And so he has been banging on his desk for the last few days, demanding an amendment to restore that funding.
Two of the most extreme Republican senators, Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida, demanded an amendment to defund health-care reform.
Leading the way from the Capitol to the Treasury Department was a horse-drawn float bearing a banner that read, "We demand an amendment to the constitution of the United States enfranchising the women of the country". It would be followed by more floats, nine bands, four mounted brigades, three heralds with trumpets and somewhere between 5,000 and 8,000 women.
The same day that the Supreme Court handed down its McCutcheon decision, demonstrators in more than 150 cities and towns took to the streets to demand an amendment.
Demanding an amendment, however, comes with its own set of problems, because conservative Democrats could then demand their own amendments related to abortion and other issues that would garner enough GOP support to pass.
Mr. Howard has balked over Labor's demand for an amendment to penalize drug companies that file spurious patent claims in order to postpone the adoption of generic drugs.
That is meant to assure statewide demand for an amendment so that one corner of the state, such as Miami-Fort Lauderdale, does not put a locally popular issue like casino gambling on the statewide ballot every two years.
The section on immigration, for example, no longer demands a constitutional amendment to deny automatic citizenship to the children born of illegal immigrants, as it did four years ago.
But Dennis Kucinich is taking a drubbing for doing what more progressives should be doing: standing up for a public option as part of the health reform bill, and demanding an ERISA amendment.
Eliminating the budget deficit over 10 years has been a North Star for the Republican Party for several decades, and GOP lawmakers took the government to the brink of default in 2011 when they demanded a vote on a amendment to the Constitution that would prohibit the federal government from spending more than it takes in.
