It is the Content, not the Number of Executive Orders that Matters

I just made the following comment to an article by Shadee Ashtari of the Huffington Post called Obama Has Issued Fewer Executive Orders Than Any President In Past 100 Years:

Counting the number of Executive Orders and claiming that all orders are justified by a given President if he has issued fewer than prior Presidents is complete nonsense. It is perfectly reasonable and consistent with the President's position as an executive to issue orders, so long as they do not interfere with the laws passed by Congress and signed by himself or a prior President. It is the content of the Executive Order that is all-important.

A very legitimate Executive Order would establish an interim policy for the enforcement of a law properly passed by Congress in which a real ambiguity was discovered while trying to implement it or in which an unanticipated situation arose which made enforcing the law clearly contrary to common sense. Upon issuing the Executive Order in such a case for an interim policy, the President should take the matter to Congress and ask Congress to resolve the ambiguity or treat with the circumstance with a new law. His interim policy should be carefully constructed not to infringe upon the constitutional powers of Congress by creating an effect Congress cannot readily re-direct with a new law.

Reagan's Executive Order on immigration was an attempt to implement a new law passed by Congress. That law had the unanticipated circumstance that the children of parents given amnesty by Congress were not themselves given amnesty. This was a truly unanticipated result tied largely to the Cuban refugee influx. George H. W. Bush was also trying to deal with unanticipated results of the fairly new immigration and naturalization law, though on a bigger scale. Obama, however, is doing by Executive Order what Congress under both George W. Bush and under Obama has refused to do. That refusal makes it clear that Obama is acting in opposition to many sessions of Congress and not just trying to deal with an ambiguity or unanticipated consequence of a recent law, which Congress has not yet had time to rectify. Congress has had time and has refused, which is it right to do under the Constitution. A President who defies that right is a despot.

There are even more common reasons for Executive Orders.  There are bound to be management issues in running the large executive branch which Congress simply does not wish to micromanage.  Examples might be how shall job performance evaluations be written up, what accounting method will be used to deal with a kind of situation, which federal land will be leased for oil and gas development next, etc.  One of the essential restrictions of a valid Executive Order is that only federal employees in the Executive Branch are required to take actions in response to the Executive Order.  The President cannot order any other American to do anything without the consent and authorization of Congress.

There is a better case, though a weak one, for Obama saying he will not use limited Homeland Security manpower and funding to deport some of the illegal aliens he has decided not to deport.  But, it is 100% clear that Obama is not empowered by the Constitution to have work permits issued to those he is not acting to deport.  That is very clearly a power that would reside only with Congress.

Does a President Have the Constitutional Authority to Demand that Congress Pass a Bill of His Liking?

Tonight, Obama said he was issuing an Executive Order to change immigration law because Congress had not responded to his demand that it pass a comprehensive immigration bill to his liking.  He is posturing that this is within his constitutional authority.  In fact, he does not care whether he has such authority under the Constitution or not.  He has always regarded the Constitution as an impediment to his agenda, as he made very clear in a radio interview back when he served as a Senator in the Illinois state legislature.  Twice he took the presidential oath of office to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution when he was always determined to undermine it.  These were the most colossal of his many lies.

If a president were to have such a constitutional authority to demand bills from Congress that were to his liking, the federal government would be no more than a despotic regime.  There would be no check on the power of the president by the people short of impeachment.  In fact, it is not at all clear that a president with such powers would even feel any need to care whether he was impeached or not by a toothless Congress.  Yes, the People might so threaten rebellion that he would come to pay attention, but short of that, why would he care?  Neither would he care what the rulings of the federal courts might be.  The People would only have recourse by refusing to carry out his Executive Orders.

Obama has already shown dozens and dozens of times that he believes he has the power to unilaterally change laws passed by Congress.  ObamaCare, the PPACA, or more honestly the Patient Subjugation and Unaffordable Care Act, has already been changed unilaterally over and over by the health care insurance and tax Czar, namely Obama.  Obama, the Justice Department, the EPA, the IRS, the National Labor Relations Board, and many other Obama Regime agencies have already ignored court orders and violated numerous laws including the Freedom of Information Act.  He has long ignored his duties under the immigration laws.

