Once again the U.S. government is faced with a possible shutdown that will impact about 800,000 workers. Its cause is the same as the last shutdown. President Donald Trump wants $5.7 billion dollars to build a border wall and congress is only willing to allocate $1.3 billion dollars.

To avoid another shutdown Trump will sign the law and then he could obtain the balance of the money by declaring a National Emergency that would give him the power to take the additional funds from any other funded project or any department. And he has the authority to do that.

So what’s wrong with this scenario?

What we have here would be the overturning of a constitutional requirement that all funding must be made by the congress.

Texas Republican senator John Cornyn summed up the problem succinctly when he said to CNN on February 4, “The whole idea that presidents — whether it’s President Trump, President Warren or President Sanders — can declare an emergency and somehow usurp the separation of powers and get into the business of appropriating money for specific projects without Congress being involved, is a serious constitutional question.”

I can imagine the congressional response to Trump usurping congressional authority would be taking the question to the Supreme Court. If the Supreme Court supported Trump, you can kiss the Republic of the United States goodbye.

We will be left with a dictatorship.