Can Presidents now cancel taxes?

In regards to the President postponing enforcement of the employer mandate, if this is allowed to happen, doesn’t it mean that a future GOP President could suspend enforcement of any tax or regulation he doesn’t like?

I realize that for as long as this country has existed, Presidents have had discretion in how to enforce laws and how to prioritize that enforcement. And sometimes they even make enforcement purposely lax, as Republicans have often done with environmental regulations. But I’ve never seen a President just unilaterally say he won’t enforce laws. This President has done that twice: with the DREAMERs and with the employer mandate.

So what I’d like to have explained to me is what now prevents a Republican President from just cutting taxes by executive order? Just say, we won’t enforce the tax laws against anyone who pays at least 15% of their income in taxes. Voila! Instant low flat tax!

You can do anything you want as long as nobody complains.

In this case, it’s going to be Republicans complaining that the President is reducing taxes on businesses. I think they’re right, it’s ridiculous to be thinking about reducing taxes on businesses. The Republicans should start up a very public effort to ensure that these businesses do not get any sort of break on their tax burden.

How about the DREAMERs then? The ICE union actually is suing, saying the President is illegally preventing them from enforcing the law.

There’s a suit, it will go to court, the court will rule, and I expect the President to abide by that ruling.

Or, the Legislature can pass a law that defunds or overrules his executive order. Of course, we have a do nothing Legislature that can’t manage to pass gas, so good luck with that.

I get that, but my question is, what precedent is likely to be set. If the court rules against the administration, then the question is settled. However, if the courts rule for the administration, for any reason, then doesn’t that expand Presidential power to simply not enforce laws the President disagrees with?

In regards to the health care law, okay, I get it, no one complains, so it slides.

Many laws, especially very complex ones that require the Federal bureaucracy to have latitude to decide how to enforce and administer them, have some wiggle room. Don’t know if the Affordable Care Act specifically gives the President discretion to delay implementation of some of its terms, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

Here’s Brookings’ take on it: Implementing the Affordable Care Act: Why Is This So Complex?
And here’s the White House’s: We’re Listening to Businesses about the Health Care Law | whitehouse.gov

I haven’t heard anyone suggest that the President is actually exceeding his authority in postponing the implementation of this particular part of the ACA.

Yeah, forgive me if I’m misremembering, but I think Romney promised that if he was elected, he would give waivers to every state to prevent implementation of the ACA. And that would have been legal.

Yes, it would: How Romney's waivers would work - POLITICO

Hah! The courts would likely not take the case, and if they did, they would almost certainly rule narrowly, and that would only "settle’ the specific issue at hand. Sure, they could theoretically settle it, but we know they wouldn’t, in practice.

But that’s just the thing, anything less than a full smackdown of the administration implies that they can simply refuse to enforce laws passed by Congress.

On the specific issue of the employer mandate, if it can be suspended for one year, that means a Republican President can suspend it for his entire term.

This is just the break…

Oh to hell with it.

Prosecutorial discretion is an inherent power of the Executive under Article II. I’m not sure that that proposition has ever been tested in a case where the President decided not to enforce a law against anyone at all, but in general a court would be very reluctant to find that a decision not to enforce a law was itself illegal.

Ultimately, any constraint would likely have to come from the political arena rather than the courts.

This surprises you? A major-party candidate in the previous Presidential election promised to do exactly that. I believe you even supported him.

Problem is, teh Constitution also requires the President to faithfully execute the laws. Prosecutorial discretion primarily derives from limitations on resources. In the case of the DREAMERs, it’s disagreement with current law. The President doesn’t like the law, so he won’t enforce it. That’s a very consequential precedent that any President after him can use in interesting ways, if it’s upheld.

In the case of the employer mandate, the administration has made a decision that its too disruptive to implement it right now, despite the fact that the law doesn’t give him wiggle room to delay it. The law goes into effect when it goes into effect. So again, this is not typical prosecutorial discretion, it’s the administration deciding that the law is no good right now, maybe next year. a Republican President can regard any tax increase as destructive and thus delay it. A good example would be an expiring tax cut. Now tax cuts don’t have to expire at all if the President deems their expiration to be disruptive.

Because you always wake up just when your dream gets to the good part?

More cogently, are you sure that your interpretation of the administration’s action is correct? They have delayed implementation of the employer’s mandate, however, it was the * individual mandate* that was ruled to be, well, tax-like, by the Supreme Court. So in order for your extremely questionable hypothesis to be valid, you’d first have to show that the employer mandate is also a tax and not a penalty.

It is a valid legal question as to whether the administration can delay implementation of a law passed by Congress due to the complexity of that implementation, but to go from that issue to “Oh my gosh, the President can do whatever he wants!” is quite a leap.

I don’t understand the concern. Presidents have always done this. Here are a few recent examples:

Bush Administration May Again Postpone Health Care Privacy Regulations

President Clinton’s decision to postpone implementation of Helms-Burton law avoids confrontation with allies

Postponement of implementation of NAFTA provision pleases labor but outrages trucking industry

The Economy in the Reagan Years: The Economic Consequences of the Reagan Years

Not whatever he wants, but if pleading “it’s too hard” is reason enough to not faithfully execute the law, then that can apply to a whole host of things Republicans don’t like.

Republicans in the past had to go through the motions of trying to appear to enforce environmental law, now it would seem they don’t have to bother. Too disruptive to business, too complex to implement. This will be especially true of any carbon regulation measures, all of the proposed examples being as complex as ACA implementation if not more so.

I’m not saying he can do ANYTHING he wants, just that these examples go way beyond prosecutorial discretion and open up brand new ways for Presidents to not enforce the law.

Davidw, your examples look like they probably were already allowed by existing law. Whereas the health care law has a hard deadline.

With pure regulations, when an administration issues them, it has discretion when to implement them. The employer mandate is not just a regulation. It’s a law, with a deadline. According to this theory, ANY part of the ACA can be delayed indefinitely. True or false? And if false, what parts can’t be postponed?

Furthermore, let’s look at the doc fix. Congress normally passes laws delaying the cut in Medicare payments to doctors required by law. According to the ACA precedent, isn’t this now unnecessary? Is there any reason Obama can’t just unilaterally keep Medicare payment rates the same?

I don’t think it matters in this case whether it is a tax or a penalty. The law states that the employer mandate shall begin in Jan. 2014. There is no wiggle room there. Similarly, the federal subsidies for qualified plans are only supposed to be for state-run exchanges as per the law. The IRS created a rule to extend these to plans on the federal exchange as well. This may be the right thing to do but it is in direct opposition to the wording of the law. I think there is a lawsuit concerning this.

The problem is that the Legislative branch is allowing the Executive to usurp power. Shortsighted people see it as a victory for their “side” but both sides should be equally afraid of the long-term consequences.

It only matters in the context of Adaher’s rather inflammatory title for this thread and hyperbolic OP.