A newly surfaced video of Barack Obama as a presidential candidate is spreading like wildfire today, revealing a stark contrast between his promise in 2008 about executive power with his recent actions in the White House.
Obama says this in the 2008 video:
The biggest problems that we’re facing right now have to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all. And that’s what I intend to reverse when I’m president of the United States of America.
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In a new report for The Heritage Foundation, senior legal policy analyst Elizabeth Slattery and legal fellow Andrew Kloster write, “Abusive, unlawful, and even potentially unconstitutional unilateral action has been a hallmark of the Obama Administration.”
Slattery and Kloster document several examples of Obama’s unilateral action, including changes to Obamacare, waiving the work requirement for welfare recipients, and making “recess” appointments while the Senate was in session.
“When Congress refuses to accede to President Barack Obama’s liberal policies,” Slattery and Kloster write, “the Administration often ignores the restraints imposed upon the executive branch by the Constitution, and when the Administration disagrees with duly enacted laws or finds it politically expedient not to enforce them, it waives legal requirements.”
>>> An Executive Unbound: The Obama Administration’s Unilateral Actions
The 2008 video of Obama comes amid recent comments that he would move forward to implement his agenda without Congress. “I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone,” Obama warned earlier this year.
