By Rebekah Rast –
In Obama’s world it is clear that not all branches of government are created equal.
If they were equal then he would know to stop creating new regulations for his takeover of the nation’s health care system. It has, after all, been ruled unconstitutional by Florida Judge Roger Vinson and prior to that Virginia’s U.S. District Court Judge Henry E. Hudson found ObamaCare’s individual mandate unconstitutional. Most recently, Alaska’s governor refuses to implement the federal health-care overhaul following in the footsteps of Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen who also won’t recognize Obama’s law.
But this still isn’t enough to stop Obama. In fact, Politico reports that the, “Justice Department on Thursday asked the Florida judge who struck down the health care overhaul to declare that the law must still be obeyed. In a motion, the department asked Judge Roger Vinson to clarify that his ruling ‘does not relieve the parties of their rights and obligations under the Affordable Care Act,’ while the case is being appealed.”
By filing this “motion for clarification,” the Obama Justice Department is saying that they don’t understand Judge Vinson’s ruling. “They are basically saying we don’t understand English; please explain your previous order to us because if we were to do what you told us it would ruin all our plans for Utopia,” says Don Todd, director of research at Americans for Limited Government (ALG).
As Obama puts the squeeze on the courts, hoping for a change in their decision, a look back in history shows that he isn’t the first President who tried his hand at enforcing unconstitutional ideas. Much of the health care provided by the federal government today was once too labeled unconstitutional.
Many of the changes began in 1965 when President Lyndon B. Johnson and a Democratic Congress enacted two massive federal entitlement programs — Medicare and Medicaid. These enactments were the start of socialized health care by making millions of people dependent on the federal government for their health care needs.
“Prior to 1937, the Supreme Court correctly understood the Constitution to deny the federal government any power to create and operate social-welfare programs,” states an article from CNS News. “The Constitution held no such enumerated power, and the 10th Amendment left powers not enumerated to the states and the people.”
Americans were self-sustaining, taken care of by their communities and states. There was no need for federal handouts or bailouts or a health care system of any kind. That simply wasn’t the intended role of the federal government.
President Franklin Roosevelt was another leader who changed all that. The CNS News article goes on to explain:
“He [President Roosevelt] used the crisis of the Great Depression to pass the Social Security Act of 1935, compelling Americans to pay a payroll tax in return for the promise of a federal old-age pension. This was blatantly unconstitutional. That same year, in Railroad Retirement Board v. Alton, the Supreme Court had justly slapped down a law mandating what amounted to a Social Security program for the railroad industry alone.
“FDR attempted to defend the railroad pension law as a legitimate regulation of interstate commerce, justifiable under the Commerce Clause — the same argument the Obama administration has used to defend the individual mandate in ObamaCare.”
The rest of history tells the story of more and more of America’s leaders increasing government spending and therefore increasing government involvement in Americans’ everyday lives—and ObamaCare is no different.
Even though a federal court has ruled his law completely void, he continues to implement new regulations. The Obama Administration has not even taken the basic step asking the courts for a stay of that decision. Instead it is as if the court decision doesn’t exist or didn’t even take place.
“The problem is that the executive branch has no power to implement regulations based on voided legislation,” says Bill Wilson, president of ALG. “These actions are explicitly barred by Judge Vinson’s ruling.”
America’s leaders going beyond the legal bounds of the Constitution should be no small matter. ALG’s Wilson had hoped more states would fight against the implementation of the health care law and even sent a letter to governors involved in the Virginia and Florida lawsuits urging them to return to court and stop Obama from further advancing his law.
History has proved that more government involvement and instances of pushing beyond the limits of the Constitution result in unnecessary government spending and if it continues will very soon bury America under a mountain of debt so deep there will be no hope for recovery.
“Obama must cease and desist from all implementation of this defunct law,” ALG’s Wilson states. “To waste taxpayer money putting something into effect that has been found to be unconstitutional is a dereliction of duty.”
Past Presidents have gotten away with it, will Obama as well?
For the sake of America, the judicial branch and powers of the state need to be made equal again to Congress and the President. Otherwise these current years will go down in history as when America voided out the Constitution for the sake of a health care law.
Rebekah Rast is a contributing editor at Americans for Limited Government (ALG) News Bureau. You can follow her on Twitter at @RebekahRast.
