President Barack Obama’s continued pursuit of executive amnesty is the "height of arrogance," according to Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican who is the former chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security. King appeared Monday on "America’s Forum" on
Newsmax TV.
"The fact is he's not the one who decides what the law is going to be," King said. "It's a combination of the Congress passing the law and the president signing it. If he doesn't want to sign it, then he vetoes and we start over again. He doesn't have the right to say he's going to issue an executive decree unless we pass a law that he wants. This is really colossal arrogance on his part and there's absolutely no purpose in it.
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"If he thinks he has this power, he could have done it any time in the last six years. If he thinks he has this power he can wait until the next Congress, set a deadline of June 30. Again I don't think he has the power, but if he believes he has it, and there's a new Congress coming in and sit down with Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, see if they can arrive at an agreement."
The election was a defeat of Obama’s policies, according to King, and he's now "usurping his power" to
grant his amnesty.
Using the office of the presidency to legalize millions of undocumented immigrants is Obama’s "unilateral declaration of policy and giving up the force of law" and is not comparable to any other presidential executive orders and will "precipitate a crisis which we don’t need," according to King.
"There's a real opportunity for John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, they want to show how government can work, they want to lay out a Republican agenda, find the president as is, then let's go at it next year," King said. "Let's have an honest, open debate and let's do it through the normal legislative process."
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The midterm elections amounted to a referendum on the president’s "lack of leadership and the fact that he's trying to impose a liberal, progressive program on a country which overwhelming rejected that in the last election," according to King.
The new Republican-controlled
Congress must find a way to pressure the president by manifesting the power of the purse.
"What we'll have to do though is find a way to in effect punish the president to find some program that he wants, some action that he wants taken and stop that," King said. "A shutdown will play into his hand right now. It really doesn't matter who calls the shutdown because Republicans will be blamed for it. We have to find a way, though, to isolate the president and find either some program or appointment that he needs and block that and get back at him on this. Not just for spiteful reasons, but to get the balance of power back. Congress is going to have to use its power."