Those engaged in my line of work — explaining and defending the Constitution, the most liberty-friendly system of governance yet devised — have been kept busy by the current occupant of the White House and the executive agencies he controls. President Obama’s signature health care legislation alone provides endless “teachable moments” regarding our founding document. To paraphrase Nancy Pelosi, the more we find out about Obamacare and its implementation, the more constitutional violations we find.
But if Obamacare is the biggest constitutional — let alone policy — disaster that Barack Obama has inflicted on the nation, it alas is far from the only one. As I put it in a new Forbes.com op-ed:
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.
Here’s the list (only half of which is Obamacare-related):
- Delay of Obamacare’s out-of-pocket caps.
- Delay of Obamacare’s employer mandate.
- Delay of Obamacare’s insurance requirements.
- Exemption of Congress from Obamacare.
- Expansion of the employer mandate penalty through IRS regulation.
- Political profiling by the IRS.
- Outlandish Supreme Court arguments.
- Recess appointments.
- Assault on free speech and due process on college campuses.
- Mini-DREAM Act.
For more details, read the whole thing. Of course, there are still two days left in the year, so who knows what else may be in store.
