Transcripts For CSPAN Washington This Week 20140203

Orders. I want to point out most of that is about in the timing of implementation of parts of the Affordable Care act. I think it bears are act or refusing to enforce its. This is most important compliment. He has been phasing it in and is made decisions along the way to certain pieces of it and they need to meet be delayed by more than one year. This is exactly what presence and administrations have always done and are expected to do in implementing complicated pieces of legislation like the Affordable Care act. George w. Bushs secretary of health and Human Services said three days after one of the most important delays of the so called employer mandate was announced, this decision was wise. He compared it to decisions that he and president bush made when their implementing the Prescription Drug benefit in medicare which many of us are personally familiar with now. Complicatedery piece of health legislation. It also had a very bumpy introduction was not very popular. They have a lot of problems that they had not anticipated. They took their time and implemented it sensibly and now its a very successful and popular program. Thats what the president is doing and it is the very definition of taking care to see that the laws are faithfully executed. I think my friend rogers beef is not with the fact that the president is rewriting the law, his beef is with the law as it has been defined for about the last 75 years. I respect that. He has sincere and well thought through views. The problem in his view is not about violating the law. The problem with the law has given the president and congress to much authority in his view. We are discussing and debating the president use of executive orders and executive powers in response to what the president said tuesday night. Speaker of the house john boehner said after five years, the president is clearly out of ideas. Few bipartisan proposals. Americans heard an american more interested in advancing ideology than in advancing ideology than solving the problems regular folks are talking about. Guest there is no question that this president , more than any other recent president , has gone about his business in a kind of confrontational, inyourface way that has raised serious questions about the kind of understanding he has of the constitution which is striking given that he was an instructor in constitutional law at the university of chicago, my on the monitor. My alma mater. What we are seeing here is a statute that is very unpopular and si is right, my beef is with the statute itself but it is also with the way the president is going about implementing this. Letsw was written so now enforcement is the normal approach to these matters. Of course, the law was so poorly written, so poorly thought out, that there is no way to enforce it is written. What he is doing, in so many ways, is rewriting it. For example, he is having the administration impose this contraceptive mandate which has led to the suit by the Little Sisters of the poor. He has instituted delays. He has put certain penalties off for a while. Hocs simply it is ad and this is what has so many people up in arms because they cannot plan their own lives. Businesses and individuals have to plan for their own insurance, their health care, and yet it changes day by day. This is the kind of thing that has led to the extraordinary unpopularity of this bill and in particular the way it has gone about thing implemented by this president and his administration. Up on let me follow specific examples of where the president has used his powers lets get to your phone calls on this issue. Democrats won, good morning. Caller good morning. I think this question is ridiculous. Likethink what it would be if the president did not have this executive order. Congress is not doing their job and if this president did not have this executive power, where with the people they . If this had not been brought up this was not brought up with other president s. What is happening here . Are they trying to cripple him from helping the people . Evennk its ridiculous talking about this, thank you. Host thanks for the call. Guest i think i probably should say nothing because the caller said everything i would want to say better than i could say it. That the stress lighting that delaying pieces of the Affordable Care act to make sure that they get implemented more smoothly and in a way that the people who are regulated by the active people who benefit from it will be able to handle these responsibilities and these benefits in a sensible and effective fashion, that is ed andtely precedent right in the middle of the president s constitutional job description. Its what all president s have done with complicated pieces of legislation like this and thats exactly what he should do as the caller pointed out. I would also add that this is how the framers designed the constitution. That,reated a legislative the judicial branch, and an executive branch and of those three, the only one branch that is always open for business is the presidency and the executive branch. Rely on ato legislative branch and the branchent alone, along, half the times when things go wrong or come up, the u. S. Government would be completely impotent. What the situation was before the constitution was written and it was what the framers were most interested in avoiding. They wanted to have an effective federal government that could that almosttnesses caused the United States to lose the revolutionary war and they particularly wanted an executive branch which had with they called energy. They repeated that over and over again. The energy to be a strong government. Guest i think bills question was directed at me when he asked where