Horror stories continue to drift in, and the administration is using its best cognitively dissonant approach to combat them. Democrats are running away from the President as far and as fast as they can with the midterm elections approaching. The MSM is doing its unlevel best to put a happy face on the situation while it struggles to do its job to report the news in an unbiased fashion, usually defaulting to the former over the latter. And yet the stories keep coming.
The President, meanwhile, is still caught up practicing politics instead of governing as he swore to do when he took his oath of office. After getting the ludicrous bill passed aided by the Nancy Pelosi approach to legislation --
-- the President is now working with business and unions to mitigate the effect his brainchild will have on them, and thereby the economy, by cutting side deals by way of Executive Orders delaying the implementation of Obamacare for as much as three years. At first blush, three years is an odd term, given that most incremental postponements are either a year, two years or five years. But those periods won't work for what the President and his cohorts need.
The midterm elections are later this year. Unless something catastrophic happens to the country, in which case the President and his party will get a bump from people rallying around him, the Democrats face huge losses in both house of Congress, solidifying the Republicans' control of the House and guaranteeing a takeover of the Senate. Faced with a Republican Congress, the President's attempts at crafting his legacy in the remaining time of his term are doomed. Almost certainly, attempts to repeal Obamacare will emanate from Congress, with the President sure to veto them. If Congress is constituted in such a way to override a veto, that will tarnish the President's legacy beyond all hope. The best he can hope for is to maintain the status quo for the balance of his term.
But he's not happy with just that. Aware that even if he keeps the tenuous balance in place, a Republican may use Obamacare to carry the 2016 presidential elections. To that end, Mr. Obama has issued executive orders extending the compliance dates for companies until 2017, conveniently beyond the 2016 elections.
Far be it from me to be cynical about the President's motives, but it would seem to me that a lawsuit is in order to contest the President's ability and power to unilaterally change aspects of the law to suit his political needs. Perhaps he's actually motivated by a desire to assist big business, but even so, does he have the power to change by executive order features of existing legislation? Moreover, why is no one challenging this in court? Why is no one asking for a temporary injunction until such time as a competent court -- probably the SCOTUS -- weighs in? It would seem to me that the very basis of our system of checks and balances would require action by at least the legislative branch challenging the executive branch's use of executive orders to modify existing law.
I'm no constitutional scholar, and I never taught constitutional law as did Mr. Obama. Perhaps he's justified in doing what he's doing, but I question it. Executive orders shouldn't be used to modify existing laws. What's all the more enervating about this is the Mr. Obama is using executive orders to change the law that he fought so hard to get passed.
Somehow, the old saw be careful what you wish for applies here, but it, too, needs modification: Be careful what you wish for, because not only might you get it, but you may have to change it after you find out that what you wanted was exactly what everyone else warned you you'd be getting.
(c) 2014 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
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