Pacific Views

Can the US Congress cut funds for Dubya's 'surge'?

According to a new report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, the answer is Yes.

In sum, it seems that under the constitutional allocation of powers Congress has the prerogative of placing a legally binding condition on the use of appropriations to prevent the deployment of additional U.S. armed forces to Iraq. Such a prohibition seems directly related to the allocation of resources at the President’s disposal, and would therefore not appear to interfere impermissibly with the President’s ability to exercise command and control over the U.S. armed forces. Although not beyond question, such a prohibition would arguably survive any challenge as an incident both of Congress’s war power and of its power over appropriations.

This is just the CRS' opinion, of course, but they've had a pretty good record of figuring out how the courts are likely to rule on federal government actions. Those who say that Congress can't limit Dubya's power to commit troops and money to Iraq should just give it up.

You can read the full CRS report here [PDF file].

Via Secrecy News.

Posted by Magpie at February 1, 2007 09:20 AM | Iraq | Technorati links |