If the president had not unilaterally waived the PPACA’s unworkable employer mandate or various health insurance regulations, a revolt by employers and consumers likely would have spurred Congress to do so. Ezra Klein, another supporter of the PPACA, wrote, “This is a regulatory end-run of the legislative process. The law says the mandate goes into effect in 2014, but the administration has decided to give it until 2015 by simply refusing to enforce the penalties.” In each case, Congress stood poised to enact into law the very changes that the president announced. Yet the president threatened to veto the codification of his own policies. A reasonable supposition is that he would not want the codification of his policies to complicate his ability to rescind them unilaterally at a later date. If the president were to enforce the PPACA faithfully, by admitting he has no authority to issue Exchange subsidies or to impose the related taxes in states that refuse to establish Exchanges themselves, all observers again agree that Congress would have to reopen the statute for major revisions and possibly repeal. At this point, it manifestly clear that President Obama is exercising legislative powers he does not possess in order to prevent Congress from exercising the legislative powers that only Congress possesses. Conclusion Userpage icon for either supporting equal rights for non-heteroseuxals, or is GLBT. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) The concerns I share with you today are not borne of partisanship. Though I have worked for Republicans, I am not a Republican, for reasons that Democrats on this committee can readily appreciate. I am acutely aware of the last Republican president’s failures to execute the laws faithfully. In 2008, though I did not support him, I preferred the Democratic presidential candidate to the Republican candidate in part because he promised to curb such abuses by the executive. I have praised President Obama for doing more than even many libertarians to celebrate the gains in equality and freedom our nation has secured for women, for African-Americans, for gays, and for lesbians. This president’s failure – or any president’s failure – to honor his constitutional duty to execute the laws faithfully is not a partisan issue. The fact that presidents from both parties violate this duty is cause not for solace. It is cause for even greater alarm, because it guarantees that presidents from both parties will replicate and even surpass the abuses of their predecessors as payback for past injustices. The result is that democracy and freedom will suffer no matter who occupies the Oval Office.
Posted on: Wed, 04 Dec 2013 15:21:26 +0000
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