we are joined by simon lazarus, who served on the white house domestic policy staff for president jimmy carter with that dave, president obama says he can move the ball forward with executive actions and orders. should he? >> no, he should not, and this is independent of whatever you are speaking about the policy merits of the specific proposals. let me be clear. that there are a number of things the president can do utilizing his own inherent constitutional authority, particularly the case in foreign affairs and national security. he can do some things on his own in domestic policy. one thing he cannot do, he cannot fundamentally rewrite for suspend dull enacted statutes. that vital his constitutional duty to execute the laws fatefully, that destroys separation of powers by emasculating congress, but giving the president too much power. this president has been doing it with unprecedented frequency and also quite brazenly about it, so that is a very, very unfortunate development, even if you like the particular policy innovations he has in mind. by the way, i don't want to get into poli

lazarus is this president has not been subtle. this president, for example, wanted to get the dream act through, which would have essentially immunized from deportation, which is required to be done under immigration actualization act. whether you think it's a good idea or bad for a particular category of young immigrants who have not committed any crime since arriving in is country. he could not get the dream act from congress. he got up and delivered a speech where he said, i am going to do this by executive order. whatever you think about this policy innovation, it is not cricket for the president to basically say, i am not going to apply immigrationnalization act in regard to a particular category of illegal aliens. now, he could have shift his enforcement resources around to pay less attention to this and pay more attention to other types of illegal aliens but he couldn't of he could not ex elt them in wholesale fashion. as an example, part of the enforcement discretion, after 9-11, we will concentrate on terrorism. i am not

. >> david lazarus, a consumer columnist at the "l.a. times," david, why is this overdraft fee hitting so many checking account consumers? >> well, let's face it, we're not the best managers of our money. that's our birth right of americans to throw our money around willy-nilly. there are a few things to keep in mind when we look at overdraft fees. the owe new ownus is on us to kk of our money. unless you have a burning jones to go out and support the ban banking industry with these billions of dollars of fees racking up, do something about it, and there are tools at your disposal that will help you not get caught in the overdraft fee vortex. >> what are some of those tools? >> well, the first thing as we heard, opt out from overdraft protection. since 2010 federal law has given you the power and the right to step away from that, and it's just smart. if you don't have the money to cover a transaction, this will just cut off the transaction. now there is a couple of things. paper check don't apply to this, and recurring payments don't app