Obama Raises Minimum Wage Paid Under Federal Contracts By Executive Order

Remember when the left spent 8 years complaining about "unitary executive" (a term almost none of them understood) and signing statements?

Good times, good times.

President Obama, in the first of potentially many executive actions tied to his State of the Union address, will unilaterally increase the minimum wage for workers under new federal contracts to $10.10 an hour, from $7.25, in an effort to build momentum for a minimum wage hike for all Americans.

The executive order, which had been pushed by progressive Democratic lawmakers, applies to all contractors performing services for the federal government and would affect more than 2 million employees, according to an administration official.

Is it constitutional? What difference at this point does it make?

But don't worry, John Boehner is on the case.

The House GOP "will continue to look closely at whether the president is faithfully executing laws, as he took an oath to do,” Boehner told reporters after a meeting of the Republican conference. “We’re going to watch very closely, because there’s a Constitution that we all take an oath to, including him, and following the Constitution is the basis for House Republicans.”

Asked what the House would do if lawmakers determined Obama skirted the Constitution, Boehner said only, “There are options that are available to us.” Republicans, he said, would discuss them at their annual retreat, which begins Wednesday in Cambridge, Md.

Apparently those options include passing an amnesty bill that would give Obama a desperately needed achievement going into the midterms.

Someone sent in an "Ask the blog" question about why we don't use the flaming skull much anymore. I don't remember if we answered it during the podcast or not but we did talk about it. Basically while there's so many things coming from this White House that things which would have been shocking to the mind a few years ago are now routine. Combine that with a lack of any interest in responding by Republicans and people are just becoming numb to the lawlessness of this administration. Contra that idiot George Lucas, this is actually how democracy (or in this case a constitutional republic) dies.

posted by DrewM. at 12:11 PM

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