It is ironic that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who is a member of the legislative branch, is practically begging for President Biden to bypass Congress in order to implement her socialist agenda.
Typically, members of Congress are reluctant to cede legislative power to the executive branch, seeing as how the Constitution explicitly states that Congress, not the president, writes the laws.
However, AOC and her fellow socialists in the Progressive Caucus are sick and tired of the drawn-out process by which Congress passes bills, which often includes compromising with fellow members of Congress. In fact, AOC is especially frustrated with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), who she solely blames for holding up her radical socialist vision for the future of the United States.
In a recent interview with New York Magazine, AOC described her frustration with Manchin, saying, “As a younger member of Congress, the first vote I ever cast was for Barack Obama, who was called a socialist and all of this stuff. All of this rhetoric that we see today has been the political reality my entire life. And so I never felt a nostalgia for something that never existed in my lifetime.”
She added, “I feel like our politics has fundamentally changed — whether it’s for better or for worse is for people’s determination — but I was never under the illusion that we can bring Manchin along.”
By this, AOC is referring to the fact that Manchin opposed the radical, $5 trillion Build Back Better bill, which in a nutshell would result in a socialist makeover of the U.S. economy and society.
So, instead of cajoling Manchin, AOC believes Biden should sidestep Congress and simply use his executive authority to enact as much of the Build Back Better agenda as possible.
According to AOC, “If the president does pursue and start to govern decisively using executive action and other tools at his disposal, I think we’re in the game. But if we decide to just kind of sit back for the rest of the year and not change people’s lives — yeah, I do think we’re in trouble. So I don’t think that it’s set in stone. I think that we can determine our destiny here.”
For decades, presidential administrations have pushed the envelope when it comes to issuing executive orders and actions that act as laws even though Congress had absolutely no role in drafting them. This is a dangerous development that undermines the very foundation of our constitutional republic.
Apparently, AOC and her fellow socialists are more than happy to aid and abet this course of action. However, Americans who believe in liberty, limited government, separation of powers, checks and balances, and all of the other principles that have helped maintain our nation’s freedoms for more than 240 years should outright reject any and all calls for even more robust executive authority.
What’s more, our Founding Fathers and thousands of brave colonists fought a bitter, years-long war to reject a system in which they were at the mercy of an all-powerful executive, who went by the name of King George.
As Americans, we should uphold our fidelity to a system in which no individual can arbitrarily declare what is and isn’t law. In other words, it would behoove AOC and all other members of Congress to work together to pass laws, instead of abdicating their most vital responsibility and calling upon the president to become a pseudo-king.
Chris Talgo ([email protected]) is the editorial director and a research fellow at The Heartland Institute, as well as a researcher and contributing editor at StoppingSocialism.com.
