You're right it's an exaggeration. Basically I'm talking about the federal gov. I don't think these guys believe in it (or the deep pocketed ultra Conservative entities they basically represent-my opinion too). And personally I think the only reason they ran for Congress is to disrupt it. And two major candidates have basically said the same thing. These guys are puppets for the special interests. ie the Conservative billionaires like the Kochs. They call everyone sell outs except themselves. Do you know there's no substantial funding for fixing highways and bridges.
Ted Cruz is running the show right now. He's the Godfather right now. Dont fuck with him or else he will have you taken care of. John Boner decided to fuck with him and start a feud, and now he's gone and Cruz is still here. Mitch McConnell the turtle faced RINO is next. He will be dealt with swiftly.
What is this a government or a brawl. You think Putin or the Ayotallah would give Cruz jack shit. Talking tough is for wimps. Boner called Cruz a jackass a few months ago and reaffirmed it yesterday. He didn't win anything but he'll take the credit.
btw your guy Ted Cruz instead of negotiating and trying to work with an enemy of ours says he might think about killing him. (what a moron). And wants to put a poison pill (defunding PP) into a funding bill. That's a half a billion dollar item (PP) and a gov shutdown last time (engineered by Cruz) cost 24 billion. Just in terms of dollar and cents it's insane. And they want to defund an org based on videos and no investigation. You would think they would at least investigate PP before trying to stop funding. Wouldn't that be the responsible thing to do. I can't believe they'd shut the gov down based on videos taken by an unknown org with at least one member tied to a violent anti-abortion group. At least analyze the tapes and find out what really happened. And give PP a chance to defend themselves. If they really were breaking the law then defund them. It's totally irresponsible.
The republican majority should at least try to get rid of the baseline budgeting and return the power of the purse back to congress. As it is they're left with having to resort to nuclear options that aren't really desirable to anyone.
Cruz "believed" the GOP could force Obama to get rid of the ACA by shutting down the government. That never made any sense, and it still doesn't. He's a demagogue, or as Boehner accurately put it in Biblical terms, a false prophet. Here's the thing - I put believed in quotes because i don't think Cruz believed that himself. It was more about trying to increase his own standing among hte know nothings that are becoming a bigger and bigger part of the GOP base. Like some of that group's representatives here. Because the notion never had any logic to it. "As it is they're left with having to resort to nuclear options that aren't really desirable to anyone." The alternative when you don't control both the White House and/or have enough votes in the Congress to override the president, is to compromise. Win the presidential election if you want to do it the way the Constitution contemplates. Not throw temper tantrums when Romney loses and you can't get all you want. What a bunch of ignorant babies.
Meh - the white house doesn't have much motivation to compromise when they know it's going to be the congress that looks like assholes invoking nuclear options. So basically what we're left with is the president having more power than he should and congress having less power than it should. The checks and balances are off balance and have been for some time. There is supposed to be a balance of power. The executive branch isn't supposed to just get everything it wants. There seems to be a notion that congress is supposed to just give in and if they don't they're babies.
You can't get rid of baseline budgeting as long as you have as much mandated spending in the budget as currently exists. So if the GOP really wants to get away from the baseline budgeting they need to campaign hard on cutting Social Security and Medicare. Yeah, I didn't think that would strike you as a specially good idea... On the executive branch being privileged front, not. The last President who got everything he asked for was W in 2003. We're still sifting through the rubble from that year's legislation. If you think Obama has gotten everything he wanted, well I'm not sure how to respond to that. It's like claiming that the Martians landed in Cleveland in 1947 and everything that has happened since then is their fault.
NO. Congress has less power than it should because of their own choice. if they compromised and worked together they'd have plenty of power. some of them don't want to do that. act like an asshole and then nothing gets done. you can't then cry about how you have no power to get anything done. The Obama Administration is about par for the course in terms of modern presidents and executive orders. About the same as W., a little less in fact than Clinton and Bush Sr. They all were around 20-40 orders per year. This is spanning 25 years. Nothing has really changed with Obama in regards to the executive office "getting everything it wants" the difference is that there used to be compromise in Congress. lately Congress has been at a virtual standstill because they don't want to work together and now Republicans have pushed out their Speaker - - in an effort to make this problem EVEN worse. things like the Planned Parenthood debate. I'm sorry- I don't care how you feel about the organization you don't bring our government to a complete stop over that.
The big spenders in executive orders were Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover and Harry Truman. More than a thousand each in 1 or 2 terms. FDR signed 3,502 but he did it over 15 years which averaged out to less than the aforementioned. In terms of post-Watergate Presidents, and the ground shifted under the American political system in a big way due to Watergate, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton lead the way with 381 and 364 respectively. Barack Obama has the fewest executive orders to date of any 2 term President in the last hundred and forty odd years. The last President to get through 2 terms with fewer executive orders signed was Ulysses S. Grant. So, when you are listening to the big Republican wind machine, just realize that's all it is.
Cutting the size of government in a rational manner? Closing Guantanamo Bay? Anything related to climate change? Anything related to energy policy? The thing that's really crazy is that Barack Obama has been by almost any measure a fairly conservative President. He hasn't tried to upset the status quo in a big way at all. He was one of the people not convinced on Gay Marriage until near the end. How the GOP managed to turn him into their private demon is completely beyond rational discourse. They basically just hated him from day one and did everything they could to stop him from succeeding. My opinion, and it's just an opinion, is that the GOP was so embarrassed by the outcome and aftermath of the W Presidency that they couldn't act rationally and so they just got bloodthirsty and went after the other guy. This helped them in the short term but it also essentially destroyed the core of the party. You don't see moderate Republicans anywhere and when all the smoke clears it will become clear also that there aren't as many arch-conservative voters as the Republicans think. This is why Obama swamped the GOP in the 2012 elections. He wasn't this crazy lefty demagogue that the GOP had tried to paint him as and the GOP didn't have enough respect from the average voter to win at the national level. Most of the bleeding into the unaffiliated voter pool was from the Democrats over the last two generations. Now it's the GOP that is bleeding into that pool, hemorrhaging RINO's all over the place.
As for executive orders there are fewer from Obama than most other Presidents, but I guess Reagan's were ok. And this includes immigration reform. But no excuses for the nuclear options. It should not be on the table. And a gov shutdown over a minor issue like funding PP is again a travesty. If they do it over this then they'll do it over anything. There's other ways of cutting PP. But first there has to be an official Congressional investigation. It is bogus for elected officials and candidates to be screaming gov shutdown without any proof of illegality. I'd also like to see as part of a bi-partisan investigation on PP investigating the org who took the videos. Who's financing them, anyways?
so then what are you referring to? you are saying the checks and balances are currently off balance, suggesting this has been brought about by the Obama administration. my question is what metrics are you basing this on? or, why do you think Congress has less power recently? if Congress was passing shit left and right and Obama was vetoing everything I might agree. Or if he was issuing all kinds of executive orders I might agree with you too. But neither of those are true. So Congress sucks on their right accord
I don't mean to suggest this has been brought about by the Obama administration. I see how it came off that way, but I don't mean that. All I wanted to say was that congress has basically surrendered the power of the purse by allowing baseline budgets. That happened decades ago.
The GOP has set a terrible precedent for the future. Lose the Presidency so do everything you can to handcuff that President by slashing the tires of our political system. Nothing works right now. Can you imagine if the Dems treated the Bush administration the same way?
