This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday August 6, 2015.

I'm Caleb Brown. A year since the US began fighting the so-called Islamic State in Iraq,

a fight that's included thousands of airstrikes and thousands of US soldiers on the ground.

Congress has yet to actually authorize these actions with a declaration of war.

That's a problem, says Democratic US Senator Tim Kane of Virginia. He says Congress is the ultimate

authority on matters of war and needs to assert its power to declare it. He spoke at

the Cato Institute this morning. We are today starting in the Senate. It started last week the

traditional August recess in Congress and Congress is an interesting place

because we like to take vacations like other Americans do, but few are

legally required today to take a vacation and Congress is actually required by

law to take an August recess. This was a part of a bill called the

Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970. We are supposed to take off in odd-numbered years.

The House is adjourned from the first Friday in August

until the Tuesday after Labor Day,

and that is a legal mandate.

There is an exception in the statute.

The exception says that the mandated recess, quote,

shall not be applicable if on July 31 of such year

a state of war exists pursuant to a declaration of war by Congress.

And again, the mandated August break is not applicable if a state of war exists pursuant to declaration of war by Congress.

Now that provision from the 1970 Reorganization Act makes perfect sense.

I mean Congress shouldn't go out for a

...