Now he is making massive changes in the immigration laws simply because a bill he liked that was passed by a Democrat-controlled Senate was not taken up in a Republican-controlled House of Representatives.  He insists that if it had been taken up in the House, it would have been passed.  Maybe, maybe not. He is not making a similar argument that the 370 or so bills passed by the House and sent to the Senate should have all been acted on by the Senate.  There are problems in the way the parties work the rules of both the House and the Senate due to the majority party leadership having excessive control of each body.  Yet, those houses have control of their rules and it is entirely unwise to give that control to a president, especially one who does not believe in principles and general rules, but instead changes those rules in any way he needs to get what he wants.  Obama has no principles by which he governs his actions, except his single-minded devotion to collectivism and the total control of the individual by a state with a Great Socialist Leader at its head.

I make these comments on what I believe the essential issues are here despite the fact that I want our immigration laws to allow more lawful immigrants, most especially more who are well-educated and who have great skills and ability.  Obama's rule to increase the number of H1B Visas and not to count spouses against the quota is something I would favor, were it voted by Congress.  Unlike Obama and the courts, I believe it is wrong that the children of illegal immigrants who are born in the US are given citizenship.  To compound that wrong with a ruling that all of their parents illegally in the US will be freed of deportation and allowed to apply for citizenship is wrong.  I would allow children born in the US and their parents a path to citizenship, but they would have to prove themselves worthy.  But what I think Congress should do to change the law is just my opinion.  It is Congress' power under the Constitution to either do so, or not to do so.

Of course, this whole matter is one in which Obama has a very vested interest.  Because his father was illegally in the US when he was born, he should not himself have been considered a citizen and should have had to apply for citizenship.  This is especially so because he was abroad so long and became a citizen of Indonesia.  Had Obama applied for citizenship, he could have had his own Social Security number!  His Executive Order is designed to keep many of his citizenship problems from happening for the many illegal immigrants in the USA.

Because of the classical liberal viewpoint that infused the Founding Fathers, the Framers of the Constitution, and most of the nation's leaders until about 1912, the powers of the Executive Office in the federal government were tightly controlled by many checks and balances and by an ideology that tended to make individual freedom and the rights of the individual our highest political values.  Thus, our philosophy of government was guided by principles.  Then the Progressives came along, who had given up moral and political principles as they had adopted a philosophy of Pragmatism. 

Unfortunately, Pragmatism is highly impractical as a philosophy of life.  Without guiding principles for one's actions and one's value choices, excepting the choice of one's own life as one's highest value, it is entirely impractical to assess every choice one makes in a complex world.  This is like trying to do physics without ever using the general principle of the Conservation of Energy, or Newton's laws of motion, or the principles of thermodynamics.  Yes, with a huge effort one might do all the research needed to make one right decision, but this is the equivalent of placing oneself in time prior to Galileo and Newton and trying to figure out what the momentum, force, and kinetic energy of a stone dropped off a cliff will be when it falls on the head of an enemy below.  Rational decisions without principles are made so difficult that real people give up on trying to make rational decisions and they make their decisions based only on emotional grounds.  This is why the politics of Progressives is entirely based on passions and feelings.  Obama and his followers are such people.  They are stultified by the effort to reason, so they default to their feelings.

Our federal government was crafted as mandated by the Constitution with a great many checks and balances which were to check the power of the executive, each of the two houses of the Congress, the judiciary, the federal government versus the state governments, and the elected politicians generally with respect to the People.  There were also temporal checks, either against passing fads and the madness of crowds or against old men too long in power.  These checks and balances mean that there are built-in frictions against governmental actions.  Some rational policies may take considerable time to be chosen and then put in place.  Patience is usually needed.  But, the Framers of the Constitution had learned that democracy was unstable and unsustainable and strong executive leadership was despotic.  The American system of government was designed to prevent those extremes and because of that, it has proven unusually stable and sustainable.  Unfortunately, Obama and the Progressives have de-stabilized our federal government and created huge discord among the People as they diverted the purpose of government from protecting individual rights to providing favors for special interest constituencies.  To do this, they have found it increasingly expedient to claim greater and greater powers for the president, except when the president is not in alignment with their agenda.

