The Constitution says Congress has the power of the purse, not the president. The president executes the funding decisions of Congress.
Yesterday Trump called on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to stop funding public radio and public television. Never mind that National Public Radio brings news to listeners in areas totally saturated by rightwing Sinclair stations. Never mind that PBS is the best source of documentaries about science, history, nature, medicine, other nations, and global affairs. PBS is educational television at its best.
The Washington Post reported:
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday evening seeking to prohibit federal funding for NPR and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). The order, which could be subject to legal challenge, called the broadcasters’ news coverage “biased and partisan.”
It instructs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to cease providing direct funds to either broadcaster. It also orders CPB to cease indirect funding of the services through grants to local public radio and television stations.
CPB is the main distributor of federal funds to public media. It receives about $535 million in federal funds per fiscal year, which it mostly spends on grants to hundreds of stations nationwide. The stations spend the grants on making their own programming or on buying programming from services such as NPR and PBS.
CPB, created by an act of Congress in 1967, also sometimes provides direct grants to NPR and PBS to produce national programs.
Thursday’s order instructs the CPB board to ensure that stations receiving its grants “do not use Federal funds for NPR and PBS.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is disgusting and appalling, NPR and PBS are more than news stations they also have shows about culture, the arts, current trends, psychology, the environment, entertainment, biographies, philosophy, interview shows, etc. The Ken Burns shows are great and always worth watching. I exclusively watch PBS and listen to NPR except for the liberal talkers (Thom Hartmann, Stephanie Miller, Mike Malloy, that I get through the Internet). I don’t even bother with commercial TV except for 60 Minutes and the occasional news shows.
Another reason to loathe and despise the pig in the White House.
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From all that I can read, the stations that will be hurt are small rural or micropolitan communities. Most of these play classical music or music from an area (one plays Appalachian folk music that I can think of). Rural voters will not notice this for the most part, but it will add to the news deserts in those parts of the country deliberately created by big money to funnel Christian nationalism and hostility to a population already under economic pressure due the power of these same entities.
As in other domains like education, Trump wants certain knowledge sources to fail, providing his own success.
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Recall that success is defined by corruption, as was noted in another thread here.
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THE ONLY WAY to stop Trump from slicing and dicing our nation with “executive orders” that usurp the constitutional authority of Congress is to challenge such orders as violating our Constitution. Why has no one yet done that?
AT THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF 1797 in which the Constitution was written by delegates from the original states, Connecticut delegate Roger Sherman explained that the Constitution created the Presidency as “nothing more than an institution for carrying the will of the Legislature [Congress] into effect.”
THE CONSTITUTION says in Article 2, Section 1, that “The Executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”
THE WORD “EXECUTIVE” comes from the Latin word “exsequi,” which translates as “to carry out”. So, an “executive” is someone who carries out orders or follows through on a plan made by others, as in “the soldier executed his orders.”
THE CONSTITUTION, in Article 2, Section 3, COMMANDS that the President “shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed [carried out].”
THE MEANING of the constitutional title “Executive”, combined with the Constitutional Convention definition of the President’s duty, plus the Constitution’s command on the President contained in Article 2, Section 3, mean that the President can only CARRY OUT the laws made by Congress, NOT CREATE OR CHANGE LAWS by so-called “executive order”.
BECAUSE so-called “executive orders” are not authorized in our Constitution, and because our Constitution gives ALL LAWMAKING AUTHORITY TO CONGRESS ALONE, and because our Constitution commands the President to faithfully carry out the laws made by Congress —
THEREFORE, any so-called “executive order” that reverses or in any way changes or limits a law passed by Congress is a violation of our Constitution’s command that the President “shall take care that the Laws be faithfully executed [carried out]” and is therefore AN IMPEACHABLE OFFENSE.
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I am in agreement with your comments. I don’t understand what is being done to stop this maniacal president and the Doge regime from completely tearing down all of the public service institutions in your country. The Constitution has been violated and ignored. I hope everyday to see evidence of someone making a move to put a stop to this destruction and restore democracy, freedom and liberty to the American people.
From A Canadian Who Cares
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Andrea,
Thank you for caring. I’m embarrassed by Trump’s ridiculous hostility towards Canada. He’s a giant baby. He’s crude, rude, foul-mouthed, and has a small brain.
We love Canada.
Diane
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All but one POTUS has issued executive orders. Washington issued 8. FDR issued 3,725 of ’em!
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There are many lawsuits challenging his executive orders.
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The lawsuits are questioning the legality of individual executive orders on specific issues, not the overall constitutionality of executive orders that go beyond the narrow focus of administrative functions, which is what the constitution limits the Chief Executive to issuing.
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Good point. I’m not sure whether anyone is challenging the executive orders per se, but they should be.
He is unilaterally legislating, eliminated Congressionally authorized agencies and departments. Other presidents have issued EOs, but I think they were more limited in scope.
I can’t think of any that sought to alter the Constitution, like Trump’s EO to cancel birthright citizenship.
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“Executive Orders” as these administrative instructions have come to be known have almost always been just that: Orders from the Chief Executive to in some way instruct departments under the Executive Office how to conduct their operations.
Trump’s view is that the Chief Executive has the authority to change or negate laws enacted by Congress. The Constitution is clear: Only Congress can create or change laws.
So-called “Executive Orders” that in any way change or negate laws are prima facie unconstitutional — and THAT’S the fundamental issue which needs to be ruled by the courts instead of ruling individually on such orders.
When that blanket ruling is made, then any further orders that Trump issues to change/negate laws are automatically null and void.
Until such a ruling is REQUESTED and issued, Trump will continue with his blizzard of Executive Orders, sowing chaos in our government and economy. It’s a mystery why no such blanket ruling has been requested as yet by opposition attorneys, especially when one sees the absolute clarity of the Constitution in establishing Congress’s sole authority to make or change laws.
If things continue like this on a case-by-case basis, the turmoil will continue.
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Most of the complaints I’ve seen in these cases do challenge the constitutionality of the specific executive orders at issue in those cases on the ground that they are ultra vires actions, i.e. that the executive has no constitutional power to enact law or amend law without a delegation of authority from Congress.
You can’t really bring a lawsuit to get a declaration that executive orders in general are unconstitutional. That would be seeking an advisory order outside the courts’ Article III powers, which are restricted to specific “cases or controversies.” But of course holdings in cases involving challenges to specific executive orders can apply to similar cases.
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The order sought would not be against executive orders in general, but for just one type of executive order of which all such orders are clearly in violation of Article 1, Section 1; that is, orders which negate or change a law passed by Congress. The Court can and has issued such rulings against a class of constitutional violations.
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It’s theoretically conceivable that the court would give a holding so broad that it would invalidate all executive orders if that’s what you’re talking about, but it wouldn’t happen in practice. The Court has a fair number of decisions on executive orders and it’s found that they are permissible when they don’t exceed implied executive authority or (implicit or explicit) power delegated by Congress. So that’s basically what the issue is. The complaints I’ve seen argue that the orders being challenged exceed that authority, as they should be.
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Trump is taking a wrecking ball to the common good and anything that benefits the public while he prepares to blow up the deficit with a gigantic tax cut for the wealthy. In addition to the blatant corruption, all his plans are a reverse Robin Hood scheme to take from working people and transfer more wealth to the already wealthy.
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Trump’s budget proposes cutting education, health, climate change, anything that benefits the public, while he raised the military to $1 trillion.
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