The Affairs of Government

Trump's use of a national emergency to fund the border wall could run into legal issues, not to mention its damaging implications for the rule of law At the time of writing, the news has just broken that President Donald Trump will use the emergency powers of the presidency to attempt to fund a concrete or steel barrier at the southern border. After a tumultuous and economically harmful government shutdown last month over this proposed border, Trump had failed to achieve his demand for border wall funding. It seemed plausible that he would acquiesce to a new bipartisan compromise, that included no wall funding, cooked up by a congressional committee to deal with the issue of border security. However, It appears that, even though he will likely sign the negotiated deal, he will still attempt to use his emergency powers. But if the president decides that he must use the emergency powers vested in him by the Constitution to achieve political ends, what’s so wrong with that?