President Obama’s Top 10 Constitutional Violations Of 2013

Spread the love

Loading

Ilya Shapiro:

One of Barack Obama’s chief accomplishments has been to return the Constitution to a central place in our public discourse.

Unfortunately, the president fomented this upswing in civic interest not by talking up the constitutional aspects of his policy agenda, but by blatantly violating the strictures of our founding document. And he’s been most frustrated with the separation of powers, which doesn’t allow him to “fundamentally transform” the country without congressional acquiescence.

But that hasn’t stopped him. In its first term, the Administration launched a “We Can’t Wait” initiative, with senior aide Dan Pfeiffer explaining that “when Congress won’t act, this president will.” And earlier this year, President Obama said in announcing his new economic plans that “I will not allow gridlock, or inaction, or willful indifference to get in our way.”

And so, as we reach the end of another year of political strife that’s fundamentally based on clashing views on the role of government in society, I thought I’d update a list I made two years ago and hereby present President Obama’s top 10 constitutional violations of 2013.

1. Delay of Obamacare’s out-of-pocket caps.The Labor Department announced in February that it was delaying for a year the part of the healthcare law that limits how much people have to spend on their own insurance. This may have been sensible—insurers and employers need time to comply with rapidly changing regulations—but changing the law requires actual legislation.

2. Delay of Obamacare’s employer mandate.The administration announced via blogpost on the eve of the July 4 holiday that it was delaying the requirement that employers of at least 50 people provide complying insurance or pay a fine. This time it did cite statutory authority, but the cited provisions allow the delay of certain reporting requirements, not of the mandate itself.

3. Delay of Obamacare’s insurance requirements. The famous pledge that “if you like your plan, you can keep it” backfired when insurance companies started cancelling millions of plans that didn’t comply with Obamacare’s requirements. President Obama called a press conference last month to proclaim that people could continue buying non-complying plans in 2014—despite Obamacare’s explicit language to the contrary. He then refused to consider a House-passed bill that would’ve made this action legal.

4. Exemption of Congress from Obamacare.A little-known part of Obamacare requires Congressmen and their staff to get insurance through the new healthcare exchanges, rather than a taxpayer-funded program. In the quiet of August, President Obama directed the Office of PersonnelManagement to interpret the law to maintain the generous congressional benefits.

5. Expansion of the employer mandate penalty through IRS regulation. Obamacare grants tax credits to people whose employers don’t provide coverage if they buy a plan “through an Exchange established by the State”—and then fines employers for each employee receiving such a subsidy. No tax credits are authorized for residents of states where the exchanges are established by the federal government, as an incentive for states to create exchanges themselves. Because so few (16) states did, however, the IRS issued a rule ignoring that plain text and allowed subsidies (and commensurate fines) for plans coming from “a State Exchange, regional Exchange, subsidiary Exchange, and federally-facilitated Exchange.”

Read more

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of

3 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

#1 should be that obama isn’t legally qualified to be president. He applied for obamacare and it couldn’t verify him. How did his people verify him if the web sight couldn’t find his info? The republicans won’t do anything about this, since they haven’t done anything about all of the other info proving obama is a fake citizen.

Healthcare.gov can’t verify Obama’s identity

obama has changed the obamacare law 19 times. He does NOT have the Constitutional right to do so. Yet the house which does, says nothing. Is it because they are biding their time, or obama has gotten so much dirt from the NSA, FBI and CIA on them they are afraid to do anything. Regardless something has to stop. If not, we will wake up one day and be under a dictatorship. Don’t think so? Just look at countries that did.

@enchanted: #2

If not, we will wake up one day and be under a dictatorship.

I knew this is what obama wanted when he said he wants a national civilian security force that is as strong as, and as well funded as the military. So many things he is doing are EXACTLY what his hero Hitler did to become dictator. Look how he ran up the national debt. He has added more debt than all of the other presidents combined. He is trying to keep the citizens from having guns. He has ordered over 3,000,000,000 rounds of ammo. That is more than the Army has. It is enough for them to fight a 20 year war, or shoot every citizen 5-6 times. Is the ammo, guns, and armored vehicles for his civilian security force that is supposed to be as strong as the military? He is friendly with Muslim terrorists, but doesn’t want to spend time with countries that are our friends. He is advertising for more people to get on the different kinds of welfare, but has to cut military pay increases because of the lack of money. He wants illegals to get obamacare for free, while citizens have to pay for it.

I challenge any liberal to name ANYTHING that obama has done that has strengthened our county, reduced unemployment, reduced the welfare roll, reduced the deficit, reduced spending, reduced the size of government, or done ANYTHING good for the USA. All of this from a man that his own obamacare web site can’t verify that he is who he says he is.