America, now is not the time for small plans.”   
   As the crowd of 84,000 supporters packed into Denver’s Invesco Field rose to their feet in applause, President Barack Obama maintained that small plans had no place in his White House. But that was August 2008, and since then change has come to America. Part of that change is that apparently now is time for small plans.
     Obama made clear in his State of the Union address that he will do the things Congress won’t. Where they refuse to act, he will use his executive powers to fill the void. But while this talk might sound like leadership, it opts for a small plan in lieu of a bigger, more difficult idea. Executive actions can be powerful, but cannot compare to actions taken by Congress.
   First, what are executive orders? While there is no specific mention of executive orders in the Constitution, they have become accepted as an assumed power of the president, allowing him to provide guidance to the executive branch agencies and officers. But these orders have many limits. The president cannot issue executive order that contradicts current law, nor can it be used as a tool to create law.
   President Obama recognized the limits of executive orders during the 2012 election when he said, “The idea of doing things on my own is very tempting, I promise you, not just on immigration reform. But that’s not how our system works. That’s not how our democracy functions.”
  Even showing an understanding as to the limits of executive orders hasn’t stopped Obama’s administration from imposing new regulations on the Internet, energy production and religious institutions. Executive orders have granted amnesty to certain categories of illegal immigrants and carved out exceptions and delays in the healthcare law for certain groups.
   Obama has shown a readiness to circumvent congressional power in favor of executive decision making. And according to Matthew Spalding, director of the B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies, this potentially violates the Constitution’s separation of powers.
    “This violates the spirit — and potentially the letter — of the Constitution’s separation of the legislative and executive powers of Congress and the president,” Spalding said.
  Congressman Eric Cantor released a report investigating Obama’s executive actions and found that “…in some instances, President Obama attempted to garner legislative authority, failed and then acted unilaterally in defiance. In other instances, the president never even sought to find consensus and instead, ignored Congress and its authority from the outset. In speeches, the President has proudly acknowledged that he has acted without Congress, contending that he has no other alternative.”
  If Congress doesn’t do what Obama wants, he ignores it and does it anyway. He is the kid that loses at Monopoly, so he decides to flip the board.
   These unilateral moves are not only arguably unconstitutional, but they are trivial in comparison to the goals Obama has laid out in past years during his candidacy and presidency.
   So if this is small, what does big look like? Big plans look like Ronald Reagan working with a Democratic-controlled Congress to save Social Security, address immigration and accomplish real things. Big plans look like Bill Clinton working with a Congress that impeached him to accomplish welfare reform, a tax cut and four balanced budgets. Big plans are difficult to accomplish, but the ends justify the means. Big plans require putting your neck on the line. Big plans require real compromise — something to which President Obama gives little more than lip service.
   The president’s pen is a powerful tool, but it can’t make edits to the Constitution. He should venture for real compromise on real issues and focus on efforts to put that pen to work signing real legislation.