Today’s New York Times offers a stunning revelation for anyone who hasn’t been following the news out of Washington for the past three years: President Barack Obama is bypassing Congress and using his executive authority to unilaterally implement his policies of choice, irrespective of the will of the people.
The Times cites an episode last fall when the president declared in a White House meeting “that the administration needed to more aggressively use executive power to govern in the face of Congressional obstructionism.” And so was born the president’s “We Can’t Wait” slogan, which has become a mantra for the Obama Administration’s unilateral form of governance. The Times overlooks the fact that the president’s “new” slogan had been conceived and implemented well before last fall.
After the November 2010 elections, the president — who was suddenly facing a Republican majority in the House after having enjoyed two years of Democrat rule — now had no choice but to compromise with the opposition party if he wanted to get things done legislatively. The thing is, the president didn’t want to compromise — he wanted to enact his agenda. And so he admitted quite plainly that where he could not legislate, he would regulate and do an end run around Congress. In a press conference on November 3, 2010, he discussed how he would apply that method to energy policy:
So I think when it comes to something like energy, what we’re probably going to have to do is say here are some areas where there’s just too much disagreement between Democrats and Republicans, we can’t get this done right now, but let’s not wait. Let’s go ahead and start making some progress on the things that we do agree on, and we can continue to have a strong and healthy debate about those areas where we don’t.
But energy policy isn’t the only way that President Obama has penned legislation with his own hand instead of choosing the constitutional route — bills getting passed by Congress, arriving at his desk, and then signed into law. On labor laws, immigration, marijuana use, voting rights, the Defense of Marriage Act, regulating the Internet, and making appointments, this president has circumvented the legislative branch via administrative fiat whenever his agenda stalls.
Even when the president legislated, though, he abjured the will of the people. Case in point: Obamacare. Despite pledging that his administration would be the most transparent in history, President Obama hatched Obamacare behind closed doors without the disinfecting light of the media, let alone input from the opposition party. Even worse, special interest groups like Big Labor got a seat at the table while the rest of the country got scraps of information after the main course was over.
Now the president is wearing his “We Can’t Wait” slogan as a badge of honor — and it’s so obvious that even the dean of the mainstream media can’t ignore it.
