamacare? It’s the law of the land—and you should stop sabotaging it!
Trump: By “sabotaging Obamacare,” you mean failing to spend money on the cost-sharing subsidies to lower deductibles and co-payments…
Pelosi and Schumer: Right!
Trump: …even though the text of Obamacare itself nowhere includes an appropriation for those subsidies…?
Pelosi and Schumer: Ummm…
Trump: Let me get this straight: You’re accusing ME of sabotage, because YOU “forgot” to include an appropriation in Obamacare for more than $10 billion per year in spending?
Pelosi: But “everyone understood” the law provided an appropriation…
Trump: Even though you couldn’t be bothered to write it down?
Pelosi and Schumer: Ummm…
Trump: Did either one of you—or for that matter, any Democrat—actually read the bill before voting for it?
Schumer: I meant to, I swear! But Max Baucus said he hired the best experts, so we didn’t think we needed to.
Trump: Didn’t those experts read the bill?
Schumer: They spent all their time cutting deals to get the bill passed. Those Cornhusker Kickbacks don’t write themselves, y’know!
Trump: Well, your loss is my gain. I’ve read some of the documents in the lawsuit over the cost-sharing subsidies. Do you know that the Obama Administration argued that the structure of the bill implied an appropriation, even though one doesn’t exist…?
Pelosi and Schumer: Yes…
Trump: And Nancy, you remember the amicus brief you filed in the case right before my election, which said that the courts are “certainly not” the venue for litigating cases when the executive invents an appropriation, as it did with the cost-sharing subsidies…?
Pelosi: But…but…but…
Trump: That means I can argue that there’s an appropriation behind any law Congress has passed—like the bill you voted for, Chuck, authorizing construction of the border fence…
Schumer: What?
Trump: …And you can’t go to court to stop me!
Pelosi and Schumer: But you requested funding from Congress—and we refused to grant it!
Trump: You mean, like Congress refused to appropriate funds for the Obamacare cost-sharing reductions, after President Obama requested them…?
Pelosi and Schumer: Ummm…
Trump: The Obama Administration testified before Congress that it had the authority to spend money on the cost-sharing reductions because Congress didn’t explicitly stop them from spending it, correct?
Schumer: Yes…
Trump: And Nancy, your brief said the same thing: That unless Congress explicitly prohibits a President from spending money, the President has free rein to do so…
Pelosi: But I was trying to protect Obamacare from sabotage!
Trump: Did you take an oath to support and defend the Constitution, or to support and defend Obamacare?
Pelosi and Schumer: There’s a difference?
Trump: Yes—and here it is. Thanks to President Obama’s precedent, I can make up whatever appropriations I want—and by your own admission, you can’t go to court to stop me. You could in theory enact a bill prohibiting me from spending money on these phantom appropriations. But because I have a veto pen, you’ll need a 2/3rds majority in each chamber to override me. You don’t have a 2/3rds majority, do you?
Pelosi and Schumer: No, Mr. President.
Trump: Didn’t think so. So I’ll get my funding for the border wall—and increased defense funding to boot. And maybe I’ll find some other appropriations too. I think the structure of Michelle Obama’s school lunch program implies an appropriation for a new chef at Mar-A-Lago…
Pelosi: You know, Mr. President, maybe we need to re-think our position on these phantom appropriations. I signed that legal brief the week before the election, not knowing who the next President would be. I thought that power would be safe in her hands…
Trump: WRONG!
Pelosi: But executive power has its limits—and Congress should jealously guard its “power of the purse,” regardless of which party holds power at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Otherwise, we could see all sorts of unintended consequences from legislation…
Trump: You mean, we had to pass the bill so that you could find out what is in it…?
Pelosi: Well played, Mr. President.