Danielle's Blog: Issue #1

The Commander in Chief of the U.S. has the right given to him by the constitution to direct the U.S. Armed Forces, on the other hand, Congress has the right to approve or deny the way the President spends money when it comes to war and any other federal spending. This way the people can elect those that represent what they believe and then congress can monitor federal spending in a way that makes the people happy. The taxes that the general public has to pay is the reason the government has money to spend so they should have a right to control where it goes. The war in Iraq caused the United States' spending to skyrocket. The budget deficit reached $412 billion in 2004 which was an all-time high.

The other point of view is that the people originally elected the president and the president being the Commander in Chief should have the right to spend money on war in whichever way he thinks is best without having to worry about congress interfering. The president and congress fighting about how to spend the money when it comes to war will only distract us from the goal and end up losing us the war.

I believe that although we elected the president, congress should still have to monitor his financial spending when it comes to war because that way the American people will still be able to control the government's actions. Like John Locke believed, the people have the right by the constitution to elect those that share similar beliefs, but we also have the right to remove those same people from government if we do not like what they are doing. The money paying for the war is coming from the people which makes it their business too. Scott Sipprelle, a republican running for a seat in the house in New Jersey agrees that more needs to be done to control how the tax payers dollars are spent. Here is the article explaining his plan for this to become a reality.
http://www.supportscott2010.com/2010/02/control-government-spending-and-national-debt/%20