The Patriot Post® · Next Executive Overreach: Taxes
For someone who claims to be a constitutional scholar, Barack Obama sure doesn’t understand or respect the limits on the federal government the Founders put in place. Obama has ignored the limits placed on the executive branch, abusing his power in order to accomplish his agenda.
When Congress did not pass immigration reform in accordance with Obama’s wishes, he acted unilaterally. Obama’s executive order provided for more than four million illegal immigrants to receive some form of legal status – work permits, Social Security numbers and driver’s licenses. Instead of securing our borders, he wants to secure votes for Democrats.
Surely, Obama shouldn’t get away with this egregious overreach, but who’s stopping him? Worse, his immigration actions only established a pattern.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest indicated there are possibly more executive orders coming our way. Earnest confirmed Monday that Obama is “very interested” in taking unilateral executive action to raise taxes. He explained, “The president certainly has not indicated any reticence in using his executive authority to try and advance an agenda that benefits middle-class Americans.”
Earnest continued, “Now, I don’t want to leave you with an impression that there is some imminent announcement – there is not, at least not that I know of. But the president has asked his team to examine the array of executive authorities that are available to him to try to make progress on his goals. … [T]he president is very interested in this avenue generally.”
Obama is so bent on “fairness” that he’s willing to “examine” the possibility of taxing Americans without Congress. Obama declared in his State of the Union address that Congress needed to act to close the loopholes in taxes among corporations. So perhaps he will ask Congress to pass corporate tax hikes, and, when Congress inevitably says no, Obama may simply turn to the IRS to implement the taxation. The IRS already has a track record of helping him politically – Lois Lerner was no “lone wolf.”
Since there isn’t enough revenue to pay for Obama’s $4 trillion boondoggle budget, he can claim now is the time to act; now is the time to raise taxes on those who need to “pay their fair share.”
Progressives in general erroneously claim America’s debt problem is a lack of revenue, while they continue to spend ever more money on failed programs and policies. A recent Congressional Budget Office report shows that “compared to historical averages, from 1965 to 2014, spending is rising much faster than revenues.” Not that it takes a CBO report to see that the debt is growing.
It so happens the greatest increase in spending and debt has occurred during Obama’s administration. Further, the gap between spending and revenue is projected to widen, therefore increasing our debt.
Clearly, Obama doesn’t believe we have a problem with spending or debt, even though during his six years in office the national debt has risen nearly $8 trillion to a whopping $18.1 trillion.
With Obama’s executive actions on immigration and his potential maneuver on raising taxes, the question to ponder is when will he stop? The tragic reality is he likely won’t. The only limit on his power he seems to acknowledge is whatever he deems unnecessary.