Posted on 01/18/2016 7:12:48 PM PST by Isara
Some conservatives are concerned over Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump's vow to take the same path of bypassing Congress as President Barack Obama - even though the billionaire said his actions would be "much better" than Obama's and done for "the right things."
"Does Mr. Trump enjoy power? Is he more likely to prefer limited and constitutional or unlimited and unconstitutional power? Where is he likely to fall on that scale? I tend to think it's with the maximum possible exercise of power," Colin Hanna, president of the conservative public policy group Let Freedom Ring USA, told TheBlaze.
Trump, as president, might well use the executive powers to advance conservative causes, Hanna added, but he said there is more at stake.
"Every conservative at heart is a constitutionalist. The values are intertwined and inseparable for separation of powers and a limited federal government," Hanna said. "He might use executive power on issues we agree with. The point is, it isn't about the individual issues. It's a deeper and fundamental question."
President Barack Obama has used executive action most recently to restrict gun sales. Before that, he shielded about 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation and to delayed implementation of some of the most unpopular aspects of his own health care law. After last week's State of the Union address, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough promised "audacious executive action" in the president's final 11 months.
During an interview with NBC News, Trump was asked if he would use executive actions in a similar fashion to the way President Barack Obama has.
"I won't refuse it. I'm going to do a lot of things. He led the way," Trump said. He added, "But I'm going to use them much better and they're going to serve a much better purpose than he's done."
In a separate interview with CBS News, Trump said of executive action, "Well, I will say this: There's a lot of precedent based on what he's doing."
"Conservatives have been angered at the Obama pen-and-phone approach to bypassing Congress; they should be equally disturbed at Trump for viewing Obama's unconstitutional power grabs as a model that he would follow," David McIntosh, the president of Club for Growth McIntosh, told TheBlaze.
Trump has soared in GOP primary polls despite his previous support for funding Planned Parenthood and abortion rights, favoring a single-payer health care system and for expanding the powers of government to seize private property among other liberal positions. This has come at the angst of many in the conservative movement.
"Donald Trump has already made it clear that he's like Obama in supporting single-payer health care, bailouts, and higher taxes," McIntosh said. "So, it's no surprise that Trump also wants to trash the Constitution by abusing executive power."
As a candidate for president, Trump has taken a conservative stance on illegal immigration and advocated cutting taxes, while he has considerably softened on his other liberal positions.
"He's aggressive not necessarily progressive," Hanna said. "His political philosophy is an appreciation of his own brilliance and that he can solve problems better than anyone else. He is not guided by a set of principles or a philosophy."
The Trump campaign did not respond to inquiries for this story last week or on Monday.
Former Bush administration Justice Department attorney John Yoo, now a law professor at University of California at Berkeley, warned in a Washington Post commentary that executive actions were intended for foreign policy, national security and emergencies - not domestic policy making.
He wrote that Obama's actions would encourage his success to move similarly. At least, Yoo wrote, that makes more of Obama's agenda reversible.
"Obama's upending of the Constitution's structure and limits may prove its own undoing," Yoo wrote. "The next chief executive can suspend, and then repeal, all of the executive orders and regulations of the past seven years. He or she could terminate the Iran nuclear deal and the climate change pact; reinstate enforcement of the immigration laws; and fully reveal Obamacare's distortions of health care. The further Obama stretches his powers to reach for a legacy, the more powerfully his successor can snap the Constitution back into its proper shape."
Major congrats on the home schooling thing. Not sure if I could have done it but I really admire people who do.
Fortunately, my kids were both in good schools and things went fine.
IOW, he has every bit as much respect for the Constitution as that noted constitutional scholar, Barack Hussein Obama.
She is pretty.
I watch most of his rallies. Then I watch the archives on the ones I missed. It is getting old but not old for the millions attending. He is working so hard. I love him. He is the greatest American since George Washington. With absolutely no doubt.
That is a sad post.
It saddens me that you think that.
Eeeeeeewwwww!
And Trump is pro-choice, just like you.
If Trump could use an EO to fire McConnell, you'd smile...don't lie.
"It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositaries, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield."
FWIW
Thanks. I should get little credit. My wife has homeschooled for 26 years, with 5 years to go. All our kids were 100% homeschooled, the older ones graduated from college with honors, and one getting an appointment and attending a US military service academy.
Trump is a disciple of Prince and Power of the Air.
Exactly .. the Blaze and “open borders Beck” have ZERO credibility ..
Just to be clear, the same People who let Obama create this situation are now concerned about Trump, Concern Trolls?
Of course, G.W. Bush issued nearly 300 EO’s thoughout his Adminisration, not too far off the average of his predecessors, but it never seemed to make the News.
Heck, Reagan issued almost 400 EO’s.
FDR was the worst with over 3,000 and Obama is pretty much average, although there is a Bogus number floating around saying Obama has issued 900 of them, a complete fabrication.
Not defending it, just putting it out there.
Apparently the ends really do justify the means. If we’re gonna burn it all down, let’s stop messing around and burn this mfer down! Let’s just not pretend that it’ll be in order to save The Constitution. We need to restore it, not abandon it.
If Obama can bypass Congress, so can the next President, be it Trump or Cruz.
I do not like to think it either.
I honestly see no way to reclaim the Constitution than to employ the left’s Alinsky tactics against them. Until that happens they will never understand how evil they have become.
Great pic
I have no problem with Trump overturning Obama’s illegal executive orders by executive order. But, beyond that, the Constitution must be abided by, otherwise our Constitutional republic truly is finished.
Do we really believe in the principles of our founding or not? Using illegal and unconstitutional methods to further conservatism is just as wrong as using it to promote liberalism.
As I said, it seems appropriate and constitutional to rescind Obama’s illegal and unconstitutional acts by presidential order. Righting wrong executive action by executive action works for me.
/Kool-Aid drinker
r u saying trump or cruz is the antichrist?
not sure of your point. i think all current politicians are evil and are mostly men that can be used by us. god says when its over its over. for me i will fight to govern ourselves. God could say man has done a great job for the 1000 years. i would like more time for that.
11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: 12 that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.†.>>>>
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