The president's precident

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

AKA "The Fix"

So in the lead up to the shutdown President Obama was telling his critics that the ACA was “settled” and “here to stay”. But in a effort to stave off growing backlash, and the threat of house Democrats siding with Republicans on the Keep Your Health Plan Act, the President is announcing that he will delay enforcement of the act's policy requirements and employer mandate until after the 2014 election cycle. (May 2015)

So in a seriously surreal moment Tea-partiers and the GOP establishment find themselves nodding in a agreement with Howard Dean...

So does the president have the authority to "fix" a problematic law? The short answer is no, he doesn't. If the President doesn't even get a line-item veto. He certainly doesn't get to rewrite or amend a statute without sending it back to congress.

Now I understand the desire to do "whatever it takes" to salvage the President's signature achievement but it sets a dangerous precedent. Would Obama, and his party as whole, be similarly supportive of a hypothetical pro-life president's attempts to unilaterally "fix" abortion law, or a libertarian president "fixing" the federal tax code? Personally I suspect that the vast majority of Democrats would be up in arms, and that calls for impeachment would on the speaker's desk before lunch.

And yet here we are...

Personally I find these developments deeply troubling.

I've been told that I put too much stock in "dead white slave-holders", but I still believe that the chief thing that stands between the US and a neo-soviet or fascist style police state is not the fact that we get to elect a new set of Ivy-League overlords every 4-8 years but the fact that there are, in theory at least, rules and standards that even our Ivy-League overlords must adhere to. "a government," as John Adams used to say "of laws not of men".

Only time will tell what sort of effect Obama's presidency will have on "rule of law" but unless there is some serious push-back and soon I don't see it being a good one.

I would hope that those who criticized Bush for his "Imperial Presidency" would see this as well.

Comments

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Are you say that this is all Bush's fault because that would be a first. ;)

Serious question though. I bitched about it then I'm bitching about it now. Is the take away from this whole fracas that the democratic rank and file are totally cool with imperialism so long as the imperialist in question is a black guy with a D after his name?

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Not at all, but in reality the push to increase the power of the executive that Bush and Cheney executed—through signing statements and other legal pretzel twisting—was never rescinded officially.

This latest move pisses me off just as drone strikes and NSA shenanigans should piss off any real American. I'm less surprised, simply because the Public Option was dropped, and with it any real hope of actual progress in our society.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Republicans won out big on dropping the public option. It would've destroyed the competition and paved the way for single payer.

Instead we have the same insurance companies trying to scam you, with a small amount of regulation. It's a band-aid on a bleeding internal injury.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Yup.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

Considering we got health insurance reform rather than health care reform, of course we got a Band-Aid. The core problem with health care in the US is that we're spending about twice as much as Canadians and three times the OECD average for health care. Changing how people to buy insurance, even to a single payer, isn't going to change this.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

It wasn't really designed to though.

That's definitely something that does need to be addressed but what was needed in the short-term is a way for people to avoid a lifetime of crushing debt due to circumstances outside their control.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

...by having the government pay the bill instead of bringing costs down to something reasonable. This means that future generations will endure a lifetime of crushing debt due to circumstances outside their control instead.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Well of course, if we go down the rabbit hole we'll find the root problems and solving those requires systemic change of how we handle health care. The kind of change too drastic for this generation or maybe even the next.

The most we can do is a 'step in the right direction'.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

Yes, health care reform requires systematic change of how we handle health care. If health care costs follow their current trend, they will be about 1/3rd of our GDP in 20 years and 1/2 in about 35 years, so drastic change is coming.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

But you do at least concede that the democrats have essentially ratified Bush and Cheney's policies. As such the whole so the refrain "well Bush did it first" is obviously null and void because the Democrats clearly agree with and have expanded upon them.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Not "the democrats," but this president, yes. What's more troubling is that it's been getting steadily worse, ever since Reagan. Each successive president has made moves to strengthen executive power. At no time since 1980 has a president said, "No, I don't need to be able to do what the guy before did, so I'll waive that right."

I think there might be a behind-the-scenes end game behind this continual assertion of power, but I only have a few pieces of evidence to support the claim, not enough to warrant going beyond speculation. Essentially, I think many of the advisers from the TLAs realized a threat in the early '70s that demanded action about the turn of the century, and that time has come. They haven't unleashed all that they have been preparing simply because it hasn't yet been necessary (though the Katrina response does strike me as a test run to see what might be possible).

But again, this is just speculation.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Shh! You will give the NWO crazies some sensible ammunition.

According to Dame David, we've got five years, that's what we've got...

Actually, I hope that if anything world shaking happens, and our present structures crumble through some outside context problem, that Hillary is in charge.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Who's Dame David?

See what I get for not following the crazy?

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

Ya know, to be fair, for what it is worth, most of the left leaning U.S. people on the forum have complained at one time or another about the fact that he has not been fair left enough. So we shouldn't paint them with too all encompassing brush as the kool-aid drinkers.(I'm pretty sure Fizzy has been one of the complainers more than a kool-aid drinker)

Of course otoh they never believe us over some of GWs policies we disagreed with (since this forum was not in existence back then it does make it difficult to prove how we felt) so paint away :D Of course it is Bush's fault.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Right, but just to be perfectly clear, they are NOT complaining about the president flagrantly ignoring the law, or legislation by fiat. So even if they may feel that the President is not sufficiently left-wing those items are still "no biggie".

Something that must be kept in mind during future arguments.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

While this is true, you know the comeback..."but Bush"

Ya know, it's been 5 years now they have been in charge, you have to wonder when they will "own" it.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

They wont nor should we ever expect them to (http://captaincapitalism.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-destruction-principle.html).

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Seriously, can you stop with this generalized crap about "leftists"?

[paft.livejournal.com]

s "Understand the single most defining characteristic of a liberal or a leftist is that they are lazy. They do not want to work. They do not want to strive. They want an easy and paid-for life as much as possible."

Uh, excuse me... You're calling not only me, but my husband, my parents, my siblings (none of whom you have ever met) "Lazy?"

Liberals who have spent their lives working with the poor, with the sick, with the disabled are "lazy?" Liberals who have traveled to other countries and lived among the poor there are "lazy?" The liberals who traveled to the American south and put their lives on the line in the name of black civil rights (sometimes paying the ultimate price) were "lazy?"

My parents are lazy? My Dad who helped run a soup kitchen? My mother who worked with emotionally disturbed kids and adults who were severely cognitively disabled is "lazy?" My brother the schoolteacher? My father-in-law the WWII vet who worked long hard days after the war to send his kids to college?

Do explain what you know about them that warrants this insult.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

the president flagrantly ignoring the law, or legislation by fiat

Such things, if they took place can be challenged. I've yet to see a case made that this has happened.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Well, it's not because Darryl Issa hasn't been trying hard enough!

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

The text of the law is rather clear on what provisions come into effect when and how they are to be enforced.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Actually the Unitary Executive was a Reagan era idea though every President since has looked it and said "Sure, why not?"

I've yet to see imperialism in regard to the ACA but no, not a fan of it in general.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

You may not be a fan of it in general, but it's clear that so long as it';s the POTUS has a D after his name all is forgiven.

Spare me your empty platitudes.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Spare me your empty platitudes.

You must be a real delight to deal with in the real world. You're the one who has lazily failed to demonstrate what if any illegal actions the President has taken and to make it worse, you throw in some paranoid suggestions that the very purpose of the ACA is to crush the younger generation with debt.