we would be if the president did not assume this power that is not given to him. We would be living under the constitution is where we would be. The constitution simply sets forth a set of rules for the conduct of government. The president will not always get his way or his policies implemented if we followed those rules. Bill complained about the congress doing nothing. Thats the kind of gridlock that was built into the constitution by madison when he established three branches of government and pitted power against power. The fact just to give an example of the recess appointment power the congress had come in the case of those three were appointees, refused to affirm them. What did the president do . He went one step further than any previous president had done. Officeointed those two when the senate was arguably in session. Of course, that led to litigation, the noel guest the actions that the president has taken, these have all been well within his authority that has been granted by congress. That is true mold these cases. Lets take the immigration example. That is one of the examples and opponents of the president frequently site. What the president did 1. 5 years that certaine children of undocumented immigrants who had gone to school and served in the military would not be targets for deportation. This is a perfectly sensible thing to have done. To say that the president was not enforcing the immigration laws is ridiculous. Hasrate of deportations increased almost four times under obama over previous administrations. Not coincidence all. Congress had only appropriate enough money to cover the number of deportations annually that are now being put into effect. Who said many people the executive branch did not have the resources to undertake deportation proceedings. To exempt people who are clearly beneficial to our society and are not threats to the Public Welfare from deportation and since they were not going to be deported anyway because the government did not have the resources to do it was a perfectly sensible thing to do. AgoSupreme Court 1. 5 years in discussing the president s authority under the immigration laws in a decision that chief Justice Roberts and she Justice Kennedy joined said very clearly that the decision to undertake deportation proceedings is at the core of the president s authority to enforce the immigration laws and they specifically said that humanitarian concerns are part of what the president can take into account and specifically targetat deciding not to people who are gainfully employed, for example, rather lons is a sensible way to use that Discretionary Authority because people who are gainfully employed or students in school or who have served in the military are, again, not threats to welfare here. The view on what the president did administratively in that decision, the view that has been expressed by opponents of the president that this is somehow usurping Congressional Authority and violating the constitution is directly contrary that is a cramped view that is directly contrary to what the Supreme Court has only recently reaffirmed in a very bipartisan position. Host we welcome our listeners on cspan radio. We are focusing on the president ial use of executive powers. Joining us for our discussion is kison. Azarus and roger pilon. To janes in peoria, illinois, independent line. Caller good morning, i am so sick and tired of hearing how president obama is the worst president in the world. First of all, president obama would not have to use executive power if congress was doing their job. They are not. You sit up and you talk about how bad this president is. It was not a problem when george was george bush was lying to the people and got us into two wars we did not need. That was ok. President obama is trying to get us out of the war and get us out of the next four. Host take your point of view and frame it in terms of a question and we will get a response. I would is it like a truthful answer that when president obama uses executive power, its a bad thing when it was not a bad thing with other president s . He has not done anything beyond the constitution. Respectes, well, with to congress not doing their job, it all depends on what you understand the job that congress is supposed to be doing is. Congress simply to not pass a statute that the president wants past is not the case of congress not doing its job. It is a case of congress disagreeing with the president s policy. Thiss exactly the way system was meant to work. You have to have all three wrenches of government on board all three branches of government on board to a copper something. You have to have the Congress Passed the statute, you got to have the president sign it, and you got to have the court find that the statute is constitutional. If you have accomplish all of that, then the government will be doing the job that initiated and began in the congress. What weve got with this president is a failure of leadership. You talk to the republicans in the house and you find that, for several years, he hardly had anything to do with them. Care act,e affordable obamacare, was passed without a single vote from the republicans in either the house or the senate. That is not bipartisanship. That is partisanship with a vengeance and that is part of the reason why the bill is so unpopular together with the way it has been implemented and with the bill itself which increasingly is being seen as a massive intrusion into the private affairs of individuals in this most intimate area of their life, namely their health care. Host calling it the recess appointment rent, this is one of the many essays you can check out from the cato website. We will go to bob from philadelphia, republican line, good morning. Caller good