A strange debate about executive power

File:Jupiter Smyrna Louvre Ma13.jpgAs I note in a comment on NYT’s Room for Debate, the “executive order” imbroglio coming out of the State of the Union speech is strange. The White House told newspapers before the speech that the president planned to sling about executive orders like Zeus with his thunderbolts, and they duly reported it on their front pages. Republicans duly exploded with outrage. The speech itself has a single mention of executive orders (“I will issue an executive order requiring federal contractors to pay their federally-funded employees a fair wage of at least $10.10 an hour”). The president continues in this vein, saying that he is going to do a bunch of other extremely minor things using his existing statutory authority, though it would be better if Congress would chip in with some legislation. The resulting controversy about presidential power is entirely manufactured–by both sides. Maybe the president’s strategy was to look fierce to his supporters while not actually doing anything that might get him in trouble with Congress.