Plan A: Defeat Obama
Plan B: Dealing with a Second Term
By
Mac McDowell
Host of The Boiling Point Radio Show
Recent polling data has been fraught with error and it is difficult to say who, at this time, will be elected in the Fall. The conservative movement is working hard to ensure that Barack Hussein Obama does not win a second term as President of the United States. But elections are difficult to predict this far out from Election Day, and like it or not, there is no guarantee that by November, Obama will lose.
So what can be done if he wins? As it stands right now, the biggest issues are the unaffordable Affordable Care Act (Obama Care), the rapidly growing national debt and federal intrusion upon state sovereignty. Although our Founding Fathers did not foresee these specific threats, they were wise when crafting the Constitution and left in it armor to protect us from big government’s assaults. One shield against big government is the Tenth Amendment which states the following:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Although the Tenth Amendment has not been cited much in the modern political debate, it has been used many times in the past. Two hundred years ago when the Alien and Sedition Acts were signed into law by John Adams, the Tenth Amendment was used as justification for James Madison and Thomas Jefferson to write Nullification Resolutions to void the laws as unconstitutional. These Nullification Resolutions were passed by Virginia and Kentucky in 1798 and 1799 respectively, on the premise that a state has the authority to judge for itself whether a law is constitutional. This assertion, known as the Principles of ’98, was never directly challenged in court because the Alien and Sedition Acts were repealed. Nullification efforts were resurrected in the decade leading up to the War Between the States. Fourteen of the Northern states, in the so-called "Personal Liberty laws," nullified the Fugitive Slave Act and other laws pertaining to slavery. In an ironic twist of history, these Northern states seized upon the deliberations of Vice President John C. Calhoun from South Carolina to make their case. Calhoun argued that the Union was a compact between states. The states had the power to nullify any federal law that exceeded the powers given to Congress in the Constitution. Once nullified, the law could then be declared null and void in that state.
More recently, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision on Obama Care, the State House of Idaho passed a Resolution of Nullification known as the “Idaho Health Freedom Act” which seeks to establish a public policy that states:
“…every person within the state of Idaho is and shall be free to choose or decline to choose any mode of securing health care services without penalty or threat of penalty by the federal government of the United States of America.”
It is arguable that if three fourths of the states (38 states) were to pass similar nullification resolutions then Obama Care would die on the vine regardless of Supreme Court decisions.
Another possible, and perhaps more attractive, constitutional path is outlined in the part of the Constitution which deals with Interstate Compacts (Article I Section X).
“No state shall, without the consent of Congress… enter into an agreement or compact with another state…”
Congress has approved many such Interstate Compacts such as the New York-New Jersey Port Authority, which arose from a 1921 compact between those two states. The beauty of Interstate Compacts is that they supersede Federal law. Texas has entered into an Interstate Healthcare Compact with six other states and currently there are ten other states considering joining the Compact. Once approved by Congress, these states will not be obliged to abide by Obama Care. So, Obama Care can be overturned state by state. However, the same cannot be said of our national debt obligation.
The runaway national debt, which will be over $16 trillion by Election Day, is far more difficult to bring under control than Obama Care, but not impossible. There is a proposal working its way around the country to call for an Article V Convention (AVC) to propose a method of controlling the national debt. This movement, known as the National Debt Relief Amendment, is a nationwide call for an AVC to amend the constitution with eighteen words.
Currently Congress can raise the debt limit at any time it wishes, and for as much as it wants, resulting in a culture of foxes guarding the hen house. If this were to become an amendment to the Constitution, Congress would no longer have the authority to raid the chicken coop any time it wanted. The power and authority would then shift to a simple majority of the states.
There are, of course, folks that are afraid of the possibility of runaway convention, but there are many scholars that say that is unlikely. The fear that folks should have is the reality of a runaway national debt.
So if Obama wins in the Fall, we still have Constitutional armor to blunt his dagger thrusts to the body politic if we have the will to use it.
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