morning and thank you for cspan and taking my call. I wanted to thank cspan for having this forum on this debate. Quite frankly, you would not see it anyplace else. The press is so liberal that the point should be made that if a conservative or republican president stood there in front of congress and essentially threatened and cajoled them, there they would be demonized. People would be standing on rooftops screaming about what an imperial president. This guy somehow gets a free ride. Thank you for the debate and thank you for the form. It would not be seen or heard elsewhere. Host thank you. There is also this tweet guest thank you very much and thanks to both callers. On the question of whether the congress is doing his job, i would like to address that. Lets look at the socalled recess appointment issue. It is a little bit arcane for most people. Requires Senate Confirmation for a highlevel executive branch but it has a safety valve, a clause which senate is inn the recess and therefore not available to decide whether to confirm or not confirm, the president can make a temporary appointment to make sure that the job is filled. The question right now is whether the president appropriately use that power to add three people, three commissioners to the National Labor Relations Board a while back. Thatwas going on there is the minority in the senate, not a majority but the republican minority at the behest of their Business Community allies had decided to completely shut the labor board down by refusing to confirm three members for three slots not because they had objections to the individuals but because they literally wanted to shut the labor board down. The labor board only had two of its five slots filled in the Supreme Court had decided that it needed a quorum of at least three to act. By refusing to consider these nominees, the Senate Republicans filibustering is not that they had a majority even the senate the republicans were able to completely keep the president and his administration from faithfully executing all the laws that protect workers and the right to organize in unions that the National Labor Relations Board and forces. And forces. Enforces. It was never seen that the power to confirm or not confirm would literally eliminate repeal large chunks of laws or shut down cetaceans. Expected theut confirmation authority would be exercised only very rarely and only because of problems that the senate had with particular individuals. I think the congress here was absolutely violating its own Constitutional Responsibilities and the president , in exercising his recess Appointment Authority to make sure the labor board could actually function, was doing just what the framers expected and wanted the executive branch to do as a means of selfdefense, a word they used in the federalist papers. They foresaw this kind of political fighting between the two branches and that was very important that the executive branch specifically would have the ability to resist encroachments from the legislative ranch and preserve the executive branch is vital authority to see that the laws are faithfully executed. I want to point their audiences attention to this from Jeffrey Anderson in the weekly standard. Guest absolutely, that is probably the most important of all the members of the federalist. Numbers of the federalist for the point you just made can be brought to bear on whatsi has said. To make sure that one branch does not intrude on the powers with respect sy, to this recess appointment issue, has pointed to the reasons why the minority did not approve these members of the National Labor Relations Board. That is not the issue, ultimately. The issue is whether they have the power to refuse to confirm these nominees. The alternative issue is does the president have the tower given that refusal to confirm, to appoint them himself . I submit that he does not. The president has the power to fill up vacancies that happened when the senate is not in session. These vacancies did not happen when the senate was not in session. Moreover, the appointments were made when the senate was in session. Its a double violation on the part of the president. That is what has got so many people up in arms. With respect to the tweet you got a moment ago, and brought to our attention, this person is making the point that the two previous callers have made, namely, that the president is acting because the congress is not acting. The fact that congress is not acting does not give the president power to act. The president s power as a function of what the constitution says, not a function of whether congress does or does not act in a given area. Simon rogerpilon and lazarus. Your is more of what the speaker of the house this past week said as he reacted to the president s announcement that if Congress Fails to act, he will. [video clip] we will continue to look closely at whether the president is faithfully executing the laws. He took an oath to do this. Dealing with federal contracts and the minimum wage, he probably has the authority to do that but we will watch very closely. There is a constitution that we all take an oath to including him. Following that constitution is the basis for our republic and we should not put them in jeopardy. Host will go to richard joining us from pawtucket, rhode island. