In one of the best books on the Constitutional balance of powers in the conduct of foreign affairs, Pat Holt — Chief of Staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee throughout the 1960s and 1970s — characterized the competing and overlapping grants of power in the Constitution “an invitation to struggle.”

Consider this:

– Section 2 of Article II of the Constitution makes the President the “Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States” but Section 8 Article I makes clear that only the Congress can “declare War.”

– Section 2 of Article II permits the President to “make Treaties” and appoint “Ambassadors and other Public Ministers and Counsels” but only with agreement of 2/3 of the Senate.

In their wisdom, the Founders did not give outright power on these critical matters of war and peace to any one branch of government. Instead, they left it up to the elected political leaders to debate and struggle over these questions in the hopes that such debate would be the surest way to end up with sound policy.

By refusing to even cooperate with the Senate Judiciary Committee efforts to oversee the legality of the NSA program, the Administration is ignoring the Founders’ sound advice. By refusing to allow the Senate Intelligence Committee to look into the NSA program, Chairman Roberts is doing the same.

The Constitution invites us to struggle about these questions, not ignore them. Chairman Specter, Senator Rockefeller and others have accepted the invitation. I hope others in the Senate will follow their lead.

We face a major crisis in this nation. Our health system is collapsing. We now spend a record-high 16 percent of our economy on health care. Premiums have risen by 73 percent since 2000. And businesses now spend nearly $450 billion on health benefits – not counting their Medicare payroll taxes. In a few short years, the health costs of Fortune 500 companies will exceed their profits. Despite these costs, the U.S. ranks 34th on life expectancy, 41st in infant mortality, and 37th, according to the World Health Organization, in health system performance. In short, we need fundamental change.

The problem is not a lack of ideas. It is a lack of leadership. The only answer that the President has to this crisis is so-called consumer-driven health care. This means shifting costs to people through high deductibles, and shifting risk and responsibility to patients.

This is a bad idea for three reasons:

1. It makes the wrong assumptions about health care. A person with chest pain is not in a position to decide on which tests to take and what drugs he needs. A $1,000 deductible is not going to make a person switch hospitals to get an extra hour of hospital care, which is all that the deductible can buy. Health care is not a commodity. When we buy a car, we don’t want to have the parts dropped off on our front lawns. Consumer-driven care just doesn’t make sense for health care.

2. It assumes that individuals can go up against industry and win. Look at the Medicare drug benefit. My mother has to choose from 73 plans. It is impossible for her to figure out which has the lowest prices. Rather than pooling the purchasing power of seniors to leverage lower prices, this drug benefit allows for drug companies to charge higher prices and insurers to profit. So, if you like the Medicare drug benefit, you will love consumer-directed health care.

3. It pits the healthy against the sick. About 70 percent of costs in the U.S. health system are for the top 10 percent most expensive people. These people’s costs are well above the deductible, so a high deducible won’t change their behavior.

Consumer-directed health care is not the answer, and it will make matters worse. Instead, we should embrace comprehensive health reform based on four simple pillars. It should provide affordable health care for all Americans, ensure choice of doctors and plans, contain costs, and prioritize prevention.

It’s good to be back online with you all.

I have been flabbergasted by the continuing news coming out of the Justice Department. I first wrote on this blog a few weeks ago to discuss the harmful impact that requiring photo IDs would have on the most basic right in this country – the right to vote. Just a couple of weeks later, I returned to Think Progress to discuss how political bureaucrats at the Department of Justice overrode the strong recommendation of experienced DOJ professionals who suggested that the Georgia photo ID law was inconsistent with requirements under the historically successful Voting Rights Act. We have since learned that political bureaucrats at Justice overrode the professionals on the Texas redistricting case, too.

Now, the Justice Department has enacted a policy to not even seek the recommendations of career professionals on cases regarding state compliance with the Voting Rights Act. Republican and Democratic Administrations for decades have sought to insulate this important process from politics by establishing a transparent process shepherded by experienced professionals, not political appointees.

In 2002, we fought to protect the rights of experienced professionals at the new Department of Homeland Security because we felt it was vital that we emphasize the role of experts who are able make decisions based on the merits and for the good of the country, not for the good of a political party. The Bush administration sees government as a mechanism to protect their own interests, not the most basic rights of American citizens.

What is amazing is the Administration does not even hide its intention to completely disregard checks and balances – it sees the historic institutions of our government as vehicles to protect its political equities, not as vehicles to protect Americans’ fundamental rights.

Having read that troubling story I could not help but revisit the discussion on election reform we had about a month ago.

I was particularly unimpressed by one line of argument uncovered in the Post article. An Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice argued that the number of potential voters without a photo ID was “extremely small.” He went on to argue that those without such ID were more likely to be white than black.

My question is this: why would the Department of Justice of the United States of America want to make it harder for any voter, regardless of his or her race, to exercise the most basic right guaranteed people of this great country?

Thankfully, two courts – with judges appointed by Republicans and Democrats alike – have now seen through the proposed Georgia law on requiring photo IDs to vote. Those courts have rightly stayed implementation of that unfortunate law – notwithstanding the political posturing of political appointees in Justice. That gives me great hope that the law will never be implemented – and other states will refuse to follow Georgia’s lead on passing what amounts to a modern day poll tax.