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Monday, February 10, 2014

It Has Gotten Past The Point Of Crisis

President Obama is going to delay the start of the employer mandate of Obamacare for the second time.  This delay is going to apply to employers who have between 50 and 99 employees who will be treated differently from those with 100 or more workers.  The larger companies will have to meet the mandate one year earlier, although Obama is also relaxing the conditions which must be met to comply with the mandate.

There is no other way to say this:  what Obama is doing is totally illegal and a clear violation of the Constitution.  Indeed, this latest move is something that would have been unthinkable prior to the Obama administration (or should we call it the reign of Barack I).  The president has not right to treat smaller companies in one way that is different from how large companies are treated.  Only Congress can make a law that creates such a distinction, and Congress has not acted here.  Remember, the Constitution provides that all individuals and companies are entitled to equal protection of the laws.  Those who are tasked with enforcing the laws cannot create distinctions to use which lead to differing treatment under the law.  Imagine the FBI deciding that the importation and sale of drugs will only be prosecuted if the perpetrator is African American but not otherwise.  Dealing with white and black individuals on a different basis is patently illegal and unconstitutional; the law says that no individual of any race may import and sell drugs, and the FBI cannot change this.  Suppose that the IRS decided that it would not audit women even if clear evidence of tax fraud is discovered and that it would only audit men on that basis.  Again, that would be clearly illegal and unconstitutional; the law deals with both sexes and cannot be changed by the executive branch of the government.  Now suppose that OSHA announced that it would only inspect businesses in states that voted for Romney but not in states that voted for Obama.  It would be yet another illegal and unconstitutional move.  The same thing is true with Obamacare.  According to the statute, the employer mandate applies to all businesses with 50 or more full time employees.  There is no distinction between businesses with 50-99 employees and those which are larger.  Obama may think himself the emperor of America, but he is the president and he cannot change laws passed by Congress.

If Obama persists in this ridiculous move, it will mean that any large company will be able to get a court to relieve it from the burden of the employer mandate.  The feds simply cannot enforce the law in an unconstitutional, selective manner.  Obama is destroying his own law.

Even worse, however, is the reason why Obama is making this move.  We have been told repeatedly that millions of workers were likely to have their coverage cancelled next October because of the employer mandate with the bulk of those cancellations concentrated among companies in the 50 -99 employee range.  Obama is delaying enforcement just to try to help the Democrats in the November election.  What will he come up with next?  Will the Justice Department station election monitors are various polling places in states with close elections in order to dissuade Republicans from voting?  Will the president authorize payment of cash to undecided voters in exchange for voting Democrat?  We all know that such moves would be illegal, but will that stop Obama?  Who can know?  Obama is the first president to so completely disregard the requirements of his office and the Constitution. 

This must stop!



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