Obama’s Latest Unconstitutional Power Grab

Congress currently has an 84% disapproval rating.  Barack Obama has a 48% disapproval rating.  Obama has decided that based on these two statistics, that his best option for re-election is to run against Congress.  After all, he does not look so horribly pathetic when compared to Congress.  He has declared to America that Congress is “dysfunctional” and during an October White House news conference he stated, “And I would love nothing more than to see Congress act so aggressively that I can’t campaign against them as a do-nothing Congress.”  This meme of portraying Congress as the enemy and himself as the hero is out of President Harry Truman’s 1948 playbook.  Nothing about Obama is original.

The President is using this idea that Congress is “do nothing” to defend his use of Executive Orders, Presidential Signing Statements and recess appointments.  Presidents in the past have used these same unconstitutional tools to further their agendas (Pres. Bush signed 291), but not before or after making statements like, “I’m here to say to all of you and to say to the people of Nevada and the people of Las Vegas, we can’t wait for an increasingly dysfunctional Congress to do its job. Where they won’t act, I will,” and  “I’ve told my administration to keep looking every single day for actions we can  take without Congress, steps that can save consumers money, make government more  efficient and responsive, and help heal the economy.  And we’re going to be  announcing these executive actions on a regular basis.”  Obama clearly sees himself outside of congressional checks and balances.

Executive actions?  What exactly are those and can the President point out in the Constitution where it indicates that he can take these kinds of actions?  Executive Orders are one thing, but an action sounds like something more extensive then an order.  The President signed thirty-four executive orders including formation of the White House Rural Council (for implementing Agenda 21), orders forming more regulatory agencies and establishing the Intellectual Property Enforcement Advisory Committees this year. Possibly an action is something similar to what the President did today that appeared as a series of recess appointments, which really not only circumvented Congress, but the Constitution.

Presidents have used congressional recesses in the past to push through their nominees for various cabinet positons and heads of agencies that have been stalled in the confirmation process.  Recess appointments have always been detestable to me and so are Executive Orders because these allow the President to act as Dictator.  The important aspect of a congressional recess appointment is that recess part.  When the Senate went home for the holidays, they did not close their session.  This was done to prevent Obama from confirming his nominees, but in a controversial move that has the Obama administration facing court action from the US Chamber of Congress, Obama pushed through Richard Cordray to head a consumer financial board that already had the grassroots and the Chamber crying foul.  The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, CFPB, has needed reform for some time to restore checks and balances because there is hardly any congressional oversight.  The Senate wants to form the bureau in a way that multiple board members watch over the bureau rather than a single director and they want to change the way the consumer watchdog is funded. Right now the CFPB recieves funds directly from the Fed without any congressional appropriation and free of constraint.  Obama is claiming this bureau will protect the middle class and while I believe there are companies that take advantage of consumers, is it the job of the government to supervise private companies like payday loan companies and collection agencies?  More government regulation and more government control is all this bureau is and it is another growth of the Executive Branch.  The President has formed so many councils, bureaus and panels along with forming new agencies, no one can possibly keep track.  He also confirmed three members to the National Labor Relations Board today.

Richard Cordray is a problem as well having stated that he would enjoy this federal position because he would be “…in many ways doing on a 50-state basis the things I cared most about as a state attorney general, with a more robust and a more comprehensive authority.” He was appointed by Elizabeth Warren who oversaw TARP and spent most of the summer evading congressional questioning in her role as President Obama’s chief consumer affairs adviser.  The fact that Warren resisted all attempts for Congress to know more about the CFPB gets one wondering what it was she was hiding and the controversy surrounding the agency was the main reason the Republicans blocked Cordray’s confirmation because without him, the Bureau could not act.  Now Cordray is in and the Bureau can start the governmental reach into more private companies in America and Obama has once again told Congress they could kiss his ass.