Rick Perry: Cut Their Pay...Send Them Home

Lately, Governor Rick Perry has be running this TV ad:



While threatening to "cut Congress' pay" and "send them home" might sound like a good, tough-guy kind of strategy to woo voters, in reality, it shows that Perry lacks a basic understanding of one of the primary tenants of our Constitution: The Separation of Powers. Apparently, Perry doesn't seem to know that only Congress can cut Congress' pay and only Congress can decide when and how often they meet. The only power that a President has over them is veto power. And, even that can be overridden. In fact, when it comes to pay, it's Congress who decides how much the President is paid.

Also, when it comes to the passage of a "Balanced Budget Amendment", Perry seems not to understand how utterly impossible it would be to achieve that goal. First of all, most Democrats are vehemently opposed to a forced balancing of spending against revenues. Generally, they argue that such a Constitutional mandate would hamstring Congress' need to spend more money at times of a national emergency; such as wartime. Secondly and because of the lack of Democratic support, the chances of getting a two-thirds vote in both houses is almost impossible.

To me, the Perry ad makes it sound like he's already declared war on Congress. That, in itself, shows a complete lack of leadership.