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. All in all, i think what the president said was pretty blurred was pretty belligerent to congress. I think what he did was pretty successful in the way that he was able to derail the public from having to the main topic of the things that are concerning americans the most right now which is the economy. Within your viewpoint, i would like to know if he was successful in doing that. Thank you. Guest i would like to respond. First of all, i would like to point out that Speaker Boehner, very responsibly and the only specific points he made in his statement that was just on, he specifically said that the two important actions that the president had actually announced in his speech, namely requiring federal contractors to pay a minimum wage of slightly over new irahour and the accounts for lower income people Speaker Boehner said those that theere lawful and congress would continue to watch and make sure the other actions are lawful. Thats what congress should do. I want to point out that Speaker Boehner, unlike many of his allies on the right, is at least shooting straight. When he said that. The specific in the president has done for which he is being criticized are, in fact, lawful. Host one other quotation from federalist 521 this is from James Madison. Guest yes, the reliance on the people is our ultimate protection. The people must also be informed which is why its a good thing we have cspan. They also must be alerted in these matters and, regrettably today, our Education System does not teach the kind of basic civics that is necessary to be an informed and knowledgeable citizen about our system of government. With respect to the point that sy just made relating to speaker banner plus comments, he spoke about the minimum wage for Government Contractors but he did not speak about the accounts. Ira accounts. He those accounts are apparently to be done through executive order. It seems to me that that will present a problem. These are going to require the appropriation of money. You cannot create this kind of system without funding it. Congress has up are created no funds for the creation of these accounts. The wall street journal had a piece friday or yesterday about the problems, the constitutional problems that would surround the iras . This is the perfect example of him taking his law into his own hands. The previous caller talked about doing this for the purposes of diversion from the larger issues such as the stalled economy over the past decade or so that is still stalled five years into the obama administration. I think your caller is absolutely right on that. So much of what obama has been doing has been done in the name of diverting attention to his other problems the irs scandal with respect to the tea party, for example, then ghazi, the ap fox news scandal these are the kinds of things that he does not want to see the outlook attending to. So he issues one statement after another. What was captured very nicely by saidon appointee who stroke of the pen, law of the land which is kind of cool. In other words, you can rule from the white house by executive order or by instructions to the agencies and ignore congress. This regrettably is what we have come to in this country by the statef the administrative and the failure of the courts to more seriously monitor them. Judicial this engagement has allowed this imperial executive state to come about. That is what we live under essentially today. Host another source on this topic is Linda Feldman the Christian Science monitor. Is barack obama an imperial president . And his use of executive authority in the white house with a divided government . Caller good morning. I would like you to correct me with this. He put u. S. In the state of emergency was given the ability to use the power which the thing that should have happened is after the war the state emergency defended, the use of the power was allowed to use but it wasnt. Were supposed to be under a state of emergency right now. I think its fair to hear people calling under the llusion thinking that this causes when the president is working in the interest but hes not. Host response . Guest im not sure i completely understood the statement or question that the caller has just made and if i didnt, please correct me. But i think the question is ether the president s use of executive authority is in line and actions cies of past president s. And if that is the question i think the record is very clear that the president is acting s irely within the precedent set by past president s including president lincoln whom the caller referred to. And again, i want to point out roger here well, part of what he last said seemed to me to sound an awful lot like a political attack. And of a piece with some of the thing that is some of the political opponents of the president are saying. Was really it again criticizing our government as it has existed since the new deal. And he has also very strongly criticizing the law of the constitution that the Supreme Court has propounded in those years. I would go on to say that i think that his criticisms of the constitutional law and the definitions of executive and federal authority as they are now inscribed in judicial decisions interpreting the constitution, i would say that rogers criticism of that law as it is defined really is an attack on the constitution as it was interpreted by our first great chief justice, mar shall, in the early part of the 19th century and chief Justice Marshall was of course the contemporary of the framers and he famously wrote in a number of decisions that it was a constitution that we are expounding. It was built to last for the ages. It was intended to be flexible. It was intended to give the federal government the authority to regulate commerce and by that chief Justice Marshall said interstate commerce is that commerce which concerns more states than one. Anything that affects Economic Activity beyond the borders of one state is something that congress can regulate if it needs to. And that is exactly what the interpretation of the constitution has been and it is what my friend roger quite sincerely is objecting to. Host