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OPINION

DOGE Is Constitutional. What It’s Exposing Is Unconstitutional.

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.
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Photo/Alex Brandon

The Deep State Swamp and its denizens and creatures are up in arms about what President Donald Trump and Elon Musk are doing with their Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).  

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What these tens of millions of career thieves really are?  Is embarrassed - and very, very worried.  DC has been the biggest and longest-running con in world history.  These stewards of the scam have spent these many decades pocketing trillions of our dollars.  While pretending to be looking out for US.

Then Trump and Musk parachute in with their DOGE.  FINALLY someone is examining what DC has for decades been doing to US.  And the usual suspects - who should be convicts - are screeching.

My favorite of their defenses of the indefensible?  “DOGE is unconstitutional!!!”  Even a former Ronald Reagan Administration associate White House counsel - Alan Charles Raul - makes the assertion:

“What is not debatable, however, is that Congress has not authorized this radical overhaul, and the protocols of the Constitution do not permit statutorily mandated agencies and programs to be transformed — or reorganized out of existence — without congressional authorization.

“The Constitution is well known to interpose meaningful checks and balances and a separation of powers among the responsibilities of the executive, legislative and judicial branches. It is also well understood that the respective branch’s powers and duties will intersect and overlap.  Fundamentally, however, all legislative power belongs to Congress, and executive power to the president.”    

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And right there - where we emboldened - Raul proves himself wrong and Trump-Musk-DOGE right.  Trump is the chief executive of the Executive Branch.  He can run his branch of the government however he wishes.  

Raul’s assertion that “the protocols of the Constitution do not permit statutorily mandated agencies and programs to be transformed - or reorganized out of existence - without congressional authorization” - is directly contradicted by the Constitution bestowing upon the president exclusive power over his branch.

Trump’s the boss.  He can fire anyone and everyone he wants.  For whatever reason.  Or no reason at all.  Congress may have passed many laws to limit this ability:

“(A) tangled web of laws and regulations around hiring and firing government employees could mire Trump's efforts in lawsuits and delays….

“Most civil service employees can be fired legally only for bad performance or misconduct, and they have a host of due process and appeal rights if they are let go arbitrarily. Probationary employees - typically those with less than a year of service - have fewer legal protections.

“Federal agencies can trim headcount through so-called reductions in force, but that can be a complicated process governed by rules and regulations dictating the scope and order of firings. The process can take months to a year or longer, and employees must be given notice and in some cases the opportunity to take a different government job.”

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All of these laws are unconstitutional.  

And if Trump fires enough people to make one or more of the 456+ federal bureaucracies go away?  He can do that too.  Per the Constitution.  Congress passing laws creating federal bureaucracies?  Doesn’t limit the President’s powers to decide what becomes of them once they are in his purview.

An aside: Isn’t it nauseating that the federal government is SO HUGE - no one can say with any hope of accuracy how many federal bureaucracies there actually are?  

Another aside: Isn’t it nauseating that NO ONE in DC - for decades - said a word as the 456+ bureaucracies all expanded themselves WAY beyond what the laws say?  DCs thieves only now chime in when Trump wants them to do less than what the laws say?

Oh: And most of what the federal government is doing?  Is unconstitutional.  The Constitution must expressly empower the federal government to do something.  If it does not?  The Ninth and Tenth Amendments kick in.  

Ninth: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

Tenth: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” 

These two amendments say: The Constitution grants certain, specific powers and responsibilities to the federal government.  And it is a VERY short list.  EVERYTHING ELSE is “reserved to the States and the people.”  

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The VAST majority of what the federal government currently does?  Is WAY BEYOND unconstitutional.  Perhaps the most egregious of all?  The 111+ “independent” agencies

There is no fourth branch of government.  Per the Constitution, there are only three.  Thus no bureaucracy can be independent.  Every bureaucracy is responsible to the chief of the Executive Branch.  Per the Constitution.  

My guess is Congress started extruding “independent” agencies like a Pez dispenser?  To end run the fact that the bureaucracies they were creating were themselves unconstitutional.  So they added another layer of unconstitutionality by pretending Congress’ putrid creations didn’t answer to anyone.  

DOGE just closed the allegedly independent, unconstitutional Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).  Good riddance.  

The CFPBs existence is unconstitutional: The Constitution does not expressly empower the federal government to do what the CFPB did.  Its self-funding - via the Federal Reserve - is unconstitutional: All spending must emanate from Congress (Article I, Section 8, Clause 2).  And the CFPBs alleged independence is, of course, unconstitutional.

Speaking of the allegedly independent Federal Reserve?  Fed chairman Jay Powell and his DC defenders have at least twice provided us quintessential examples of how absurd and tyrannical any agency’s claim to independence actually is.

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In a July 2019 House hearing involving Powell, California Democrat Congressman Maxine Waters said “Let’s be clear: It is essential that the Federal Reserve maintain its independence from the Executive Branch.  And so I urge Chairman Powell and and other Federal Reserve board governors not to submit to the high pressure tactics of this President (Trump).”

Waters then asked Powell what he would do if President Trump told him to go.  His response?  “Well of course I would not do that….My answer would be ‘No.’”

Waters followed “Because you think the President doesn’t have the authority?”  Powell responded: “I’ve kind of said what I intended to say on the subject….The law clearly gives me a four year term and I fully intend to serve it.”

In case that wasn’t tyrannical and obnoxious enough for you?  In November - just before We the People yet again voted for Trump? Powell said this:

“The election will have no effects on policy decisions.”  Asked by a reporter if he would leave were Trump to ask him to do so?  He said “No.”

Again:  NO ONE elected this clown.  Yet somehow NO ONE - not even the President of the United States - can fire him?  

He runs an unconstitutional bureaucracy - because the Constitution does not empower the federal government to do what the Fed does.

He asserts his unconstitutional bureaucracy - has unconstitutional independence.  Which is the establishment of a fourth (fifth?  tenth? 1,000th?) branch of government.  The Constitution only establishes three.    

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All laws that created the Fed - and allegedly gave it its “independence?”  Are ALL unconstitutional.

DOGE should shut down the Fed.  In its entirety.  

Because DOGE is constitutional.  What it’s exposing is not.

Editor’s Note: President Trump, Elon Musk, and DOGE are bringing much-needed accountability to our out-of-control government as they take a chainsaw to rampant waste, fraud, and abuse.

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