Lost Local Control By Cities

Current Event

According to FoxNews.com January 20, 2011

Nation’s Mayors Urge Obama to Help With Jobs, Maintain Federal Grants for Cash-Strapped Cities

Grappling with a brutal economic climate, more than 200 of the nation’s mayors have descended upon Washington to urge President Obama to help cities out of the fiscal morass they find themselves in as state and federal aid dries up.

Several mayors, attending the annual National Conference of Mayors, met behind closed doors with the president  and Vice President Biden on Thursday afternoon.  Job creation is high on the agenda as the local executives push the administration to help find work in America’s cities and townships, where 85 percent of the nation’s population resides.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said the group had a “great meeting” in which the president said he would focus on economic development and “the need for the federal government to partner with cities.”

Also among the concerns that are expected to be raised is a fear that Obama will propose cutting as much as 25 percent or $1 billion out of the Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), the federal program that provides cash to municipalities for economic development, low-income housing and other needs.

More than 1,200 cities and towns receive the money either directly from the federal government or from the states. Seventy percent of the money flows directly to cities with populations of at least 50,000 and counties with at least 200,000 people. The rest goes to states which distribute the money to municipalities and rural areas with smaller populations.

VS

The Constitution vs. Our President

Founding Document

US Constitution; 10^th Amendment

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

To quote James Madison, Federalist No. 45

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite

US Constitution, Article II, Section 2

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.

Section 3 – State of the Union, Convening Congress

He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

We the People

Many mayors rely on federal subsidies for mass transit, housing, streets and highways, food stamps, energy assistance, free mobile phones; the list goes on…  The powers of the president are limited by Article II, Section 2 and do not include such funding.   And yet these mayors are groveling for President Obama’s blessing.  The cost of such unconstitutional subsidies is lost local control and unsustainable federal debt.