ill give equal time. One of our viewers saying senator manchen is a former governor of West Virginia now the senator from that state, hes a democrat. I thought some of the tone that was used could have been different. I was an executive, i was a governor of the state and i knew the powers of the office. I knew the constitution of the state of West Virginia. I knew that i was responsible for daytoday operations to run it effectively and as efficiently as i could and i would use all the powers the office had and the constitution gave me. But i would not make it sound as if i was going to go beyond the powers or do it my way without you. I just that tone could have been a little bit conciliatory. Host that was from last tuesday. And this tweet. Guest well, thank you for that one. With respect to the first of those tweets, that president obama has issued fewer executive orders than his predecessors, again he is right on track to be thats not quite accurate. He is on track to be in line with his others with respect to the numbers. But as i said at the outset, the issue is not the numbers. The issues whether those orders or actions that he does take are taken pursuant to the authority that the constitution grants him. Now, to pick up on the point that he made earlier that my beef is really with the post new deal constitutional law, i plead depilty to that. But im not alone in that. There is a growing body of thought in this country from the academy right on down that the new deal was indeed a constitutional revolution. And we have no better authority for that than rexford tug well one of the principal architects of the new deal. And i quote, in order to get our programs through, we had to engage in tortured interpretations of a document, namely the constitution, that was intended to prevent them. And so the people in the new deal who were turning the constitution on its head knew exactly what they were doing. They were taking a document that was intended to authorize limited government and turning it into a document that authorized effectively unlimited government. That we are surrounded with today. Wrsh the government can regulate and redistribute virtually at will. The idea that the federal government has any authority whatsoever to be involved in the Health Care Business is simply preposterous. Where do you find health care anywhere in the constitution . He said well say well they have the power to regulate interstate commerce and health care is interstate commerce. The whole point of the power to regulate interstate commerce was to ensure that it was free from interference from the state especially and free in the sense that they would have the authority to write legislation that removed such other impediments as there might be to a free market among the states. What was not a power to then go into the business of health care or to regulate it in every kettle across the country. This is the kind of thing that would have the framers turning in their graves if they saw what was happening. We had two schools of thought at the founding. The federalists and the antifederalists. The antifederalists were opposed to the new constitution because they feared it authorized too much central power. The federalists said in response, no it doesnt. Look at all the checks and balances weve got in this document. So you had two schools of thought. The limited government people, the federalists, and the even more limited government people, the antifederalists. There wasnt a person among them including hamilton who would have sanctioned anything like what we have today. And that is the root of the problem that we see today. Namely, that with all this legislation we have got an executive branch that is huge that is carrying out that requires the president to be engaged in these kinds of law making activities in effect that were never contemplate bid the framers. Host and theres this. Two different organizations represented tat table as we focus on the use of president ial powers, the Cato Institute and constitutional accountability center. We go to gep from alabama. Caller good morning. I have a statement and then i ant to ask a question. The conversation was going so good. Its good to see two points of view to explain something to the American People because everyone is not political and doesnt know the constitution. And thats fair. But when the gentleman from the Cato Institute brought up benghazi and the tea party controversy, it took away everything because we need to learn whats really going on about the constitution and the powers that the executive and the legislative branch. But my thing is i want to know from the gentleman from the Cato Institute and follow up from the other gentleman, because under the constitution if the president is using his executive power to go above the congress are they Impeachable Offenses . And please give us clear answers so that the American People and the taxpayers can know whats really going on. Host thank you for the question. Impeachable or not . Guest whether its an Impeachable Offense is a political question. And host but it clearly states high crimes and misdemeanors. Guest i dare say no president has ever been impeached for the kinds of things that president obama is doing. And i dont encourage impeaching him for this although there are clearly people who do. I think the remedy is in the courts. And there is where the problem has been since the new deal with the courts essentially stepping out of the picture, defering to the political branches, and especially in the area of Administrative Law. We could get into the tall grasses on Administrative Law deference, step one, step two, and the eyes will glaze over if we did that. Guest they already are. Its early on sunday morning. Guest