Opt-outs

President Obama is yet again by-passing the rule of law and violating the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment of the Constitution by offering states the opportunity to exempt themselves from certain provisions of the No Child Left Behind law signed by President Bush. He cites the numerous states failing to live up to the provisions of NCLB and a divided Congress unable to reform the law among the reasons to justifiably grant waivers to those states willing to embrace his reforms presumably found in his Race to the Top program.

A course of action respecting the entire Constitution is to repeal NCLB and allow the states to implement their own educational reforms. A course of action respecting at least Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution is to ask Congress to repeal NCLB and propose to Congress for their consideration a new law to replace NCLB. If NCLB is so burdensome, it should be easy to repeal. However, his course of action violates the rule of law and the concept of equal protection under the law.

Suppose in a few years the quality of health care and the timing of health care delivery was much worse and the cost of health care and health insurance were much higher than today. States are already cutting their budgets, a significant portion of which is Medicaid, and Obamacare essentially shifts more people into Medicaid. What would stop the next President from granting waivers not only to well-connected, politically-favorable businesses and unions, such as President Obama has done for more than 1000, but also to the states as GOP Presidential-candidate Romney has proposed in a number of debates? It would be no less of a violation of the rule of law and the equal protection clause.

Who believes that a state politically unfriendly to President Obama, such as Texas, or a state politically unfriendly to a President Perry, such as Illinois, requesting a waiver from any burdensome law or regulation would receive one? Burdensome, unconstitutional laws lead to the idea and legitimacy of waivers which lead to rewarding or punishing political friends or enemies, respectively.

I oppose unconstitutional laws such as NCLB and Obamacare as well as any waivers pertaining to them. The federal government was established by the states and the people and is their servant. It is a shame that those same states and people must now beg for mercy from that same servant which has now become their master.