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Why Won\u2019t Congress Use Its Power?Five Republicans just voted with Democrats to block Trump\u2019s tariffs. This proves Congress can act. So why isn\u2019t it using that same power to address hunger, health care costs or undeclared wars? The New York Times Opinion editor, Kathleen Kingsbury, explains.<\/p>\n
A lot happened this week. \u201cMelissa came ashore like no other hurricane.\u201d \u201cOrdering the Pentagon to resume nuclear testing.\u201d \u201cIndiana is diving into the nationwide gerrymandering fight.\u201d \u201cRestructured into a for-profit company.\u201d Here\u2019s one thing you shouldn\u2019t miss. On Tuesday, the Senate voted to block the tariffs that President Trump had imposed on Brazil, which had been contributing to higher prices on coffee, beef and bananas. So the president doesn\u2019t really have the power to declare tariffs. Trump made it happen by declaring a national emergency over the summer. \u201cWhat do you think of when you think of an emergency? You think of a war, a tornado, a famine. You don\u2019t think of trade policy.\u201d But what\u2019s remarkable here is the Senate vote, which was 52 to 48. That means five Republicans joined the Democrats to block Trump\u2019s tariffs, which makes you wonder: If these Republicans can stand up to Trump\u2019s tariffs, why aren\u2019t they showing backbone on preventing millions of Americans from going hungry? \u201cSNAP benefits for millions of Americans is about to be suspended.\u201d Preventing health care costs from spiking for 20 million Americans. \u201cCould see the price they pay increase by an average of 75 percent.\u201d Stopping the military from unilaterally blowing up boats and killing people when Congress hasn\u2019t declared war. \u201cThis is the sixth boat the U.S. military has struck in international waters, killing at least 29 people.\u201d Using their power of oversight to prevent abuse by federal agencies. \u201cFederal agents descending on a Halloween parade in Chicago.\u201d The answer can only be that congressional Republicans are OK with such things, because they have the power to stop them and they just aren\u2019t doing it. Remember, the founders gave Congress some of the most important powers of government, including the power of the purse, the power of war and the power to regulate foreign commerce. They wanted Congress to be the most dominant branch. Today, it\u2019s the weakest. But it\u2019s their choice. And the fact that the Senate found enough of a spine to block Trump\u2019s tariffs only shows how little they\u2019ve done over the last nine months. It\u2019s true that what we\u2019re seeing from the executive branch can be shocking, but what we\u2019re not seeing from Congress should be just as terrifying.<\/p>\n
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Five Republicans just voted with Democrats to block Trump\u2019s tariffs. This proves Congress can act. So why isn\u2019t it using that same power to address hunger, health care costs or undeclared wars? The New York Times Opinion editor, Kathleen Kingsbury, explains.<\/p>\n
By Kathleen Kingsbury, Lauren Dominguez Chan and Stephanie Shen<\/p>\n
November 1, 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"new video loaded: Why Won\u2019t Congress Use Its Power? transcript Back transcript Why Won\u2019t Congress Use Its Power?Five…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[858,2132,153,1723,9,11,10,87,16082,2134,855,16,4510],"class_list":["post-25151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-congress","tag-democrats","tag-donald-trump","tag-international-trade","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-politics","tag-presidential-power","tag-republicans","tag-senate","tag-tariff","tag-us-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}