Obama Has No Authority To Suspend Obamacare's Employer Mandate

AP Graphics​

Constitutional Scholar: Obama Is Not King, Cannot Suspend ObamaCare​

Michael McConnell: Obama Suspends the Law

Like King James II, the president decides not to enforce laws he doesn't like. That's an abuse of power.

By MICHAEL W. MCCONNELL, Wall Street Journal

President Obama's decision last week to suspend the employer mandate of the Affordable Care Act may be welcome relief to businesses affected by this provision, but it raises grave concerns about his understanding of the role of the executive in our system of government.

Article II, Section 3, of the Constitution states that the president "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." This is a duty, not a discretionary power. While the president does have substantial discretion about how to enforce a law, he has no discretion about whether to do so.

This matter—the limits of executive power—has deep historical roots. During the period of royal absolutism, English monarchs asserted a right to dispense with parliamentary statutes they disliked. King James II's use of the prerogative was a key grievance that lead to the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The very first provision of the English Bill of Rights of 1689—the most important precursor to the U.S. Constitution—declared that "the pretended power of suspending of laws, or the execution of laws, by regal authority, without consent of parliament, is illegal."

To make sure that American presidents could not resurrect a similar prerogative, the Framers of the Constitution made the faithful enforcement of the law a constitutional duty.

The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, which advises the president on legal and constitutional issues, has repeatedly opined that the president may decline to enforce laws he believes are unconstitutional. But these opinions have always insisted that the president has no authority, as one such memo put it in 1990, to "refuse to enforce a statute he opposes for policy reasons."

Attorneys general under Presidents Carter, Reagan, both Bushes and Clinton all agreed on this point. With the exception of Richard Nixon, whose refusals to spend money appropriated by Congress were struck down by the courts, no prior president has claimed the power to negate a law that is concededly constitutional.

In 1998, the Supreme Court struck down a congressional grant of line-item veto authority to the president to cancel spending items in appropriations. The reason? The only constitutional power the president has to suspend or repeal statutes is to veto a bill or propose new legislation. Writing for the court in Clinton v. City of New York, Justice John Paul Stevens noted: "There is no provision in the Constitution that authorizes the president to enact, to amend, or to repeal statutes."

The employer mandate in the Affordable Care Act contains no provision allowing the president to suspend, delay or repeal it. Section 1513(d) states in no uncertain terms that "The amendments made by this section shall apply to months beginning after December 31, 2013." Imagine the outcry if Mitt Romney had been elected president and simply refused to enforce the whole of ObamaCare.

This is not the first time Mr. Obama has suspended the operation of statutes by executive decree, but it is the most barefaced. In June of last year, for example, the administration stopped initiating deportation proceedings against some 800,000 illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. before age 16, lived here at least five years, and met a variety of other criteria.

 

Oops!
Fog-of-War has been claiming Congress doesn't have the authority to repeal Obamacare because it's "the law of the land" now...wonder how BO can unilaterally decide which provisions he can alter?
Hmmmmm

 

When judge Napolitano says it is a gray area and no one can do anything about it and that every president since Jefferson has done it without retribution, I would tend to believe the judge over any news paper journalists.

BTW, for anyone unfamiliar with him, he is an ex NJ supreme court judge who happens to be a Libertarian and about as anti-Obama as anyone can get.

 

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http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/2532800#.UdskT81Nsww.twitter

 

I notice ol' fog-of-war, phd jumped right in to defend ZEROiq in another thread but he has remained oddly silent on this employer mandate issue & the subsequent self-qualifying for benefits deal.

 

I think I WILL comment if for no other reason than to poke fun at stupid FOX parrots. The Obama Administration did not, nor should they, suspend the Affordable Care Act. What they did was suspend the enforcement of the employer mandate which is completely within the powers of the Executive Branch of Government. You stupid parrots are simply buying into what FOX is feeding you....never a good idea where FOX is concerned.
And another point, you nimrods rail endlessly about how much you hate Obamacare and then attack Obama for something he did, at least in part, that you have been demanding beyond all reason. You do know that schizophrenia can be helped with modern medicine right?

 

Not sure what FOX NEWS has to say about this issue or why you even felt compelled to mention FOX NEWS in this thread. I responded to the OP which happens to be an article from the WSJ. The "FOX NEWS, FOX NEWS" parrot act you repeat here is a little off base, don't you think?

