Sen. Ron Johnson Prepared to Sue ‘Lawless’ Obama Administration

Newsmax – by Jim Meyers and Kathleen Walter

Sen. Ron Johnson tells Newsmax he is prepared to sue the “lawless” Obama administration over its decision to grant members of Congress and their staff special treatment under Obamacare.

The Wisconsin Republican also warns that the real concern, above and beyond the dysfunctional Obamacare website, is the damage Obamacare will do the country’s healthcare system and personal freedoms.  

Johnson, a successful businessman, was elected in 2010, defeating three-term Democrat Russ Feingold. He is a member of the Budget, Foreign Relations, Commerce, and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committees.

In an exclusive interview Monday with Newsmax TV, Johnson was asked if he believes the White House claim that it can fix the problems plaguing the Obamacare website.

“I have no idea,” Johnson says. “They’ve only had 3½ years. Maybe another month would be the charm.

“Eventually the website will get fixed. It certainly should be. There are more than 5,000 websites currently on the Internet that handled more traffic than the Obamacare site in its first few weeks. So this is an entirely doable process to have a functioning website. It’s just that the federal government is not particularly effective or efficient in doing just about anything.

“The real harm of Obamacare once it becomes fully implemented is the damage it’ll cause to our healthcare system, to our federal budget, to our personal freedoms. So they may fix the website, but there’s no way they can fix the harm if Obamacare actually takes permanent root.”

The president now has arbitrarily delayed the individual-mandate deadline to March after previously delaying the employer mandate by a year, yet the law grants him no authority to change dates like this.

“I’m highly concerned,” Johnson tells Newsmax. “Across the board, in so many instances, this is pretty much a lawless administration, [considering] the unconstitutional recess appointments he made to the National Labor Relations Board and to the Consumer Financial Bureau.

“This president seems to have no restraint in terms of the Constitution or laws that even he enacts. So I’m highly concerned about that. It’s one of the reasons that I really do intend to pursue a lawsuit to overturn another unlawful ruling that grants members of Congress and their staff special treatment under Obamacare.

“The president had no legal authority to initiate that ruling. I’m hoping that a senator, like myself, as well as members of my staff have the legal standing to go to court to overturn that, let’s face it, lawless ruling.”

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire, is proposing what many Republicans have been pushing for — a one-year delay of the individual mandate.

At least 10 Democrats have signed on to her proposal. Asked if he believes the White House will be forced to delay the individual mandate by a year, Johnson responds: “It would totally depend on exactly how quickly they can get that website up and functioning.

“Americans are, by the way, losing their health coverage even though President Obama promised repeatedly that if you like your health plan, you will keep it, period.

“That is basically showing to be a broken promise for over a million Americans who already got those notices [of cancellation]. So it’s going to totally depend on when they get that website up and running as to whether an individual-mandate delay will basically be necessary because it simply is not going to be fair to hold Americans accountable to a penalty, or I guess it’s a tax, if they can’t even access or purchase healthcare through the exchanges.”

Johnson asserts that Obama ought to make a decision on whether or not Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will lose her job over the website fiasco.

“What I’m finding pretty frightening is when you start reading reports about how there was absolutely no central manager of this entire process,” he says. “It shows the lack of experience President Obama has in terms of being an executive, being able to manage anything.

“With something this significant, basically a government takeover of one-sixth of our economy, somebody had to be in charge. And it doesn’t look like anybody was in charge, which is why this rollout has been such a disaster. But it’s also why the entire Obamacare health law will be a disaster, because the two major promises [Obama] made for the healthcare law was, first and foremost, if you like your healthcare plan, you’ll be able to keep it, and also that the cost of a family plan would actually decline by $2,500 dollars. Neither of those promises has been kept.

“So one of two things happened: He was simply not being honest with the American public, or he in a frightening manner did not understand what was in his healthcare law or simply didn’t understand the consequences of it. Either way, it’s pretty disconcerting from a standpoint of the president of the United States.”

Johnson is co-sponsoring a bill in the Senate that would eliminate the threat of a government shutdown over the debt ceiling.

He explains: “I don’t believe we should be playing with our economy. So what I’ve been supporting is a couple of pieces of legislation, one in the Senate sponsored by Rob Portman, I’m a co-sponsor of that, and one in the House. End the Government Shutdown Act is what they call it. I call it the No More Government Shutdowns Ever Act.

“What it basically does is, if you don’t come up with prioritized appropriation bills, you continue to keep the government open. We’ll fund it at the current levels. If after 120 days or 90 days, depending on the bill, you can’t come up with a prioritized spending bill, we’ll just drop the spending by one percent. Another 60 days goes by without a spending bill, we’ll drop another one percent. That’s the kind of blunt control that we need to impose on this very dysfunctional federal government.

“In terms of increasing the debt ceiling, we better, this next time, get some additional fiscal discipline, some type of control, some kind of reform to the entitlement programs that simply aren’t going to be around for the future generations if we don’t start reforming these programs.”

Johnson also says Obama’s “detachment” from day-to-day management operations is “frightening.”

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