What Happens When One Loses Big Supporters?

             It has not been too long since President Joe Biden said that only tyrants rule by executive orders. He surely forgot that he made that statement because he signed 37 executive actions, including 24 executive orders in his first week as president. It seems that he is willing to sign anything that his Leftists assistants put in front of him. Whoever is his puppet master and is pulling his strings should hear what is being said outside the White House.

            Even though the New York Times supports the left-wing progressive agenda, it is now begging Biden to “ease up” on the executive orders. There was praise for the new President in an editorial titled “Ease Up on the Executive Actions, Joe.” However, there was also urging for the president to use the proper channels for making changes – legislation by Congress. The editorial noted that Biden’s executive actions had dismantled much of the work accomplished by former President Donald Trump, and then said, “But this is no way to make law.” 

A polarized, narrowly divided Congress may offer Mr. Biden little choice but to employ executive actions or see his entire agenda held hostage. These directives, however, are a flawed substitute for legislation. They are intended to provide guidance to the government and need to work within the discretion granted the executive by existing law or the Constitution. They do not create new law – though executive orders carry the force of law – and they are not meant to serve as an end run around the will of Congress. By design, such actions are more limited in what they can achieve than legislation, and presidents who overreach invite intervention by the courts.

Executive actions are far more ephemeral and easily discarded than legislation, which can set up a whipsaw effect, as each president scrambles to undo the work of his predecessor. Just as Mr. Trump set about reversing as many of President Barack Obama’s directives as possible, Mr. Biden is now working to reverse many of Mr. Trump’s reversals. With executive orders, there is always another presidential election just a few years off, threatening to upend everything.

This creates instability and uncertainty that can carry significant economic as well as human costs.

            It appears that the editorial board at the New York Times knows more about how the United States government works than the new resident in the White House or his assistants. But wait, it could get worse! Four Representatives (D-Texas) wrote to the President yesterday to ask him to rescind Executive Order 3395, which he signed on Day #2. It pauses new leases for drilling for oil and gas on federal lands. The letter also asked Biden to drop his plans to ban new leases for a year in his attempt to stop the use of fossil fuels.

            Apparently, Representatives Henry Cuellar, Lizzie Fletcher, Vicente Gonzalez, and Marc Veasey failed to connect the dots between Biden’s war on fossil fuels and the fact that oil and gas are a huge part of the Texas economy. 

Media reports indicate that the administration plans to announce a new proposal to ban responsible energy leasing, including oil and gas leasing, from our federal waters and lands indefinitely… A federal ban for any period of time will certainly imperil hundreds of thousands of jobs, entire communities, and billions of dollars in royalty revenues to the Federal Treasury and eliminate funding for important conservation programs such as the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF).

            It will not do Democrat members of Congress any good either when their 2022 opponents remind voters that the Democrat Party was responsible for shutting down the powerful industry. The targets are already on the backs of these representatives, and they know it. Thus, their plea to Biden for help – for the benefit of the nation.

As the United States works to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed more than 400,000 Americans and destroyed the livelihoods of many more, now is not the time to jeopardize American jobs, or the critical tax and royalty revenues that federal leases generate for local, state, and federal government that need funds now. Instead, we should invest in our nation’s infrastructure and create the jobs that will help our nation emerge stronger after this pandemic.

            The Representatives can either see the writing on the wall, or they are extra good at lying, or there is a big hole forming in the middle of the Democrat Party. We do not yet know what is happening, but I am sure that the conservative half of the nation would be grateful to have the Executive Order rescinded.

            It looks like the assistants putting the Executive Orders in front of Biden should think a bit more about what they are doing. If they continue the big push to destroy the economy and make the nation miserable, they might push too far and go over the edge.