As a result of the recent discussions about the Constitutionality of the recently passed “Affordable Healthcare Act” here in the US, I have begun to think more about this situation.
I have little doubt that the recent ruling finding the Healthcare law to be unconstitutional [and thus void in its entirety] will eventually make its way to the Supreme Court for a final decision. But, this is not what I want to focus on here. My recent thoughts have tended towards the disturbing trend of granting wavers.
According to the Health and Human Services website, “as of early February, a total of 915 one-year waivers have been granted.”
The question that no one seems to be asking here is just where in the Constitution is the power to arbitrarily grant a reprieve from following laws given to the President? It would seem that, if this power were conferred on the President of the United States, the founders of the country missed the boat when it comes to the separation of powers. How can an executive who is supposed to be beholden to the same laws as you or I hold the power to remove from others the mandate to follow those laws?
Further, why is anyone in the Congress sitting back and allowing this injustice to occur? Do they not see that if this President has the right to issue more than 900 wavers allowing groups to ignore this particular law, the next president can take it upon himself to do the same thing? [Or, is it perhaps more likely that they simply do not care?]
The slope gets pretty slippery when one realizes that ANY President could take this tack; deciding that he is going to issue a waiver to the FBI allowing them to ignore laws against illegal search and seizure or to the FCC allowing them the freedom to abridge the speech of anyone the President decides may not be helping his current agenda. The United States is, and should always remain, a country of laws. Allowing anyone the power to decide to ignore those laws is a terrible risk to take and a total abnegation of the responsibility of those in Congress to uphold the Constitution.
Ultimately one must wonder whether, if there are no challenges to this practice, how the left would take it if a more conservative occupant enters the oval office after the 2012 elections and issues wavers to everyone in the country who did not get them from this current President. Somehow I think the silence on this issue would be broken right away.
