But what’s especially disturbing about the new delay is the accompanying threat to businesses that might now try to make arbitrary staffing changes to get below 100 employees and fit the in-between category created by the arbitrary rule-change. Employers will have to sign “self-attestations” that they did not act under the perverse incentives that Obama’s new directive has created.

In practice, this directive probably doesn’t amount to much. If your business hasn’t already downsized, switched to part-time hires, or offered insurance in order to comply with Obamacare’s requirements, it hardly seems worth it to fire a few people merely in order to avoid fines for a single year. But in principle, it’s an outrage.

Employers generally get to decide, within the broad latitude of the law, how to run their businesses. The IRS has never had the power to demand a sworn explanation for decisions about manpower or staffing levels.

This arbitrary expansion of IRS power creates an ugly precedent. There exists no authority for it anywhere in Obamacare. Congress has never granted such authority. But then, Congress also didn’t create authority for the arbitrary Obamacare deadline-change that supposedly justifies it.