President Obama Took An Oath. He’s Not Living Up to it.

Barack Obama twice now has put his hand on a Bible and taken the following oath: “I Barack Hussein Obama do solemnly swear, that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”  And within that Constitution which President Obama has sworn to preserve, protect, and defend, is the following requirement of a President: “He shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed…”

I would submit that this President has, and continues to, violate his oath of office by knowingly and flagrantly ignoring his obligation to see that our nation’s laws are faithfully executed.  The following are specific examples.

President Obama doesn’t like the fact that Congress has refused to pass a law allowing illegal aliens who had been brought into this country (illegally) as children, to enjoy all the benefits of American citizenship.  So he just unilaterally ordered his immigration service to ignore the law, and do so anyway.  This flagrant violation of the law just happened to take place shortly before the 2012 election, when the Hispanic vote arguably could make the difference between Obama having a second term or not.

Next, welfare reform.  I was around back in 1996 when a Republican Congress and a Democratic President, Bill Clinton, passed historic welfare reform legislation which, among other things, implemented work requirements in return for receiving a welfare check.  Some liberal (oops, progressive) groups got President Obama’s ear and convinced him that work requirements are demeaning and mean-spirited.  So in flagrant violation of the letter and spirit of the law, Obama unilaterally gave governors the power to weaken the work requirements.  Fortunately, a lot of Republican governors chose to continue the work requirement, but a number of “enlightened” Democrat governors took advantage of the opportunity to weaken the work requirements, and thus greatly undermined welfare reform.

Next, Obamacare.  This is arguably President Obama’s most significant accomplishment (or greatest failure, depending on one’s point of view.)  Among other things, the law requires employers to cover employees under Obamacare, or pay significant fines (usually referred to as the employer mandate.)  Obama, without consulting with the elected representatives of the American people, the Congress, just unilaterally announced that this aspect of the program would be delayed for one year.  Why?  Because they’re not anywhere near being ready to implement Obamacare.  And whereas it probably makes sense to delay the program (I’d get rid of the whole thing altogether), President Obama doesn’t have the legal authority to do what he did.  In other words, he’s breaking the law, or at the very least, not enforcing the law as it is currently written.

And most recently, the Obama Justice Department has decided that our federal drug laws are too tough, so they’re just not going to enforce them.  Unbelievable!

The bottom line is, it’s the President of the United States’ responsibility to see that our laws are enforced.  If he doesn’t like the existing law, he can work with the elected representatives of the American people, the Congress, to change the law.  But he can’t impose new laws on his own, or ignore those that currently exist.  To do otherwise is a violation of the sacred oath he took, twice, to “take care that the laws are faithfully executed.”

In this respect, President Obama reminds me somewhat of an earlier President who had a similar view about the law, Richard Nixon.  Nixon was once asked if it was okay for a President to do an illegal act, if that President believed it was in the best interest of the country to do so.  Nixon’s response was “When the President does it, that means that it’s not illegal.”

Of course we know where Richard Nixon ended up with that kind of thinking.

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