Obama needs to abide by founders’ vision
In America, we have a series of checks and balances over power in our federal government. The legislative branch writes the laws, the executive branch carries them out and the judicial branch punishes those who don’t follow them. Their duties are split this way so that no single branch holds all of the power, thereby mitigating the potential to abuse it. These checks and balances are absolutely essential to the functioning of our government, helping to protect the people against unconstitutional uses of force by the state.
These checks and balances have been on display quite a bit recently as democratic President Barack Obama has quarreled with the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. The Republican House has come up with several ideas to fix the economy that Obama has blocked. On the flip side, Obama has asked the House to pass several other proposals so that he can carry them out, but the House won’t pass them.
In a meeting with the press earlier this week, Obama said that he is now prepared to go ahead and start carrying out laws that were never passed so he can work to improve the economy.
“[I am] not just going to be waiting for legislation in order to make sure that we’re providing Americans the kind of help that they need,” he said. “I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone. And I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions that move the ball forward.”
The president of the United States absolutely cannot decide what kinds of help to give Americans without Congress. I don’t care if he somehow found a way to poof houses for the homeless into existence using nothing but the power of love; he’d still need Congress’ authorization before he did it. As it stands, the kinds of aid that Obama is proposing will cost billions, if not trillions, of dollars. Dollars that, according to our Constitution, Congress must authorize before they are spent.
Yes, some of the proposals President Obama has made are excellent ideas, but we can’t abolish our system of checks and balances to allow him to go through with them without congressional approval. Without those checks and balances, the president would be allowed to arbitrarily decide which policies to enact and enforce them with zero oversight, as in a dictatorship.
Even if you think Obama is the best, wisest, most able president our nation has had or will ever have, giving this much political might to any single person should scare you. No one is perfect, and we as a nation would then have no recourse to correct his mistakes, nor will he be president forever. Even if you trust Obama with that much power, are you willing to entrust whoever wins in 2016 with it?
I understand that Obama is frustrated with the constant checks against him from the House that are keeping him from doing what he thinks he needs to do to improve our country, but if he wants to see those policies go into effect, he needs to sit down with his opponents in Congress and convince them to support his plans or appeal to the American people to find new Congressmen who will listen to reason.