I've been discussing politics a long time and it really is amazing how consistently Obama supporters use the exact same arguments Bush supporters used. Quoting the Constitution doesn't impress me; I know the whole document and I know the way Washington works.
Anybody can write a bill or push for legislation. Even you or I can write a law, bring it to a member of Congress and if we can talk them into it, if they want to, they can pass it. Anybody can write a law and fight for it -- and that certainly includes the President. Many Presidents, including Democrats FDR and Clinton, brought legislation to Congress and fought to pass it.
A Democratic President elected with popular support and a mandate, with his party in overwhelming majority in Congress, can reasonably be expected to set the agenda and fight to fulfill the promises he made to the people who elected him.
Anyone can write a bill, but only a member of Congress can introduce it. Even if it's introduce, there's absolutely no guarantee the necessary committee chairs will take up the issue, or the speaker of the house will either. As you said,
anyone can write a bill. That ought to give you a hint as to how much agenda-setting power the act of writing a bill and handing it to a member of Congress gives a person. There isn't a political scientist in the country that would disagree with the statement that Congress sets the agenda while simultaneously agreeing with the statement that the president sets the agenda.
You're spinning excuses for Obama, which reveals where you're really coming from.
I already posted a current poll that indicates Americans overwhelmingly want immigration legislation passed now. Obama is President now, Arizona just passed a law he criticized, he has the power to push for immigration legislation and the American people want it. The excuses you come up with to protect and defend Obama are what will keep our nation on a downward slide.
How people are feeling in April/May 2010 has no effect on his electoral mandate, as he was elected Nov 2008. It's not spin, it's the meaning of mandate in this context.
President Obama
is pushing for immigration reform now, as a result of the Arizona law he criticized. And the American people want immigration reform, but they are deeply divided about what reform, as your own link showed. How many would rather nothing be done than whatever reform the Dems would likely instate? A significant portion of them.
They could get it done this session but they won't.
But your acceptance of, in fact you even seem to be impressed that "they've been honest with us about," not getting it done this session is, again, letting our elected officials get away with failing when we have every right to expect an overwhelming Dem majority working with a Dem WH to write and pass legislation the American people overwhelmingly want.
I'm always pleasantly surprised when politicians are honest up-front. Don't think I'm alone there, either.
They don't have infinite amounts of time. Even supposing this were a (relatively) straightforward issue they might not be able to get to it. As it isn't simple by any definition, it'll take time. Remember the (apparently useless) health care bill? Over 2000 pages. The financial reform bill is well over a thousand pages. Immigration was on the back burner until this Arizona law (rightly so too, as most Americans didn't care until this law). Even writing the bill would take awhile, never mind fighting over which path to choose and amendments and fighting over language and a guaranteed filibuster from the GOP if they don't like it (which they can sustain now with Brown and which can't be avoided with reconciliation). All of this can take a very long time. Plus it's an election year, so representatives are going to be less likely to compromise.
What legislation is it that America overwhelmingly wants? A solid majority of America thought the health care bill did too much, and you're complaining it didn't do enough. America wants all the issues handled, yes, but there is very little that America overwhelmingly wants when it comes to the nuts and bolts of legislation.
He had trouble with liberals as well as with blue dogs because he broke almost every promise he made about health care reform. The first thing he did was make a deal with Pharma and Insurance. Then he added mandated coverage (which he made a big point during the campaign of insisting was wrong and he wouldn't do) and removed the public option that was in all the Dems campaign plans; during the campaign he promised to allow cheaper drugs to be re-imported into the US but all drug cost control for customers are absent from his health care bill (at the end Axelrod promised ObamaCo would push for re-importation after the bill was law - gee I wonder if that'll happen). Also at the eleventh hour, in the final version the WH sent over to Congress, Obama removed the repeal of the health care insurance industry's exemption from antitrust laws -- another major element of reform Dems have been fighting for for years. The list goes on and on. The bill is crap and there is no evidence at all that a true health care reform bill, containing the elements our Dem candidates ran on and polls showed Americans wanted, couldn't have been passed in the first six months of Obama's administration.
It contains all the provisions Americans have clearly shown through polls they want. And then some. The anti-trust exemption bill was passed by the House in February (a month before the health care reform bill was passed, and done so they could show liberal critics such as yourself they were actually doing something), and is sitting in committee in the Senate. President Obama has expressed support for it and will sign it if the Senate ever gets it to him. That is a perfect illustration of the complexity of the legislative process, and how you can't blame the president for everything.
Whatever trouble he had with liberals, the health care bill that came to him from Congress didn't lose their votes, whereas had it been more to the left he'd have lost the Blue Dogs. Easy calculation there.
The evidence it couldn't've is dependent on how hard of evidence you're looking for. The fact that it didn't happen is a rather good argument though. You're completely working with a hypothetical, based on a distorted concept of what the people wanted, and with the assumption they didn't work enough on it (most Americans would agree President Obama and Speaker Pelosi's priorities were too health care focused, so you find yourself again in the minority here). The public option could never have passed the senate, it'd've been filibustered. Or do you have some solution for that?
There's also a strong case to be made that health care reform of any kind would not have passed if President Obama hadn't have been able to keep the big corporations on the ship for so long. They have a lot of resources at their disposal.
Exactly. You don't like the bill but you defend Obama.
I couldn't have illustrated it better myself.
Through your far left lens you fail to see why I pointed that out. I have no love for President Obama's accomplishments, especially health care. Yet I'm still defending him. The obvious conclusion to draw would be that I think he's being unfairly attacked. I don't know what you think that proves, or illustrates, but I'd appreciate being enlightened.
