Photo Credit: Fox News Joe Miller called Monday’s announcement by the Obama Administration of its decision to unilaterally grant medium-sized employers two additional years, rather than one, to comply with the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate, yet another example of the lawlessness of this Administration.
“But for the November elections, I question whether we would see this decision by the President to delay some of the law’s most devastating impacts on job creation and job retention for yet another year,” said Miller. Just last week the CBO reported that the ACA will result in 2.3 million jobs being lost.
Today’s announcement follows several other unilateral acts by the Obama Administration to change provisions of the law without congressional authorization including: its earlier decision to delay the employer mandate for one year, delaying the individual mandate for one year, delaying the enrollment date, and delaying the requirement in out-of-pocket caps. In all, the Administration has changed at least sixteen provisions of the law without Congress.
“President Obama may find it inconvenient or messy to work through the legislative branch in order to change the law, but that is what the Constitution requires,” said Miller. “During the legislative process he may get more, less or none of what he wants, but this is the way the Founders intentionally established our government. That is the nature of separated powers.”
The Founders divided power between three branches of government with legislative elections falling every two years (including one-third of the senators) rather than four with the President, because they wanted a check against the abuse of authority by both the legislative and executive branches. The peoples’ representatives must stand up and be held accountable for their votes.
Although members of all three branches have an independent duty to uphold their oath to the Constitution in all their actions, Miller noted that “No authority is granted to the President to simply suspend or change laws temporarily, or otherwise make changes in the law that benefit those who support his policies. In America the law is king, and neither a king nor the President is the law.”
President Obama is clearly seeking to do everything he can to mitigate the damage caused by the Affordable Care Act so senators like Mark Begich, who voted for the law against the wishes of the vast majority of his constituents, can somehow retain power. Indeed, it was reported last week by Congressional Quarterly that Senator Begich votes with the President 97 percent of the time. Obama has a 33 percent approval rating in Alaska.
“Alaskans will not be fooled. They know Mark Begich was the 60th and deciding vote for ObamaCare, and they know he has been carrying the water for the President in the Senate since they both took office. The people will hold him to account in November for a record that is out of touch with our state,” said Miller.
