Revealed in an interview of Grover Norquist, by National Journal,  Norquist anticipates a rebellion if Obama is reelected and doesn’t extend the Bush tax cuts.

Norquist is an antitax advocate and president of Americans for Tax Reform.  He has been engaged in charting the routes in which Republicans could ultimately control the House, Senate, and White House, along with statehouses across the country.

Norquist also presents a strategy for the impeachment of Obama.  The following is an excerpt from the National Journal interview:

NJ What are the major points of tax policy you’re looking at this year?

NORQUIST Even Obama is not going to want to raise taxes, because it’s an election year. He came up with this idea for the one-year tax holiday so he could claim that he’s for a tax cut. Mind you, it’s a temporary tax cut, but he does not want to run as a tax increaser. I think we’re in reasonably good shape.

Between now and November, I believe we will see a one-year extension of the FICA tax [cut]. I believe we will see the extension of [the break on] depreciation spending. And then the third one that you could have is repatriation. If I was Obama’s political consultant, I’d have put repatriation on the table when he extended the Bush-era tax cuts by two years [in 2010]. The estimates are that it would bring $6 [billion] to $800 billion back. If I were president, I would love to have that money flow back into the real economy, not the Solyndra economy, the year before I’m running for office.

NJ What if the Democrats still have control? What’s your scenario then?

NORQUIST Obama can sit there and let all the tax [cuts] lapse, and then the Republicans will have enough votes in the Senate in 2014 to impeach. The last year, he’s gone into this huddle where he does everything by executive order. He’s made no effort to work with Congress.

Jazz Shaw at HotAir has pondered Norquist’s impeachment scenario and is a bit skeptical.  Shaw writes,  “Amazingly, National Journal doesn’t take the bait on that provocative bit of speculation, so Norquist doesn’t have the opportunity to expand on it. I rather wish they had, since it would be interesting to see precisely which grounds he thinks the Senate could use to attempt the removal of Barack Obama from office. The simple act – or, to be more precise, lack of action – of allowing a legally passed set of tax cuts with a built in expiration date to lapse hardly sounds like something which would qualify as High Crimes and Misdemeanors. Further, signing executive orders is clearly not outside the bounds of the office, nor is being obstinate about working with Congress.”

Shaw is not alone in finding Norquist’s pronouncement inconceivable.   In a post from OutsideTheBeltway.Com:

“Norquist seems to be suggesting that the GOP would end up with enough Senators after the 2014 elections to convict the President after an Impeachment trial. That seems slightly silly to say the least since it would mean the GOP having at least 67 Senators, which is a higher majority than even the Democrats were able to achieve after back-to-back Congressional landslides in 2006 and 2008.

But the numbers don’t really matter, let’s consider for just a second what Norquist is saying here. He’s suggesting that a Republican Congress would consider impeaching a President because he refused to extend the Bush Tax Cuts or, to put it more precisely, because he refused to extend the Bush Tax Cuts for all taxpayers. It wouldn’t be the first time that a Congress tried to impeach a President over what was essentially a policy dispute, of course; that’s essentially what the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson was all about. That doesn’t make it proper, or even rational for that matter. On some level, I cannot honestly believe that Norquist is serious about this.”

Terry Jeffrey, however, in writing for Townhall.Com,  lays out a case for why he believes Norquist is right.  Jeffrey maintains that Obama’s appointment of Richard Cordray, as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, without Senate confirmation, violates the constitution.  Jeffrey bases his argument on the following two points:

• Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution says the president “shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint … Officers of the United States … but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone (and) … 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.”
• Article 1, Section 5 says: “Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.”

So, according to Jeffrey, two questions are relevant in regard to Cordray’s appointment.  Did Congress make the CFPB director an “inferior officer” the president could appoint without Senate confirmation? And, was Congress in session on January 4^th, when Obama made the appointment?

He continues by pointing out that the Dodd-Frank law created the CFPB and under the law, “the Director shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.”

Jeffrey argues that on January 4^th the Senate did not have consent of the House to adjourn, which is a requirement of Article1, Section 5 of the law.  Congress wasn’t in recess.

Recently, former Attorney General, Ed Meese, related in an interview that “the House of Representatives should pass a sense of the House resolution condemning the president for this, so that the people themselves will understand that he is doing an unconstitutional act.”

Whereas Jeffrey agrees with Meese, he goes further and says that not only was the appointment of Cordray an abuse of the constitution, but so was the signing of the law that created the CFPB.  He states,  “The Constitution plainly states how the federal government can spend money. Article 1, Section 9 says: ‘No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.’”

This principle is first cousin to the primary principle that inspired the Founding Fathers to declare American independence from England. Just as there should be no taxation without representation, there should be no spending without representation.

But CFPB will not be funded by money Congress appropriates in keeping with Article 1, Section 9. It will be funded directly by the unelected Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve.

‘Each year (or quarter of such year), beginning on the designated transfer date, and each quarter thereafter,” says the Dodd-Frank law, “the Board of Governors shall transfer to the Bureau from the combined earnings of the Federal Reserve System, the amount determined by the Director to be reasonably necessary to carry out the authorities of the Bureau under Federal consumer financial law, taking into account such other sums made available to the Bureau from the preceding year (or quarter of such year).’”

And, of course, the individual with the power to control the unappropriated funds is…Obama’s unconfirmed director.

-Candice Lanier

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5. Iowa Senator Grassley Calls For Justice Department Head of Criminal Division, Lanny Breuer, To Resign