Why is Obama Allowing Labor Unions to Write America’s Legislation?
By: Jim Byrd
Perhaps somewhere along the line I acquired an egregious misunderstanding of the premeditated and calculated limited powers granted to the Congress and the Executive Branch by the United States Constitution. It has always been my understanding, and also the understanding of a few antediluvian and currently extraneous thinkers like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Adams, James Madison, Ben Franklin, et al., that according to Article I Section VII of the United States Constitution, the two legislative bodies, the House of Representatives and the Senate, were granted the exclusive power to write, have an open and honest debate, then call for a vote on a bill. Then they send it to the president, and if he chooses to sign the bill, it becomes law. The cardinal power of the Legislative Branch of the United States Federal Government is to make laws.
As stated in Article I Section VII:
“Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law.”
It was always my understanding, and the absolute intention of the venerated and peerless men who created this country and its governing document, the United States Constitution, that the granted powers of the Executive Branch, as enumerated in Article II Section III, were to “faithfully execute” federal law written by Congress, not to create or write law outside the halls of the Congress.
As stated in Article II Section III:
“He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information on the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.”
Assuming that when you voted for your congressman, you were under the archaic delusional assumption that your elected legislative representative was being elected to craft the laws of the land, and not be on the receiving end of a briefing by labor unions about the legislation they just created in concert with Barack Obama at the White House.
It is perilously intriguing that Barack Obama has spent an inordinate amount of time either creating or riding herd over the making of laws, especially laws of an unconstitutional complexion, when the only mention of the Executive Branch’s power to execute federal law lies in a truncated sentence within the lengthy Article II defining presidential powers. Article II, through intentional vacancy, expressly excludes the Executive Branch from creating law. It is even more perilously intriguing, with the reconciliation of the House and Senate health care bill at hand, that Obama is conducting legislative writing meetings crafting sections for the reconciled health care bill, sans congressional participation, in the White House. It is even more fantastically perilously intriguing that labor unions are in the White House crafting federal law with Barack Obama, which will have a devastatingly and immeasurable impact on the entirety of the citizens of the United States.
After 15 hours of self-imposed sequestering, and furtively holed-up behind closed doors at the White House, the labor unions have emerged with an extraordinarily unconstitutional key component of the extraordinarily unconstitutional health care bill that will tax health insurance “Cadillac plans.â€
How could this possibly go wrong?
The egocentric result: A family paying more than $24,000 per year for family plans, and individual plans costing more than $8,500, will be taxed at a rate of 40%. Now families, which may only be marginally affording their premiums of $24,000 per year, will see their policies increase to $33,600 per year. The individual that pays $8,500 per year will see an increase to $11,900 per year. That equals very little hope, and a whole lot of change for the soundly and responsibly insured.
As an added bonus, and a highly suspect and curious amendment to the labor union crafted plan, health care polices negotiated by the very labor unions writing this new law would be exempt from the new taxes until 2017. That equals a whole lot of hope, and very little change for the blessedly and overly insured.
But fret not about your congressman being left out of the loop. Four of the labor union negotiators/ad hoc legislators briefed the eschewed lawmakers about the legislation they wrote in their stead during a luncheon on Capitol Hill. Apparently, the labor unions felt it sporting to let Congress know what laws they had written for them, since Congress has to vote to approve it or something or other.
After the celebratory breakthrough of the labor union’s negotiated health care law, which is of the most contraband nature, Barack Obama, the great bridge builder, this uniter of men, then summoned all House and Senate leaders, sans Republicans of course, to the White House to brief them on the laws he and the labor unions had generously crafted for them to read, if they so chose to break with their newly created modus operandi of never reading bills, then vote for its approval.
But why the labor unions? Why are they at the White House writing laws?
That American-made car you purchased, it was made with union labor. Manufacturers pay their union laborers approximately $29 per hour. But their wages are $75 per hour. Nestled inside that number are benefits: life insurance, pension, health care, etc. GM alone is on the hook for $57 billion in health care benefits for retired employees, but is operating those benefits with around $9.4 billion in assets. These arrangements, based on the systematic financial raping, plundering, and pillaging of companies like GM by the labor unions through the negotiating of employee wages that are two thirds higher than the average wage, are now known as the scorned “Cadillac plans.â€
What can be expected when a labor union negotiates a wage of $29 per hour and the total hourly compensation is $75 per hour– triple the average wage in the private sector– with the bulk of $46 above the actual wage proposed to be taxed at 40%? If labor unions were responsible for multi-millions of dollars being contributed to the Obama campaign, and feel responsible for the union membersâ€™ predicament (i.e., they need your vote), the labor union can expect to become a de facto third house of Congress, set up shop in the White House, and with a little bit of hope and change, exempt union membersâ€™ “Cadillac plansâ€ from the 40% tax for at least seven years.
Imagine George Bush conducting legislation writing parties in the White House, conducted by Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, after the collapse of Enron. Overhauling the trading of electrical futures, gas futures, and accounting trickery, then the negotiators of Enron conducting a briefing to Congress explaining the laws they had rewritten, cracking down on the aforementioned trading standards, sans the new law’s application to Enron of course?
Regardless of how the Obama or the Left slice, dice, nuance, spin, disguise, or inveigle this egregious symphony upon the masses susceptible to statist propaganda disguised as hope and change, it is textbook Barack Obama usurping the United States Constitution, yet again.
Jim Byrd's website is A Skewed View.