Obama's Disdain For The Constitution Means We Risk Losing Our Republic By M. Northrop Buechner
Since President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, he has changed it five times. Most notably, he suspended the employer mandate last summer. This is widely known, but almost no one seems to have grasped its significance.
The Constitution authorizes the President to propose and veto legislation. It does not authorize him to change existing laws. The changes Mr. Obama ordered in Obamacare, therefore, are unconstitutional. This means that he does not accept some of the limitations that the Constitution places on his actions. We cannot know at this point what limitations, if any, he does accept.
By changing the law based solely on his wish, Mr. Obama acted on the principle that the President can rewrite laws and—since this is a principle—not just this law, but any law. After the crash of Obamacare, many Congressmen have implored the President to change the individual mandate the same way he had changed the employer mandate, that is, to violate the Constitution again.
The main responsibility the Constitution assigns to the President is to faithfully execute the Laws. If the President rejects this job, if instead he decides he can change or ignore laws he does not like, then what?
I'm more concerned about a Congress and 'we the people' who sit back and do nothing with a President who un-constitutionally at whim changes existing law, than the POTUS who is engaging in such activity. If Congress were doing their job protecting that constitution, or 'we the people' were responding as we should be against both houses that usurp their constitutional powers, at that point an out of control POTUS can be stopped.
But when nobody does anything, except post on forums about the lawlessness, where does that leave us?