Oh, while we're here, what do you think about the employer mandate delay? With the individual mandate still in force, there's gonna be some folks challenging the "affordable" part of the bill, don't you think?

 

Idiot!
http://nation.foxnews.com/2013/07/09/constitutional-scholar-obama-not-king-cannot-suspend-obamacare

 

So, YOU saw this on FOX NEWS?

 

He doesn't realize that just because FOX links to an article originally published by another news source doesn't make it a FOX article.

 

Can you explain WHY they did that?

 

Yes. But you can also Google it.

 

Is this why?

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration delayed a key provision of the president's healthcare reform law by a year, saying today it will not require employers to provide health insurance for their workers until 2015.​

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The delay, which could raise new questions about whether Obamacare will be implemented on time, comes in response to widespread complaints from businesses and their lobbyists about reporting requirements for employers with 50 or more full-time workers.​

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Companies would have had to pay the Internal Revenue Service $2,000 for each full-time employee who did not get health coverage, beginning Jan. 1, when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was scheduled to come into full effect.​

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“We have heard concerns about the complexity of the requirements and the need for more time to implement them effectively,” Mark J. Mazur, assistant secretary for tax policy, wrote ina post that was published on the department’s website late Tuesday.​

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“We recognize that the vast majority of businesses that will need to do this reporting already provide health insurance to their workers, and we want to make sure it is easy for others to do so,” Mazur wrote.​

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Mazur stressed that other key parts of the law remain on track to be implemented in 2014, including new tax credits to help individuals buy health insurance if their employer do not provide such benefits.​

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He said the administration will publish formal guidance describing the changes within the next week.​

Trade groups representing retailers and restaurants, among those expected to be hit hardest by the mandate, welcomed the one-year extension.​

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"We commend the Administration's wise move," said National Retail Federation Vice President Neil Trautwein. "This one-year delay will provide employers and businesses more time to update their healthcare coverage without threat of arbitrary punishment."​

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Republicans called it evidence that Obama's plan was a failure, while Democrats termed it a demonstration of flexibility. Whether that flexibility opens the door to further changes in the healthcare law is now a matter of debate.​

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"If this is negotiable, it seems like anything is negotiable," said Malcolm Slee, a tax lawyer who is working with businesses on healthcare implementation.​

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House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said the administration should now provide relief individuals who face a penalty if they do not obtain health coverage by 2014. The so-called individual mandate will begin next year at $95, or 1 percent of taxable household income and rise in phases to $695 per person, with a cap of 2.5 percent of household income, by 2016.​

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"This is a clear acknowledgment that the law is unworkable, and it underscores the need to repeal the law and replace it with effective, patient-centered reforms," Boehner said in a statement.​

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http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-healthcare-reform-law-delay-20130702,0,7981644.story

 

I can't begin to wonder why he suspended that section of the act, as the articles did nothing more than whine about the fact he did it and not the why he did it. That might be a deciding factor in whether I support his position or not, instead of blindly working up a froth over it. Maybe someone could find an article on that for us to read.

 

"We commend the Administration's wise move," said National Retail Federation Vice President Neil Trautwein. "This one-year delay will provide employers and businesses more time to update their healthcare coverage without threat of arbitrary punishment."

Seems to make sense to me and flies in the face of the silly argument that the administration doesn't have the "authority" to take this action.

 

No, Teddy, he really does not have the authority. "Article II of the U.S. Constitution vests the executive power of the United States in the president and charges him with the execution of federal law". It does not say the laws of his choosing. However, the problem with that is that there is no one, nothing to enforce that he does it. The Congress can actually force him to spend money, the courts can tell him what not to do, but neither have the power to tell him how (aside from the obvious fairnesses) to do his job.

 

You're forgetting that the Constitution is just an outdated, worthless piece of toilet paper that has absolutely no bearing on today's society. It was written by a bunch of old, white men who have long since turned to dust and their words are completely meaningless and have no power over the enlightened, democratic populace of today.

I believe it's something to that effect that the liberals on this forum keep parroting.

 

The Obamacare Tax has a "threat of arbitrary punishment"? Really? That seems to make sense to you?

 

Oh boy! Dicky thinks he is a Constitutional scholar now. More like a first class idiot.

 

Oh, loverly, Teddy! I actually almost support your position - with facts - and all you can do is attack the messenger. Good one!