Posted on 01/28/2014 7:29:50 AM PST by Olog-hai
President Barack Obama will sign an executive order setting the minimum wage for workers under new federal contracts at $10.10 an hour, the White House said Tuesday. The president will announce the increase during his State of the Union address.
The increase from a national minimum wage of $7.25 an hour will not affect existing federal contracts, only new ones. Moreover, contract renewals will not be affected unless other terms of the agreement change.
The order would be one of the biggest examples in the State of the Union of Obama’s vow to use presidential authority to push for policies by circumventing Congress. …
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And what do you base any of that on?
If it is symbolic, then just what is it symbolic of, is the question.
He has no such authority. Bad thing is, there is too much precedent.
The only thing the Constitution says is that the President has to “take care that the Laws be faithfully executed” (Article II, section 3, clause 5); that has been abused for a long time as an implication that a POTUS can make executive orders with the power of a royal decree.
Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution says that "The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." Part of the "executive power" is entering into contracts, and part of entering into contracts is negotiating/determining the terms of those contracts.
How, exactly, would you propose that the terms of Federal contracts be negotiated? Should every contract be subject to approval by Congress?
Absolutely. You trust an executive with that much power?
BTW, thanks for evading my question.
BTW, thanks for evading my question.
I didn't evade your question, I answered it - Presidential discretion concerning Federal contracting is a necessary component of the "executive authority." I recognize, as the Framers did, that in order for the President to fulfill his duty to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed" (and in order for him to serve effectively as Commander in Chief), he must have the practical ability to take the steps that are necessary in order to execute the laws. That includes entering into contracts on behalf of the Federal government.
Your solution (putting each and every Federal contract up to a vote) would effectively cripple the Federal government, and would make it impossible for the President to fulfill his duties under the Constitution.
Obviously, the size and scope of the Federal government is out of control. There are way too many contracts, and way too many goods and services contracted for. But that's a separate issue.
You evaded the question. This makes a second time.
Whenever someone talks of “crippling” the federal government by insuring the separation of powers (as the framers of the Constitution intended), that is an anti-conservative viewpoint. The federal government was never intended to grow like a cancer, and no, it’s not a separate issue when the POTUS makes a decree to further its growth (a process that you contradict yourself with by decrying the “crippling” of same).
To which my leftist friends reply, “Bush did the same thing with all his ‘signing statements’.
If Rand Paul or Ted Cruz ever becomes prez, I hope the first thing he does is rescind ALL GW’s and BO’s EO’s and SS’s. And vow to not use them any more.
I didn’t evade the question. I’ve answered it, twice. And I’m not talking about destroying the separation of powers. I just recognize that there are certain powers that are held by each branch, and that among the powers that are held by the Executive branch is the power to negotiate Federal contracts. Separation of powers doesn’t mean that the Executive branch has no power.
You and I agree that the Federal government is way too big, and that as a result, there are way too many Federal contracts. All I am saying is that, within the limited universe of Federal contracts (which, again, should be much, much MORE limited than it is now), the President has authority to negotiate the terms of said contracts (subject, of course, to restrictions imposed by law).
That’s three times you evaded the question. Where does the President have any such authority?
Where does the President have any such authority?
He doesn't, plain and simple, but guess how many people are affected by this illegal (see Art 1, Sec 7) executive order? My guestimate is about 12,000 employees, max.
5.56mm
This might effect a hundred thousand people at most.
Shouldn’t the millions of democrats who voted for democrats be pissed off that they are not getting a pay raise, while a few privileged “government contractors”, who already are hated because they took jobs from public employee unions, are now going to get a big increase paid for by the taxpayers?
A contractor bidding a new contract won’t fight this, because it is easy to come up with an “excuse” to reject a bid, so they won’t be able to prove it was because of their fight.
Easier to just bid higher for the contract, as everybody will be bidding higher so it will not effect their bid competitiveness.
Then, the government will have to spend more money on each contract, and will therefore sign fewer contracts, or will run out of money and ask congress to appropriate more money.
In most of these cases, congress has given the executive the power to set the terms of contracts, because you don’t normally worry about that level of detail. Congress would probably have to pass a law with the next minimum wage bill that prohibits the executive from requiring any contract to pay more than the minimum wage.
I doubt there is a law that says Obama CAN do it, but he might win the argument that the pay level is a valid part of “negotiating a contract”.
I doubt any union contracts are tied to the price a president sets for government contract labor.
If the actual minimum wage was increased, THAT would drive up the union costs, and is why they fight for it.
It is a power that is an implied part of executive authority; and in many laws, it is an explicit part of the law’s implementation clauses.
Nobody expect the House and Senate to vote on the contract for cleaning services for the NSA offices, for example. Someone working in the executive branch will be tasked with negotiating and signing that contract, and the contract may specify the pay of the workers, and now the contract will say that they expect the workers to be paid $10.10 an hour.
Unless the law authorizing a department explicitly says that no contract will REQUIRE any pay other than minimum wage, it probably is not illegal for the contract to call out a wage.
My guess is there is a law that requires that all executive branch contracts be negotiated in good faith, and to be as cheap as is possible for the government while meeting the requirements. But even that clause would not prevent this, the executive might argue that by paying a higher wage, the job will be done more efficiently, saving money.
There are a myriad of rules in federal contracting, and I doubt they all were specifically included in some legislature.
The sad truth is that no government can work if the executive is so untrustworthy and immoral that you would have to explicitly define everything they can and cannot do. Imagine a general who, before every troop movement, was required first to send a request back to the states so the congress could vote on whether they really want that particular platoon to go into a particular direction.
What stopped most presidents from doing this was collective outrage from the people, fueled by a press which was trying to be egalitarian, to keep government in check. There is no such press today, and frankly what the president could get away with is scary.
Although when a republican wins again, first I doubt the press will let them get away with anything, and second they are likely to be “good” and therefore not game the system or act improperly.
Implied where? You mean in the same way that “penumbras and emanations” are “implied” for Roe vs. Wade?
Breach of contract. Terminate for cause.
Implied by the definition of the term “executive”.
Just like you would expect a legislator to write a bill in a form that expresses a problem to be solved, and the specific steps expected to be taken to solve the problem.
Nowhere in the constitution does it mention committees. Are committees unconstitutional? Should the congress only conduct business with the entire body? conference committees are not mentioned either. The constitution simply says that each legislative body can set their own rules.
The executive is supposed to “execute the laws”. That requires the signing of contracts, and contracts have terms, and it is an executive function to shape the terms of contracts.
Is there an explicit law that provides cover for the president to set a specific minimum wage for a contract? I don’t think so, but I also don’t know of any law that says that no contract by the executive can set a wage other than the minimum wage.
I would note that there are many thousands of employment contracts put out for bid; in many cases, they are for specific services.
So I’ll leave you with one example. The government requires an IT team to fix a computer, and rather than paying a company to do it, they decide to contract directly for employment under government control.
So, they put out a bid for a service company to provide a team of three IT people — a lead, and two subordinates. And they specify that the lead will have a salary of $80,000, and the subordinates will be paid $60,000 each.
Do you think that this would be unconstitutional because the wage specified is not “minimum wage”?
Frankly, I think the real message we should be sending here, beyond the “this president is certainly stretching his duties and responsibilities to a ridiculous length for political purposes”, is that this move is meaningless, and beneath the office of the presidency to suggest that doing this will help anybody or accomplish anything.
is this to price out american based companies?
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