Obama: 'I never have a green light' to bypass Congress


Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, President Obama emphasized the limitations the Constitution places on the power of his office:
"I never have a green light. I'm bound by the Constitution; I'm bound by the separation of powers. There's some things we can't do. Congress has the power of the purse, for example... What I am consistently going to do is, wherever I have the legal authorities to make progress on behalf of middle-class Americans... I'm going to seize those opportunities." [NPR]
Obama's comments are surprising given his apparent endorsement of executive lawmaking from earlier this year:
"We are not just going to be waiting for legislation in order to make sure that we are providing Americans the kind of help that they need. I've got a pen and I've got a phone. And I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions that move the ball forward..." [Mediaite]
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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