He can send legislation to Congress, as FDR did immediately after taking office, placing substantive regulations and requirements on Wall Street. And he should have done that immediately after taking office while the bailout money had Wall Street much more vulnerable to Washington's dictates. But it's sixteen months later, Wall Street is back to its old tricks and its money is pouring into Washington, and Obama still hasn't done it.
But I note your deflection to the ObamaNation line of implying that expecting the President to do his job is expecting magic.
The "deflection" is because that's what you seem to be expecting. Has he done even three things you like? Have even three things met your standards?
The financial regulation bill was being crafted in the senate. It's hitting the floor today for amendments and when that process is finished it will be voted on. There will be a financial regulation bill out of the Senate at latest sometime in June. President Obama's not an expert on matters financial/economic anyway, even if he wanted to craft the bill himself he wouldn't be able to. He has no choice on this one but to defer to Congress.
The system FDR was regulating was A) not nearly as complicated and B) not nearly as entrenched and powerful a lobby with so much money at its disposal. In fact, in FDR's time it had essentially no money at its disposal.
He could have started by pushing through health care reform without first making backroom deals with for-profit lobbyists.
Addressed their power earlier. Considering how many times they've shut down health care reform or substantially weakened it, I'd think you'd be well aware of their power.
As I said at the time, his stimulus bill was bloated with pork and impotent on real job creation. He spent us nearly a trillion more into debt and unemployment has remained essentially the same. My God, it's amazing how much failure Obama can rack up and still be defended. We are so screwed.
Someday Americans will understand the government has a limited ability to fix the economy and create jobs, even if they made no mistakes. The economy collapsed because that's what happens when your economic system is based on capitalism, it has booms and busts. It wasn't President Bush's fault. Likewise, the Congress and President Obama can try to fix the economy, but their effects will be limited. Economists widely agree the stimulus stemmed the tide. Unemployment numbers are misleading because right now we actually are seeing employment go up. Unfortunately (for statistics) that also means that many who had given up on the idea of a job are now back in the employment pool, thus keeping the numbers looking steady.
Nobody has suggested he should do it all. The criticism is that he's neglected important legislation like financial industry reform, ruined legislation like health care reform, and failed to push for legislation like repealing DADT that might be impossible after November when Republicans are expected to regain a lot of seats and maybe even a majority.
Windows of opportunity like Obama was handed in January 2009 are rare and remain open briefly. He has failed to utilize it to our advantage.
There are good and sufficient reasons for going slow on DADT, so I'm happy he's going at all. Health care reform was as liberal as he was going to get away with, still too much so for my liking. Financial regulation's on the floor of the Senate today, and I addressed that above.
President Obama had an electoral mandate (not a very big one, but one nevertheless), overwhelming majorities in both houses, and a whole mess of issues among them two wars and the worst recession since FDR. Do I wish he had accomplished some things during his honeymoon period? Absolutely (energy policy comes to mind as an example). Has he done a lot? No, he's done a fairly normal amount, though health care was a big deal that all but takes care of the coverage issue.
American citizens expecting our President to do as he said after we gave him the tools to do it is not expecting way too much of him.
It's really telling, though, that Obama loyalists are convinced that that's the case even when it's to their own disadvantage.
The American people elected President Obama because he was emphatically not President Bush. Only far left liberals think President Obama hasn't done quite a bit (though the GOP will tell you he's done essentially nothing good).
Health care reform was not about insuring everybody, it was about universal coverage and establishing a structure that brought costs under control. Obama's health care legislation is little more than status quo with tax payers footing a higher bill and Pharma and Insurance raking in bigger profits. And health care costs will continue to rise.
Anyone who thinks true overhaul can happen doesn't understand how complex health care is. It was so popular to say that health care is one sixth of the economy during the debate over the bill, but people don't seem to get what that means. This economy is larger than 2,3,4 combined. One sixth of the US economy is larger than that vast majority of countries' entire economies. To think that with a single bill you could overhaul an industry that large is simply unrealistic and will never happen. It was fearmongering on the part of the GOP to claim it was a government takeover and ridiculous on the part of the left to claim comprehensive overhaul was even possible with one bill.
God, what a pathetic tumble of "expected to be"s and "will be done"s that there's less and less reason to believe.
Either you have absolutely no understanding of the political system in this country and how long it takes to do anything, or you'd like for President Obama and the Democrats to do something drastic like abolish the filibuster. Pulling out of a war takes time too, unless you want American soldiers to die in (relatively) large numbers on our way out the door.
Nobody said he should have fixed everything in 15 minutes.
More ObamaNation nonsense to distract from what was reasonably expected and how Obama is failing.
But you're right it hasn't been that long, not even a year and a half into his first term. The predictions I made as long ago as the primaries are already proving accurate, and I predict it will get worse with more excuses and scapegoats and bogus defenses that conjure phantom expectations of wizardry. Taking into account the needs we had when Obama ran in 2008, and that we have today, and the incredibly powerful tools Obama was given, he has been and will continue to be a failure by any genuine progressive or liberal measure. And his defenders are as much to blame as he is for the results.
He's a
pragmatic progressive. That's how he won the independent vote (that and not being linked to President Bush). No, he hasn't been pushing an extremely progressive agenda. And throughout the campaign he said that while that was his goal he puts a lot of stock in working with the other side of the aisle. The country got what it purchased.
I wasn't ridiculing you though. I even opened my last response to you with "I understand where you're coming from. I wish President Obama had done something about it too by now."
