Executive Orders by President/Orders per year

This post came from this five thirty-eight article



President Obama is due to announce an executive action Thursday, one that will change the legal status of millions of immigrants and is likely to be remembered as a major effort to change the country’s immigration system. The action would reportedly allow up to 4 million undocumented immigrants legal work status, and an additional 1 million protection from deportation. It would be one of the most wide-reaching executive actions in history.

That has made Republicans furious. The New York Times has a good roundup of the reaction, including quotes from Sens. John Cornyn (“I believe his unilateral action, which is unconstitutional and illegal, will deeply harm our prospects for immigration reform”) and Tom Coburn (“The country’s going to go nuts, because they’re going to see it as a move outside the authority of the president, and it’s going to be a very serious situation”). The spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner has called the president “Emperor Obama,” implying that the executive action is an unlawful decree, and Sen. Ted Cruz said on Fox News that “the president is behaving in an unprecedented way.”

If it’s unprecedented, it’s because of the scope of the executive action, not the executive action itself. For decades, executive orders have been a fairly common tool for U.S. presidents. We looked at data from the American Presidency Project and found that the use of executive orders peaked in the era of the New Deal (FDR set the record) and has been on the decline since. In the past 100 years, Democrats have used them more than Republicans. Here’s every president’s tally per year that he served in office.

Yes, it's constructive to remember the scope of the executive action - it's implications and costs - rather than just how many a President has signed.

Over reach can be worse than over use.

Nochain, since you bring it up, are there any statistics related to implications and costs?

nochain wrote:

Yes, it's constructive to remember the scope of the executive action - it's implications and costs - rather than just how many a President has signed.

Over reach can be worse than over use.

For example....the cost of this amnesty executive order?...It's humorous when the official word comes that the costs will be picked up by the Fed Govt and not the states... Don't taxes come from the same sources or is there a Federal Money Tree?...

Yeah, what's the Federal Government's cash cow? Oh...us.

Let the government pay for it. People just do not get it.

Tax the corporations. Again, people do not get it.

It's coming out of my pocket and your pocket.

SheWrites wrote:

Yeah, what's the Federal Government's cash cow?  Oh...us.

Let the government pay for it.  People just do not get it.

Tax the corporations.  Again, people do not get it.

It's coming out of my pocket and your pocket.  

And the point that this increase is being done without the involvement of the Congress and directly affects the budget/spending is a huge concern...

In the years since President Obama has been in office we have not had a budget and have worked off of CRs. He appears to walk a line just to the outside of the established while remaining within the law. Isn't that what most lawyers do? And Washington is full of lawyers. We need business minds along side lawyers and scientific minds to do the work that needs to be done in government.

Recently saw a few minutes of the movie "Dave" (Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver) where common sense rules over the way it's always been done. Of course it's fiction but one can dream. Priceless scene (again fiction) of the way they trim the budget.

SheWrites wrote:

In the years since President Obama has been in office we have not had a budget and have worked off of CRs.  He appears to walk a line just to the outside of the established while remaining within the law.  Isn't that what most lawyers do?  And Washington is full of lawyers.  We need business minds along side lawyers and scientific minds to do the work that needs to be done in government.

Recently saw a few minutes of the movie "Dave" (Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver) where common sense rules over the way it's always been done. Of course it's fiction but one can dream.  Priceless scene (again fiction) of the way they trim the budget.

Agree about the business minds comment....and sadly under this administration they have been treated an enemy....

I don't care if a person's economic leaning is trickle down or Keynesian - if the money is not there you cannot keep spending! Or printing! Wall Street is propped up by the printing press...another story for another day, maybe.

However, we have set in place things that have to be fed money.  But at some point the frivolous things have to go.

I'm afraid we roll from one crisis to the next and never go back to foundations that have cracked and fix them. We shore up with bandaids. And those bandaids are costly from the ER rather than Walmart.

Dave is a great movie. I like the way he "stuck it" to the main conspirator.

Gee whiz, Obama has issued less per year than Bush and Many less per year than Ronald Reagan.

You won't get that figure from Fox news.
Yes, Dave is a great movie.