Jobs Come from Executive Orders? Why Didn't You Say So?

Since he first took office in 2009, President Barack Obama has consistently invited comparisons between his vision for America and the world of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. In particular, the president has frequently attracted references to Directive 10-289, a government edict in the novel which forbids hiring and firing, mandates production, and seizes patents.

The explicit realization of that directive approaches with each new abuse and usurpation committed by the administration. Now, after the president brazenly declared his intention to defy the rule of law and craft legislation from the Oval Office via executive order, Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee conspires with fellow members of a “Full Employment Caucus” to tee up the tyranny. This from the Washington Times:

She said at a recent press conference reported by The Daily Mail that the caucus members will work hard to “give President Obama a number of executive orders that he can sign with pride and strength. In fact, I think that should be our number one agenda. Let’s write up these executive orders – draft them, of course – and ask the president to stand with us on full employment.”

It’s about time. The only real question is why it has taken so long for the president to come to our aid with the stoke of his magic pen.

That might have been sarcasm, which might have been funny were its object not so deadly serious. We have a sitting president and a caucus of congresspeople who believe jobs may be royally decreed.

True, this does not represent an ideological shift from the past. The Left has always asserted that government can create jobs. However, this new tact of stripping the process down to an executive order leaves the folly more naked than before.

Indeed, if jobs come from executive orders, what have we been waiting for? How bad was the president going to let things get before rescuing the economy with a piece of paper?

After Sheila Jackson Lee secures full employment, perhaps she can ask the Wizard for a brain.