Obama does not care about the welfare of illegal immigrants.  It is very clear that he only cares that they become voters for the Democratic Party.  The evidence is that he even wants them to vote before they become citizens.  But, if he really cared about them or his black supporters, he would not have pursued so many anti-business, anti-job, and anti-right-to-earn-a-living policies as he has.  Both groups have suffered terribly under the massive unemployment since he occupied the White House.  Actually, everyone has lost freedoms and their standard of living has decreased under his increasingly despotic regime.

The American People to an unusual degree rose up to oppose Obama's push for more and more despotic powers and controls in the election of 2014.  Obama is choosing to ignore this by and large.  Since he will not be able to control the actions of either the House or the Senate during the remainder of his administration, he has made it perfectly clear that he intends to by-pass their powers and ignore their constitutional authority.  He is ruling the USA with decrees and proclamations now.  This is a precedent which the American People must vociferously oppose, unless they wish a future as serfs without self-ownership or other individual rights.

Which Americans Disapprove of Despotic Presidential Actions?

As I frequently note, good government only results when Americans adhere to rational principles that define the purpose of legitimate, very limited government.  Those good American Principles are defined in the Declaration of Independence and mandated in the Constitution quite well, though those principles are no longer well-understood by most Americans.

Among the basic principles of good government is the principle that all Americans must obey legitimate laws.  This includes the President and the members of Congress.  Another very good principle is that the executive charged with executing the laws does not make the laws.  That function is very clearly and properly assigned to the legislature, our Congress.  The President's oath of office requires him to protect, preserve, and defend the Constitution and to faithfully execute the laws passed by Congress.

Obama repeatedly and habitually violates his oath of office, thumbs his nose at the Constitution and now at the Congress which is no longer entirely under his control.  He assures us that he can do anything he wishes to do and is entirely unconstrained by the Constitution.  As is the habit of convinced socialist leaders, he is sure the laws only apply to others and not to him.  He follows the path of many a socialist in assuming despotic powers over the people of his country.

What is the opinion of the People about this despot?  Well first off, the latest Rasmussen weekly poll says that 48% of the People overall approve of Obama's job as President.  Yet, when Fox News polled the People on what they thought of Obama's going around Congress and changing the laws by executive orders and with executive branch regulation changes based on exceedingly creative interpretations of laws in ways never imagined by the Congresses that passed those laws, 74% of the People disapproved of that very critical usurpation of powers.  Though 74% disapproved, many of them clearly fail to recognize how important it is to oppose such despotic acts, since 48% approve of his overall job performance.

Now it is popular among libertarians and Objectivists to claim that it does not matter a wit whether Republicans or Democrats control the government.  If this is true, then nearly equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats ought to be opposed to presidential usurpation of powers not assigned to the office in the Constitution.  Yes, when a Democrat is President, slightly more Republicans will oppose such despotic acts and when a Republican is President, slightly more Democrats will oppose despotic presidential actions.

The Fox News poll found that 93% of Republicans opposed Obama's despotic acts, 80% of Independents opposed them, and only 54% of Democrats opposed them.  Very interestingly, when asked to set aside their beliefs in how our American government was supposed to work, the People overall no longer opposed presidential despotism by 74%, but that opposition fell to a mere 60%.  Clearly many Americans would rather not have their government limited by the Constitution and do not mind having a despotic ruler.

So, removed of the constraint of how they think the American government works, those who disapprove of a despotic presidential model among Republicans falls from 93% to 90%.  Independents disapproval falls 14% from 80% to only 66% disapproval.  Democrats show their general contempt for the Constitution and their love for despotism by dropping their disapproval from only 54% to a mere 31%, a drop of 23%!  The majority of Democrats just want to be told by a Supreme Leader what to do and they will do it.

