House sets aside $350,000 for lawsuit against Obama

The lawsuit against Barack Obama the Republican-controlled House of Representatives authorized on a party-line vote will cost taxpayers $350,000.

The lawsuit was given formal approval at the end of July before Congress broke for summer recess. The lawsuit is motivated by allegations that President Barack Obama has used his executive authority more frequently and broadly than the U.S. Constitution allows.

Politico reports that the House will pay $500 an hour to lawyer David Rivkin of the BakerHostetler law firm. The contract is good through January 2015.

Republicans have praised the lawsuit as an effort to bring transparency and accountability to the executive branch. Democrats have derided it as a cynical exercise intended to motivate the Republican base to come out and vote in large numbers in this year's mid-term elections.

In a time of budget constrictions and economic worries, Democrats have also pounced on the opportunity to make an issue out of the cost of the lawsuit.

Among the issues that the lawsuit is concerned with is the arrangement of a prisoner swap with the Taliban to secure the release of Bowe Bergdahl. The Government Accountability Office has found that the White House did not submit the paperwork notifying Congress properly, in violation of the law.

The Congress is also taking aim at the President's executive order that prevented the deportation of some children in the United States illegally.

Many Republicans contend that Obama is issuing too many executive orders and that he is undermining the system of checks and balances built into the U.S. constitution.

This argument seems specious when one considers that Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush each issued more executive orders in their first terms than Obama.

The White House says that they are simply exercising the powers granted to the president by the Constitution.