Reason Writers Around Town: Shikha Dalmia on Obama's Executive Power Grabs
President Barack Obama has rejected (for now) the idea of raising the debt ceiling through an executive order, which would have violated the 14th Amendment that clearly gives Congress, not the president, the power to do so. But that does not mean that Obama has suddenly fallen in love with checks-and-balances and the separation of powers. In her latest column at The Daily, Reason Foundation Senior Analyst Shikha Dalmia notes that Obama has expanded executive power to czar-like proportions on fronts where even Bush feared to tread. "His many power grabs are worthy of a book," she writes, identifying four of the truly unprecedented ones, two that expand the war state and two that expand the regulatory state.