To rephrase the attitude of most Democrats, if they could have their druthers, they would happily be slaves.  Most Democrats would do away with the Constitution.  Most Democrats are less than half as much inclined to oppose despotic rule as most Independents and only about one-third as likely to oppose it as Republicans.

Like it or not libertarians, the Republicans are Patriots with respect to the American Principle of government limited to the protection of individual rights compared to the Democrat traitors.
Many Republicans are highly flawed, but they are not despot lovers.  This is why far more libertarian voters are more aligned with the Republicans than with the Democrats.  This is why I usually vote for a Republican and never for a Democrat.  I am very strongly opposed to being a slave to any despot.

There are some very significant differences between Republicans and Democrats.

Government Motors or Despot Motors

The federal government has put about $20 billion into General Motors and plans to put in another $30 billion in the bankruptcy settlement. It will consequently own 60% of GM according to plan. Canada will own 12%, the United Auto Workers Union will have 17.5%, and the cheated bondholders will have to settle for 10% ownership. If the federal government is to come out of this restructuring of GM without losing taxpayer money, its 60% ownership will require that GM be worth $83.33 billion at some future date. And this neglects the fact that the taxpayer is not made whole unless the government investment earns interest over that time. More realistically, the taxpayer ought to get at least 6% real interest on his investment. So, in three years, GM needs to have a market value of $99.25 billion, or $83.33 billion compounded annually 3 times. Of course, it is more likely to be compounded monthly, with a result of at least $100 billion then likely.

What is the likelihood that GM will be worth $100 billion in 3 years? Well, surely we are all laughing at that question. GM is going to be managed directly from the White House, by the Despot-in-Chief Obama. He has no commercial enterprise management experience worth noting. His motivation in action is most certainly only political and does not include any concern for the taxpayer recovering his money, let alone with appropriate interest. The UAW can and will make demands for concessions before the next presidential election and the Despot will grant many of those demands. He will also mandate further small vehicles be built, which Americans will not want to buy. He will require GM to spend further huge sums on impractical power systems for cars and trucks. Americans will not buy these very expensive and impractical vehicles. Management will be afraid to make decisions for fear of stepping on the Despot's toes or what is the same thing, for fear of stepping on the UAW's toes. A shareholder with 17.5% of company shares is usually someone of power and they certainly are when the Despot holds 60% of shares and is allied with the 17.5% shareholder.

So, both management and labor union members will pretend to work in the best socialist tradition. This is a road much traveled and well-known. It is why nationalized companies in the U. S., in Great Britain, and in France, not to mention in the USSR and the post-WWII eastern Europe, have never worked. In the U.S., we have the well-known examples of the U.S. Post Office and Amtrak.

Despot Motors will lose the taxpayer's investment. The taxpayer will be very lucky to get out of this investment with $10 billion of the $50 billion committed or to be committed. That will only happen if the Despot does not win re-election and the in-coming President immediately sells GM for whatever it is worth on the market at that time. It is more likely that Obama the Despot will milk still more money out of the taxpayer for GM. At the least, we can expect an edict that all future federal government vehicle purchases or leases will be from GM at inflated prices. Most likely, there will simply be further grants of money as GM will be losing money hand over fist. No, Despot Motors will be squirting blood at least 10 feet.

It has been speculated that no one will want to buy from Ford Motor Company because the government will be doing favors for Despot Motors. Frankly, if Ford Motor does manage to stay out of bankruptcy, it will be the only game in town. The Despot will try to tilt the playing field toward GM, but he will not be able to compensate for GM's mismanagement. Meanwhile, Ford has experienced a much lower loss of sales than have the Japanese and Korean car makers, as well as lower losses than Chrysler and GM. Both Chrysler and GM will find it very difficult to get private investors to put money into them as shareholders and as lenders. Ford will have a very big advantage here. If Ford fights hard for UAW concessions, it will do even better. The UAW and federal government mandates on car mileage, size, and power systems will still be nightmare problems for Ford. Frankly, the traditional American auto industry has been milked to death and is not where any young professional would want to build a career. Go elsewhere, young man or woman. But cars will still be needed, so Ford is the only viable source for that commodity.