Donald Trump Thinks He Won’t Have Enough Power

These are the times that try a constitutional conservative’s soul.

Donald Trump and his allies have proposed two legal maneuvers that could have profound consequences for the function of the federal government. He has proposed confirming presidential appointments through an abuse of his power to make recess appointments, and his allies have proposed reviving a mostly banned practice called impoundment, under which the president can refuse to spend money appropriated by Congress.

These proposals together would gut core constitutional functions of Congress and could make Trump our nation’s most imperial peacetime president.

You can’t fully comprehend how pernicious these proposals are without knowing Congress’s intended role in our republic. If you read the Constitution carefully, you see that the United States was not intended to have coequal branches of government. Instead, it is clear that the branch of government closest to the people, Congress, was given more power than any other.

While other branches can check Congress’s power — the president can veto bills and the Supreme Court can use the power of judicial review to invalidate statutes passed by Congress, to give the most obvious examples — Congress’s enumerated powers surpass those of both the president and the court.

Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution says, “All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.” This constitutional provision is particularly important, given that in the original Constitution the House was the only part of the federal government chosen directly by the people. The power of the purse is inseparable from democratic rule.

Congress has the sole constitutional power to declare war, even if presidents frequently usurp that authority. It can fire the president, executive officers and judges through impeachment and conviction. It can override presidential vetoes, and the Senate can reject presidential appointees.