but this is what weve come to in this country. And thats why as the caller asked about the constitution, the constitution or more correctly modern constitutional law is all but inscrutible today to anyone except lawyers who are engaged in this. And thats a problem. Because the constitution itself was meant to be understood by the average person. It is written in ordinary language. Host let me follow up on that point. Impeachable offense . Yes . No . Maybe. Guest i totally agree with roger that nothing the president has done is an Impeachable Offense. Roger has continually emphasized a point of view that common in his corner of the political world, and that is that the constitution as we know it today from judicial decisions since the new deal which for those who dont know that is about three quarters of the century ago and is responsible for all the programs that we completely take for granted. He likes to say that as some kind of aberration, that the actual constitution, the original constitution, the vision of the framers is completely contrary to that. And i would just like to point out that i agree with roger that we need to take the constitution very seriously. Both agree about that. But the fact is that the people who wrote the constitution were primarily interested in creating an effective lasting and strong federal government in comparison so to what had gone before. Thats why they were called federalists. And James Madison and Alexander Hamilton and George Washington all had this point of view. They would not have been uncomfortable in any way whatsoever with the kind of government we have now because the kind of problems that the government has to deal with are completely different from the problems that they had to face. And i would like to point out one thing very quickly, and that is rodgeronlers point that the fact that the federal government is deeply deeply involved in every phase of our Health Care System is not sanctioned by the constitution and wouldnt have been sanctioned by them because the constitution itself doesnt say anything about health care. Well, that is an argument that was pressed by Thomas Jefferson when he was secretary of state under president George Washington. It was countered by secretary of the treasury Alexander Hamilton over the question about whether the United States under the constitution could create a National Bank because the constitution doesnt say you can create a National Bank. It says a lot of other things. It says that you can regulate commerce and have certain other powers. And both of them made very learned arguments. I think secretary jefferson made the kind of argument that is roger is pushing, and secretary hamilton made the kind of argument that is the Supreme Court now accepts as law which i also support. And guess what, president washington agreed with secretary hamilton. So to say that the framers dont support the idea that something that is not specifically named in the constitution is beyond the authority of the federal government is just not right. Host quick follow up. Guest the quick general point since we talked about the federalist papers, James Madison, the author of the constitution, wrote in federalist 45 that the powers of the new government would be few and defined. Does anybody believe that the powers of the federal government today are few and defined . Of course not. We have strayed very far from the founders vision. Host were going to keep both of you for a few more minutes. We have more callers who want to weigh in on this topic. Let me point your attention to the front page story this morning from the l. A. Times focused on executive authority. In an interesting take the president takes a strategy cue from the first lady. I have a fear as many of those fear Big Government and obviously the socialists push the Big Government and find every excuse to grow government to control. And were seeing what i want to be addressed and its been addressed a little bit, that its not the executive orders per se, but its the use of the and , the e. P. A. , hhs, putting idea logs in the Civil Servants jobs to promote a socialist Big Government agenda. And thats what obama has been very see ductive in pushing that. That doesnt get the publicity. And of course we know from some of the thing that is were touched on the i. R. S. For f gibson the invasion o guitars. The fast and furious coverup. All of these things the e. P. A. s war on coal, nothing authorized by congress. Nothing so the agencies are the ones where the socialists again is being pushed and its very little that congress is able to do about it. And theres very little publicity on that. We have the i. R. S. Scandal, for example. There was an appointment of an obama contributor to investigate it. Host were going to stop you there because were short on time. But let me take your point because it basically augments a tweet that we got. Its not the number of executive orders but its exactly whats in these orders and the impact on our government. Guest again, thats true. Said, ink as roger has parne said, the Speaker Boehner has said the actions drawing fire from conservative sources are not unlawful. Now, lets take the e. P. A. , the caller was particularly exercised about the e. P. A. And saying that its doing thing that is congress has never authorized. One of the most important areas that the e. P. A. Has been working in has been reducing the incidents of Greenhouse Gases in the atmosphere as a way of combating global warming. Those actions have been controversial but theyre not unlawful. The district of Columbia Circuit Court of appeals, for example, in a very important decision that is now under review in the Supreme Court and a very important decision that was written by one of the most