Using the Power of the Purse

The news that Bush and Gonzales will prohibit the Justice Department from enforcing Congressional subpoenas is just another example of the lawless desperation of this White House. I'm relatively hopeful that the courts will give this position the ridicule and condemnation it so richly deserves, but in the mean time, I'm all for Mark Kleiman's idea: Congress should start cutting appropriations for the executive branch.

Defund the non-essential (and dangerous) parts of the Executive Office of the President: the press office, the political office, the White House Counsel's office. None of those has any Constitutional standing; they exist only insofar as Congress appropriates money for them.

Cut the immediate office of the Attorney General back to one secretary. Forbid details.

Bush keeps repeating that the only power that Congress has to curb his excesses is the power of the purse. He's wrong about that, to be sure, but that doesn't mean that Congress shouldn't use that power in this case.