When George Washington was elected President of the United
States, no one knew how to address him. Suggestions included Your Highness,
Your Majesty, and other royal sounding titles. Washington rejected them all
saying they made him sound too much like a king. Since we had just fought a war
to overthrow the yoke of a tyrannical king, he thought it best not to be seen
as a ruler. After all, the presidency is merely the executive arm of the three
branches defined in the Constitution. He had no authority to make laws or levy
taxes. That privilege had been reserved exclusively for congress. He could only
veto a law once congress sent a bill to him for concurrence. Washington was
determined not to be a ruler.
Forty-three presidents later, our government has a top
executive who apparently believes he is the ruler of our country. Congress and
some sketchy wording in the Constitution gave the president the ability to
directly administer the office through executive orders. This was intended to
create policies and state how federal laws should be executed. George
Washington issued eight executive orders. Franklin Roosevelt issued 3,522.
Barack Obama has taken the use of executive orders to a dangerous and possibly
unconstitutional extreme. Several of his 166 orders could be interpreted as
bordering on unauthorized legislative action.
Then there are the “Czars”, appointed directors of policy
replete with staff and responsible only to the president. Franklin Roosevelt started
the use of czars by appointing eleven policy directors, mostly for economic
advice. Since that time, each president has had czars. Eisenhower and Reagan
both had only one czar. Obama has the distinction of having the most at 38.
Again, these czars all have departmental staff, budgets and are responsible
only to Obama.
With the Affordable Care Act (aka. Obamacare) train wreck we now find the terrible consequences of passing a thousand-page bill just to find out what is in it. People are losing the insurance policies that they had selected to suit their individual needs and finances. They then find that the government approved replacement policies will cost considerably more, cover unnecessary medical items, and have a higher deductible.
Oops! The father of this legislation flatly told the
country, “if you like your policy you can keep it – period.” Did he lie? Maybe.
But he is now forced to backpedal. So what does he do? You guessed it. He
issues executive orders to make corrections to the ACA.
But wait, the ACA is the “law of the land.” We know this
because Nancy Pelosi adamantly told us. The only way it can be changed is by
legislation. That doesn’t stop Obama from ordering changes, though.
Huffington Post reports that on December 26 a letter signed
by Attorneys General from eleven states to Health and Human Services Secretary
Kathleen Sebelius specifically criticizes President Barack Obama's executive
decision to give insurance companies another year to continue offering health
plans that had been canceled for not meeting ACA standards. That decision came
after the political turmoil surrounding hundreds of thousands of canceled
insurance plans.
“We support allowing citizens to keep their health insurance
coverage, but the only way to fix this problem-ridden law is to enact changes
lawfully: through Congressional action,” states the letter, authored by West
Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey. “The illegal actions by this
administration must stop.”
While the correction of one of the many flaws in Obamacare may well be in order, it is not within the authority of Obama to make the changes. This is the sole purview of the US Congress – which, incidentally, has voted 44 times to repeal this abominable law, only to have the action killed by Harry Reid in the Democrat controlled Senate.
In this New Year, we have the opportunity place both houses
of Congress under Republican control and give Barack Obama the message that he
is not a ruler, king or emperor. His job is merely to implement the laws enacted
by Congress.
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