@csgordon@zirk.us @gwaldby

If you're really interested I can pull up the Social Security act in the morning. It defines all of that stuff in statute, but I don't have my computer handy at the moment.

I really don't care about parties and who does what would debt. The two major parties screw it up enough on their own.

But the Constitution has really interesting things to say in terms of checks and balances to make sure there are interests challenging each other to make sure no one has too much power over any of this.

The legislative branch legislates, granting authority to the executive branch to execute, but only within the bounds of both legislative grant and, you know, math, and that's really the main thing I'm pointing out here.

If the Congress appropriates more money than exists, which it is free to do, what do you think happens then? The executive can't spend more money than exists. That would be mathematically impossible, and yet Congress is free to do that.

It all goes to show that with separation of powers Congress only authorizes, it cannot obligate, since that would open the door to obligating impossible things.

So really I'm appealing to the same logic that the design of the federal government was based on. Simple ideas of different sides performing different jobs in a system of co-equal branches that cooperate to get things done.