WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today on the Senate floor, U.S. Senator Peter Welch (D-Vt.) called out President Trump for his use and abuse of executive power and admonished the United States Senate for its continued passivity: 

“We are nine months into the second Trump Administration, and there are two dynamics that have become very painfully clear. One is the arbitrary use and abuse of power by the Executive, and two, the regrettable passivity of the United States Senate. It’s a dangerous combination: an Executive who is doing much more than he has the legal power to do, and a United States Senate not doing what it is constitutionally required to do,” said Senator Welch. 

Senator Welch specifically called out the Senate ceding power to the executive branch on tariff policy and the budget, saying: “We have seen this in case after case after case: tariffs that are imposed based on the personal decision of one person, an individual—the Executive. And they can be for economic reasons, they can be for personal reasons, they can be for political reasons. It’s not a policy, it’s an erratic imposition of tariffs on our trading partners…This is a tax, and as a tax, it is our obligation to be the ones to decide if, when, whether, and how a tariff will be imposed. This should not be something that we look the other way when the Executive takes that constitutional responsibility that only we have.” 

Senator Welch called out the president for illegally assuming the spending power of Congress: “We, as a Congress, have the authority and the responsibility to set the budget. We did it. It was signed by the President. And now he’s disregarding what the law requires him to do. So, you’ve got an Executive that is seizing the taxing power of Congress, and you’ve got an Executive that is assuming—unconstitutionally—the spending power of Congress…That is a complete abdication of responsibility by this Congress, and it is very dangerous. It’s dangerous because with the taxing authority being made on the personal decisions of the Executive, you don’t have a policy that anyone can count on. It’s going to be damaging—and already is—to our economy.” 

Senator Welch concluded: “I have a lot of objections to many of the Trump policies but there are many here who support the Trump policies. And that’s the point. It’s our job to debate and then whoever gets the votes, that policy will prevail. But whatever differences we have about policy, we have a common, shared responsibility, to meet our constitutional obligations to be the branch of government that takes responsibility for whatever taxes are imposed on our citizens. That’s our job, and we don’t do it when we cede that authority to the Executive…This dynamic of executive overreach and U.S. Senate passivity has got to end, to protect the well-being of our democracy and the well-being of the people of the United States.”  

Watch Senator Welch’s floor remarks here: 

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