Jesus Christ, Aim. Sometimes I wonder if you're a shitty troll.
You're just not used to someone laying out an argument for a controversial idea.
And the Presidency does not have a blank check for anything.
It's a figure of speech.
The President has a massive budget and the liberty to command resources that may not be directly within his budget. For example, if he sets up a party - the Secret Service still has to facilitate that party and perform its duty of protecting the President that someone has to pay for - even if the office of the President isn't issued a bill for it that must come out of the discretionary budget.
Michelle flies all over the world. The two needlessly take separate aircraft (it is like the two can't stand each other), and spend much of their time in high priced hotels and interacting with celebrities.
Which is how Democrats, or at least the more recent progressive variety, view the Presidency. They are the cultural elites of society and are there to enjoy being better than everyone else. That is exactly how they act. Obama is simply flaunting his status and position.
You're vastly overestimating the office's executive powers.
It's time you wake up and start living in the present century.
Yes, if this were the early 1900s, you'd be correct. Hell - even if we were talking about the 1980s.
But we're not in those times, anymore.
From Time (another liberal rag):
You must be registered for see links
"Future historians will ask why George W. Bush sought and received express congressional authorization for his wars (against al Qaeda and Iraq) and his successor did not. They will puzzle over how Barack Obama the prudent war-powers constitutionalist transformed into a matchless war-powers unilateralist. And they will wonder why he claimed to “welcome congressional support” for his new military initiative against the Islamic State but did not insist on it in order to ensure clear political and legal legitimacy for the tough battle that promised to consume his last two years in office and define his presidency."
Ouch. Time is painting Bush as being the better of the two.
From Vox - hardly conservative:
You must be registered for see links
"But interviews with academic, legal, and policy experts make clear Obama has done little to roll back Bush's expansion of executive power — and that, instead, he's added a few innovations of his own. "The consensus is that he's not the disruptor in terms of presidential power that he purported to be," says Mitchel Sollenberger, a political scientist at the University of Michigan. "Instead, he's largely continued consolidating and strengthening it."
Many of Obama's own controversial contributions cluster around one main theme: waiving, modifying, or refusing to enforce key provisions in laws dealing with domestic policy. And as he weighs a new executive action on immigration, he seems set to go further yet. In doing so, he'll set new precedents that future presidents can cite for even more expansive action. As Congressional dysfunction keeps getting worse and worse, presidents will keep filling the policymaking vacuum left by the legislative branch — and Congress won't be able to stop them.
...
It's the domestic front where House Republicans have leveled their harshest objections. Article II of the Constitution states that the president must "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed," in what's known as the Take Care Clause. Many House GOP committee hearings, and much conservative commentary, have honed an argument that Obama has failed to faithfully execute the laws in three key areas: waivers to the No Child Left Behind education law, the delay of Obamacare's employer mandate, and the deferral of deportations for young unauthorized immigrants. "The current argument is about faithful execution of the law, and how much discretion the president has," says Rudalevige.
Each issue's legal and political specifics are different — and for all three, even some nonpartisan experts note that Obama's actions have gone further than those of past presidents. "There are some ways here," says William Howell, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, "in which Obama has made kind of unique contributions, and really extended his executive authority in ways his predecessors haven't done." "
If a President can declare what laws we are going to follow or can simply make the decisions he wants to over issues he has no authority simply because Congress 'won't act' - then we live in a dictatorship.
A provisional dictatorship - but how long will that last?
The fact of the matter is that the power of any dictator is dependent upon the willingness of people to act according to his decree and the power of those who stand in opposition to that decree. If there is no opposition - or the opposition is not capable of meeting the threat - then the dictator gets his way and is successful regardless of what a court says.
Might may not make right - but might can certainly place things into motion.
