Pens and Phones, Then and Now
A pen and a phone. That’s what President Obama recently said he had which could circumvent Congress on policy topics he wanted to get moving. Conservatives, like me, compared him to a king, giving orders and expecting everyone to jump. The Left took this opportunity to show that the number of executive orders that have been issued by Obama was less than any President in at least the last half-century. True enough, but as is usual, it’s a cherry-picked data point. There is more than one way to dictate.
Take ObamaCare, please. The number of times Obama has delayed, changed, or outright repealed parts of the law is staggering. If the law has that many problems, fix the law. Instead, he’s doing the very thing he campaigned against when running for President. He said that George Bush had taken too much power into the executive branch.
And now, with his pen and with his phone, he’s changing laws that he has no Constitutional powers to change.
Lately, he’s been doing the same thing with marijuana laws. John P. Walters, writing at the Weekly Standard, observes:
First, the administration made a unilateral decision to curtail enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act in states where smoked marijuana has been defined as medicine (the only “medicine” that cannot meet modern medical standards). Next, the administration announced it would not enforce the federal law when the states of Colorado and Washington sought to permit the open sale of marijuana.
Ted Cruz, in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal, had more examples:
When Mr. Obama disagreed with federal immigration laws, he instructed the Justice Department to cease enforcing the laws. He did the same thing with federal welfare law, drug laws and the federal Defense of Marriage Act.
None of these are executive orders, but they are just as empowering of the Executive branch, and are, in fact, worse, because you can’t easily count the number of times these power grabs have been done. Executive orders are numbered. Sitting on your hands and not enforcing something goes below the radar of the average American.
When we say we are a nation of laws, not men, we mean that it is the laws that govern us, not the whims of a particular man or group of men that have no accountability. If you’re a Democrat, would you be fine with this sort of behavior from a Republican? If not, make your voice heard. Because if you don’t, we will once again get the government we deserve. The government only has what power we give it. If you want a king, you’d better be happy with a king from either party.
Filed under: Doug • Government
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Thank you, I will. As of today 4 million people have signed up for insurance under the ACA, almost all of whom did not have insurance before; and another several million have been added to the Medicaid rolls, people who had been running without health care for the most part, who now have access to physicians and much cheaper care — and can quit crowding our nation’s emergency rooms for non-emergency treatment that costs me a few thousands a year. (It costs you, too, but apparently you’re happy paying an unspoken tax to private companies rather than saving money without a decrease in taxes. There’s just no explaining some peoples’ tastes.)
It’s a net win for the nation, for the people covered, and for the taxpayers and people who buy private insurance. Who is left out of that win group? Then why are you whining?
Oh. You claime:
Seriously? To my knowledge, no part of the law has been changed, let along repealed. We’d know, because such a change would have a public law number.
How many changes in execution of the law have been made? A couple dozen, perhaps — maybe three that you can name? Do you have difficulty counting past three?
Tell you what: How about you list that “staggering” number of changes — stop at 20, if you wish.
I think you’re making stuff up. Worse, you’re making stuff up where you have no kick, no grounds to complain.
And those changes in execution — explicitly acknowledged to be in the purview of the executive branch — most of them are things critics of the law called for.
Sore winners. Nothing worse under the sun than those ungrateful for great favors.
But I’ll bet you can’t find 20 “changes in the law.”
Make me a liar.
The site you linked to said it had a chart, but the chart’s gone, if it ever was there. Maybe they figured they’d better not tell such fibs?)
Can you make up your mind? First you complain that Obama makes changes to fix problems, then you complain that he fixes the problems.
We see how you are. You’re a chronic malcontent. Ronald Reagan used to warn us against people like that.
But let’s come to reality for a moment. Fix the law? The GOP has made it amply clear that they will tolerate no fixing of any problems in the law — and you cheer them on when they do it.
“Why don’t the union members take their complaints to management? Surely the mine owners will take care of any problems.” Crocodile tears on your part.
There’s a huge difference between starting two wars without a declaration as the Constitution requires, keeping them both “off-budget” to put the burden on our great grandchildren, as Bush did, and delaying penalty provisions of a civil law for a few months (during which they could not be used anyway, according to the law itself) to give businesses time to get their accountants up to speed on the law.
But, if you stuck to what you actually know about the situation, and the facts, you’d probably not have much to whine about.
I’ll look forward to your list of many changes in the Affordable Care Act.
*yawn* I’d reiterate that getting more people on health insurance could have been done with far less disruption to the market, but I suppose you’d ignore it like you have every other time. Moving on, then…
Here’s another location of the infographic of all the unilateral changes made to the law.
By “fix the law”, I mean via the usual means; Congress. Whether or not these fixes are good, giving more and more power to the executive branch is something Obama specifically campaigned against when running for President. He claimed that he respected the Constitution, but is now doing exactly the same thing, more stealthily, than Bush. But I guess means power usurpation and hypocrisy are OK with you if you agree with the ends.
Bush at least got Congressional approval before moving in his wars. Obama went into, for example, Libya without so much as a nod to Congress.