conservative republican appointees on that court found that a whole slew of the actions that e. P. A. Has taken that are very strong actions to reduce the incidents of Greenhouse Gases in the atmosphere, that those actions were clearly lawful. And i would just like to say to the caller who seems to be very concerned about the federal executive branch agencys running amuck without any check, the fact is that virtually everything these agencies do can be challenged in the courts. And certainly all the actions that an agency like the e. P. A. Takes are always being challenged by industries that object to them and often sometimes by states that object to them, like the callers State Government of texas, which is one of the most parapath etic antifederal government litigators in the country. So there are checks. But most of the time the courts are finding that those actions are lawful. Host our last call from marie in new jersey. Caller thank you for taking my call. I just wanted to ask the gentleman there, why would they think it would be possible for the president to do these elective policies if it wasnt legal . He is a constitutional lawyer after all. Since any e much president since hes been president. Host thank you for the call. Guest well, lets start with this. There are aspects of the constitution in which about which reasonable people can have reasonable differences. There are other aspects about which that is not the case. In some areas, what he is doing is, as he has said, perfectly legitimate under current law. And other areas, its not the case. As, for example, with the recess appointment or with this my ra proposal that he has undertaken. And we can find lots of cases of that. But at a general level, it is this arrogance that we see on the part of this president that is so disconcerting to so many americans. It is the kind of in your face, i dont care what congress is doing, congress is not doing what i think it should be doing. Therefore, im going to do it. This has been the attitude of this administration from the time he first said he announced before he became president that he is going to undertake a fundamental change in america. Most americans dont want to see a fundamental change in america. But he has had an jeandave of that sort from the time he got into office. And the irony is that with the exception of obamacare, which is still its survival is very much up for grabs. With the exception of that, he has accomplished very little on the one hand and on the other hand he has left us with an economy that is still struggling five years into his presidency. Nd so the idea that he to answer your question can think that he is doing what he is doing is constitutional is on the one hand correct and on the other hand not. But if he sees it that way it means that he is simply misreading the constitution. And will be up braided for it by the courts as he was in the recess appointments case and in all likelihood will be by the Supreme Court if we may judge from the oral argument that took place in that case. Host and the final point. Guest i would just like to add and make one small point. And that is that is constitution also applies to congress as well as the president. Whats going on right now is that a minority of the congress is using its obstructionist powers, which are quite considerable as roger points out to actually try to shut down government. Thats really what was going on in the case of refusing to confirm appointees to the National Labor Relations Board so it didnt have a quota so it couldnt do its business. They were trying to shut down the government. And in those circumstances, its up to the president to make sure that the government doesnt get shut down. That is actually exactly what the framers foresaw that the president should have the means the constitutional means of selfdefense to do to prevent encroachment by the legislative branch. And thats also in federalist 51 and in other federalist papers. So i think we have a president here exercising his Authority Just as the framers intended for it to be exercised and very much in the interest of the nation. Guest no one wants to shut down government. We simply want to bring government within its constitutional bounds. Strong but limited government. Host an interesting debate and discussion. Roger with the Cato Institute. And your essay is available on line at cato. Org. Thank you very much for being with us. And simon louisiana russ with he cons last russ. U. S. Constitution. Org. Thank you very much. After that, we will talk about some of the ideas republicans are offering as alternatives to the health care law. Program, ain the discussion about how Nuclear Weapons and materials are secured. By williamined tobey, the former deputy administrator for the National Security administration. Also take your calls and share your comments by email, twitter, and facebook to getting live at 7 00 a. M. Eastern on c span. Cspan, we bring Public Affair event directly to you. Putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefing and conferences, and offering complete gaveltogavel coverage of the house. The cable tvd by industry 35 years ago and funded by your local cable or satellite provider. What is in hd. Like us on facebook or a us on twitter. Q a with Robert Dallek. Then british Prime Ministers questions with David Cameron followed by an appearance by the Prime Minister before a joint meeting on National Security. Q a, authorn and historian Robert Dallek discusses his latest disc horrible historical narrative titled Camelots Court inside the Kennedy White house. Robert dallek, in your recent book, Camelots Court inside the Kennedy White house, the last paragraph of your entire book i cannot resist saying, thank you to president obama