Executive Privilege

Listening to a talk radio news brief this morning discussing President Obama’s new initiative to invoke executive orders in lieu of congressional legislation I was struck by its presentation. The so-called one-sided “news” brief introduced the initiative as necessary because of the supposed inability of congress to do anything to help the economy. From my own bias I think that deadlock is the best possible thing that the congress can do for the economy right now. I do not think that the myriad interventions of the previous several years have done anything positive regardless of nonsense improvable claims that things would have been worst had they not done what was done. Regardless it does no one any good to present something that may as well be Presidential talking points as straight news. The President is claiming that he must act unilaterally based on Republican’s lack of willingness to compromise in congress. The other party has a majority in the Senate and it has not passed anything either. And the President, who is on the campaign trail, has not been around to compromise, nor have any compromise legislation been presented by him. The House has offered to vote on different pieces separately. And there is no proof that the President’s plan will work, when similar efforts have failed to deliver on stated promises in the past. Additionally it is not good precedent for the federal government to put public state employees back to work with federal funds. State employees are the responsibility of state governments and once federal funds become intertwined, States become dependent on what was supposed to be temporary stimulus and also become less independent because of conditions put forth by the federal government. And of course the “news” report failed to mention that the President’s initiative betrays the separation of powers that is a cornerstone of our government. Apparently the allure of action is more attractive to certain “news” agencies as the President seeks re-election.