John Boehner and the House Republicans may lack the testicular fortitude to fight President Obama, but I would kindly ask that he save the taxpayers further money on a political stunt

“John Boehner and the House Republicans may lack the testicular fortitude to fight President Obama, but I would kindly ask that he save the taxpayers further money on a political stunt ”

John Boehner and the House Republicans want to sue the President of the United States. Instead, they should man up.

227 years ago, when the founders of the nation set about drafting the constitution, they gave the House of Representatives the exclusive power to initiate revenue bills and impeach the Executive. That the House would sue the President over his use of executive power is an indication that its leadership no more values their own powers under constitution than the President they sue.

In Federalist 58, James Madison, the chief architect of our constitution, wrote

The House of Representatives cannot only refuse, but they alone can propose, the supplies requisite for the support of government. They, in a word, hold the purse that powerful instrument by which we behold, in the history of the British Constitution, an infant and humble representation of the people gradually enlarging the sphere of its activity and importance, and finally reducing, as far as it seems to have wished, all the overgrown prerogatives of the other branches of the government. This power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure.

John Boehner having to run home and cry to mama, i.e. let the courts act as the parent in the squabble, is chiefly a failure of House Republicans to use their “most complete and effectual weapon” against the Senate and President.

It is Republicans in the House and Senate who orchestrated giving Barack Obama a blank check to raise the debt ceiling through March of 2015. It is Republicans in the House and Senate who were so scared of a government shutdown, that they threw Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee under the bus before the President even initiated a government shut down.

The House Republicans have had one major victory against the President. It was the fight over cut, cap, and balance — an idea initiated by then Senator Jim DeMint and backed by conservatives in both the House and Senate. While it ultimately did not succeed, it saw real cuts in the form of sequestration and a victory against the President on spending.

But House Republicans allowed Rep. Paul Ryan to surrender the sequestration and, working with Democrats, raise taxes.

I realize John Boehner and the House Republicans may lack the testicular fortitude to fight President Obama, but I would kindly ask that he save the taxpayers further money on a political stunt solely designed to incite Republican voters who might otherwise stay home given the establishment’s bungling of Mississippi and abandonment of their constitutionally derived powers.

John Boehner’s lawsuit is nothing more than political theater and a further Republican waste of taxpayer dollars. If the Republican leaders in the House are too chicken to use their constitutional powers to rein in the President, they should just call it a day and go home.