Abuse of executive powers threatens democracy
by Adam Kredo • Washington Free Beacon
Perdue, in his first wide-ranging speech from the Senate floor, blasted what he said is the Obama administration’s unprecedented abuse of the presidency and failure to set America on stable path.
“Unbridled use of executive orders and regulatory mandates has basically allowed this president to run the country without Congress for the past six years,” Perdue said, according to text of his speech.
“The abuse of executive power, the significant deterioration of American foreign policy, and our out-of-control debt” has fundamentally endangered the United States’ standing the world, he said.
Quoting Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University constitutional law professor, Perdue noted that what “we are witnessing today is one of the greatest challenges to our constitutional system in the history of this country.”
“According to Professor Turley, this sets dangerous precedents for future courts and future presidents,” he said.
The Obama administration’s actions on the international front have “created a situation where our allies don’t trust us and our enemies don’t fear us,” according to Perdue. “Leading from behind has failed as a foreign policy.”
As the administration seeks to ink a nuclear agreement with Iran that would permit it to build nuclear weapons after a temporary, decade-long freeze, Perdue blasted the president for endangering global security.
“A nuclear Iran whose leaders are committed to the death of Israel and America would spark an unprecedented wave of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East and potentially worldwide,” he said. “Under no circumstances, can we allow Iran to become a nuclear weapons state not now, not in 10 years, not ever.”
Perdue also warned that the administration’s reluctance to thwart terrorist activities abroad could lead to an future attack on U.S. soil.
“After battling terrorism for the past 14 years, and fighting two major wars with thousands of American lives lost and billions spent, we still face terrorist threats from jihadist Islamic groups who openly vow to do us harm,” he said. “We face a tough choice: deal with them over there or wait and deal with the consequences here at home.”
These issues, combined with severe funding cuts to the U.S. military, have jeopardized America’s ability to protect itself and its allies, Perdue said.
“New asymmetric threats combined with traditional symmetric challenges create unprecedented demand on our military at the very time that this administration has reduced military spending to the point that we are about to have the smallest Army since before WWII, the smallest Navy since WWI and the smallest Air Force ever,” he said. “This is simply unacceptable.”
“To have a strong defense, though, we must have a strong economy,” Perdue added. “Our own fiscal irresponsibility jeopardizes our ability to fund a strong military. Admiral Michael Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the greatest threat to our national security is our own federal debt.”
Perdue also warned that the growing and unchecked federal deficit threatens to erode America’s domestic and international agenda.
The Senate must step up to the plate and deal with the country’s most pressing issues.
“To create a new beginning, it’s time for this eminent body, the United States Senate, to rise above partisan politics and do the right thing,” he said. “It starts with leadership. It starts with making hard decisions. It starts with telling the American people the unvarnished truth. It starts with no longer kicking the can down the road. It starts with having the courage to actually solve these problems, independent of how it might affect our own re-election.”
“My motivation is very simple,” Perdue added. “I do not want to be a member of the first generation in American history that has to tell its kids that we are leaving them a country that is worse off than the one our parents left us.”