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The Chicago Tribune Discovers the Emperor Has No Clothes


The Chicago Tribune has published a Sunday editorial calling for Obamacare to be re-written. The Chicago Tribune.

The Tribune goes through the myriad of delays that the Administration has announced in the last few months, contrary to the actual written law, and then they go further. They question the ability of Obama to actual ignore parts of the law he deems inconvenient or difficult to implement under the dates created by Congress — and signed into law by Obama himself.

“The administration asserts that it can make these changes under the president’s broad executive authority. Yet critics make a compelling argument that the president is stretching the limits. Former federal appellate Judge Michael McConnell, director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, writes in The Wall Street Journal about a different sort of mandate: the mandate in Article II of the Constitution that the president “‘shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.’ This is a duty, not a discretionary power. … As the Supreme Court wrote long ago (Kendall v. United States, 1838), allowing the president to refuse to enforce statutes ‘would be clothing the president with a power to control the legislation of Congress, and paralyze the administration of justice.'”

Like most issues of presidential authority, this isn’t cut and dried. Presidents do have broad discretion on how laws are enforced. But they’re on shaky ground when they decide whether to enforce a law. It’s not hard to understand why: Imagine the outcry if President Mitt Romney refused to enforce, say, Obamacare

Yes, imagine that. Imagine Romney (or Bush?) trying to do what Obama has done. What’s more, The Chicago Tribune calls into credibility Obama’s excuse to circumvent Congress and administer his changes by fiat. Obama blames a toxic environment in Congress, but the Tribune isn’t even buying it.

“Tweaks? Obama isn’t making tweaks. He’s trying to circumvent major flaws that began flaring when the law was enacted. Hence the many carve-outs, delays and special deals that have been piling up since he added his signature to Obamacare on March 23, 2010.

The president crusaded for this law and has embraced its nickname. But he did not write the law. Congress did. Major changes are necessary — he has stipulated by his actions that this law as constituted cannot work — and Congress should legislate them for his review.”

The Chicago Tribune sums up the sloppy, slippery implementation of Obamacare by calling for it to be rewritten. The fact that the one of the most adament cheerleaders of Obama has 1) turned its back on this signature piece of legislation and 2) questioned Obama’s tactics, is quite alarming. When such a major ally discovers that our Emperor indeed has no clothes, it reinforces the need for Obamacare critics to press on in their fight to repeal this monstrosity of a law.