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Letter: Trump not acting by the rules of governance

February 7, 2019

Reading the final paragraph of the Cape Gazette  editorial of Jan. 25, I became deeply concerned by what I believe you are suggesting.  While your editorial does a good job detailing the dire effects of the shutdown,  to suggest as you did in the concluding paragraph, “Trump sees an emergency.  He should act. Congress should let him,” is actually quite alarming, given the way Trump has invoked the term, emergency. 

Trump has said that he has the authority to declare that the border is an emergency and he could take  the $5.7 billion from the Pentagon budget to build the wall, and in essence, circumvent the will of Congress which in the Constitution is a co-equal branch of the government. Think carefully! Is this a precedent that you want to see set, where when a president doesn’t get his way, he declares an emergency. This is dangerous!

Perhaps your use of “emergency “ referred to the crisis created by the shutdown but using the statement, “Trump sees an emergency,” links to Trump’s characterization of the wall as a national emergency worth shutting the government. It is not. The government could have remained opened and Trump could have fought for the wall funding by following the rules. The very real emergency caused by the shutdown is a product of Trump not being willing to act by the rules of governance.

Bette McGrath
Milton

  • A letter to the editor expresses a reader's opinion and, as such, is not reflective of the editorial opinions of this newspaper.

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