By Robert Reich
President-elect Donald Trump is accusing President Obama of
putting up “roadblocks” to a smooth
transition.
In reality, I think President Obama has been too cooperative
with Trump.
In the waning days of his administration, I’d recommend Obama
take the following last stands:
1. Name Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.
Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution gives the President power to fill any
vacancy during the recess of the Senate. The Supreme Court is no
exception: Justice William Brennan began his Court tenure with a recess
appointment in 1956.
Any appointments made this way expire at the end of the
next Senate session. So if Obama appointed Garland on January 3, the
appointment would last until December 2017, the end of the first session of the
115th Congress.
2. Use his pardoning authority to forgive “Dreamers.”
With a flick of his pen, Obama could forgive the past and future civil
immigration offenses of the nearly 750,000 young people granted legal status
under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Without an
immigration offense on their records, they could more easily apply for legal
status.
4. Protect the civil service from the Trump transition.
Instruct all cabinet departments and agencies not to respond to any Trump transition
team inquiry that might intimidate any individual members of the civil service.
5. Issue an executive order protecting the independence
of all government fact-finding agencies:
Included would be the Bureau of
Labor Statistics, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Bureau of Justice
Statistics, National Center for Education Statistics, National Center for
Health Statistics, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, U.S.
Census Bureau, U.S. Energy Information. (Trump could repeal the order, but that
would be politically costly.)
6. Issue an executive order protecting the independence
of all Inspectors General in every cabinet department and agency.
(Ditto.)
7. Issue a report on possible tax and benefit cuts,
showing which state’s citizens will most benefit from tax cuts going to the
richest Americans and largest corporations (overwhelmingly the citizens of blue
states), and which will lose the most from cuts in Medicaid and repeal of
Obamacare (overwhelmingly red states), along with estimates of such gains.
ROBERT B. REICH is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at
the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center
for Developing Economies. He served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton
administration, for which Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective
cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written fourteen books,
including the best sellers "Aftershock", "The Work of
Nations," and "Beyond Outrage," and, his most recent,
"Saving Capitalism." He is also a founding editor of the American
Prospect magazine, chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentary,
INEQUALITY FOR ALL.