“Maybe it’s an exaggeration, but my point is, we’ve got to be very careful about endorsing broad uses of executive power in our republic.”

Says someone who has voted to extend war power authorization for the Executive several times. Not only do such votes authorize the spending, but it does so “off the books”. No Treasury bonds are issued to offset the spending, so one has to know how to dive the depths of the Fed’s reports to even find it.

In 2015 the University of Michigan Econ dept did a rough audit of such shadow spending by the Pentagon and FEMA and found more than the national debt that sets every politician’s hair on fire. I believe the total was $21 Trillion. Forbes did a piece about it, but wrongly focussed on where the money “went”, not where it came from. Asking the right questions would place in question much of the process involved in money creation and debt.

It would be extremely hard to justify causing so much misery in this “great” nation should the plebes find out that it’s really not that big a deal to create the money needed to mitigate suffering without collecting more taxes or borrowing more. About 99% of the conservative econ platform would go out the window and they (both establishment parties) would be outed as the corrupt frauds they are.

If preventing brown people from claiming refuge via constitutional refugee status constitutes an “emergency” then surely saving our species and most life on earth would rank right up there. If progressives, like AOC, gain power you can just about guarantee that spending for the Green New Deal will qualify, as it should. Once the necessity of bond issues to match deficit spending is debunked (a gold standard left over that mostly gives covert welfare to the wealthy and banking) only available resources limit spending for the public purpose. This move by Trump, which I’m sure he would see as a victory, could empower a progressive government for decades via the prosperity it offers.