Blame it for the government shut down. It’s doing exactly what he intended it to do:
As a practical matter, it’s Obama’s refusal to negotiate that matters. A member of Congress can’t get time with the president or his top aides on demand. A president can always get through to a member of Congress — as Obama did, finally, Monday night for a conversation described as “less than ten minutes.”
Astonishingly, Obama said in a prepared statement that no president had negotiated ancillary issues with Congress when a shutdown was threatened. Four Pinocchios, said Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler.
Unfortunately, only one side understands that. Of course, they hate James Madison, and all of his limited-government works.
It’s not “limited government”! It’s anarchy! We have the judgment of that profound scholar and Mensa president Harry Reid on that.
A thought experiment: The government shuts down for lack of a continuing resolution (CR). The Senate and House agree on the CR funding number. The House won’t vote on the CR without attaching amendment X. The Senate votes down the CR with amendment X, passes the clean CR. Whose fault is the shutdown if:
A) X repeals Obamacare
B) X adds a public option to Obamacare
C) X doubles the Obamacare medical device tax
D) X repeals the Obamacare medical device tax
E) X approves the Keystone XL pipeline
F) X bars construction of the Keystone XL pipeline
G) X removes the contraceptive coverage mandate from Obamacare
H) X adds abortion coverage to Medicaid
I) The people claiming they will not negotiate, will not accept partial CR’s with no amendment’s attached, and the people trying to close down private parking lots, bed and breakfasts, and Biscayne Bay. Which are the same people blocking octogenarians from visiting memorials in their honor paid for by private funds.
J) The people claiming the purpose of the government is to cause pain on its subjects until they yield to there demands.
K) Both I and J
The shutdown wasn’t caused by things that happened after the shutdown.
A) X repeals Obamacare
B) X adds a public option to Obamacare
C) X doubles the Obamacare medical device tax
D) X repeals the Obamacare medical device tax
E) X approves the Keystone XL pipeline
F) X bars construction of the Keystone XL pipeline
G) X removes the contraceptive coverage mandate from Obamacare
H) X adds abortion coverage to Medicaid
I guess, I suppose, your point is that there is a symmetry to this government shutdown tactic. If the Democrats control Congress, they could demand your B, C, F, H of a Republican President?
Are you telling me that if the Democrats controlled Congress and a Republican was in the White House, that you would equally consider B, C, F, and H to be illegimate amendments to a CR as you believe A, D, E, and G? In other words, if you could get what you want by the Democrats “playing this game”, you would oppose this tactic on principle, as do by the way, many current members of the Republican Caucus (Peter King and others)?
I am thoroughly confused. Are you saying that you would “never stoop to the tactics of the Republicans” and you would oppose your own political party, whatever that may be — Democractic, Independent, Green — if they did such a thing for what in your view is a good cause, such as a Public Option or Single Payer that many people indeed favor?
Or are you saying that you would support what the Republicans are doing-thank-you-very-much if the “shoe were on the other foot” or if the “worm turned”? And the Republicans should think twice because you would gladly “do it back to them”?
The point is: your answer to all these questions should be the same.
But it isn’t in your case. So why should it be in our case? We’re just dealing with the standard “It’s ok, if my guy does it” opinion.
What makes you say that? The House is to blame for the shutdown in all those scenarios.
What makes you say that? The House is to blame for the shutdown in all those scenarios.
If you were supporting the House instead of the other parties, then they wouldn’t be at fault.
Btw, Rand, I think you have the wrong link (it’s a Glenn Reynolds piece about the IRS). This appears to be the article you quoted about Madison.
Yes, you’re right, thanks.
Related: “Watch his demeanor: chilling.”
http://neoneocon.com/2013/10/05/obama-fear-itself/
“He’s been a dick since day one.” Actually, I would say his dickdom dates back at least to when he joined the socialist New Party or became Rev. Wright’s altar boy.
As someone posted on Ann Althouse’s blog,
If the federal government has the power to shut down roadways and parks and your disability check, why would you give them power over your health care?
Fully 50% of the land in Colorado is owned by the federal government. In Nevada, it’s over 80%. What’s next, will the federal government start setting up roadblocks to deny access to vast portions of the western states?
This government shutdown is an attempt (perhaps unwitting) to replace the Constitution with a parliamentary democracy.
In a parliamentary system, the lower house has all the power. The upper house can stall legislation (how much depends on the details of the system) and the President or Monarch who is the nominal head of the Executive branch has very limited powers. Again, this varies by system – the French President for example has a lot of power, the British Crown can barely call her underwear her own.
What the Republicans in the House want to do is very similar to what the Roundheads wanted to do with regards to Charles I – use the power of the purse to force policy changes. In 1640, the policy changes had a lot to do with wars abroad (including Scotland and Ireland); in 2013 the policy changes are Obamacare.
And this shutdown really is unprecedented. All the previous shutdowns were about funding levels. This one is about blocking a duly-passed and clearly constitutional law. It is exactly as if the House circa 2006 had staged a shutdown to force Bush to pull out of Iraq. Congress had previously voted to go into Iraq, and if they wanted out they (both houses) would have to pass a veto-proof law to compel a withdrawal.
If Obama gives in to the House, then historians will mark this as the end of the First United States. What will inevitably happen is that, whomever controls the House, they will repeat this stunt. Enough repetition will lead to some form of a parliamentary system, in which the House Majority Leader is the de-facto head of government.
This is ahistorical nonsense.
The Founders were quite familiar with the English Civil War. The House having the power of the purse does not make it a parliamentary system.
Yes they were aware of the English Civil War. The system they designed envisioned both houses having equal power. That’s why, unlike in the English system, the Senate has to approve spending bills as well. In the UK, any “money bill” cannot be rejected by the House of Lords and can only be delayed for one month.
No, the two houses have quite different powers (e.g., spending bills must originate in the House). And the US is not the UK. To the degree that Madison would be disturbed by what’s happening today, it would be by the president’s arbitrary and dictatorial behavior, not the House trying to rein him in.
Ignoring the fact that the President is neither arbitrary or dictatorial, the simple fact is that, to pass or repeal any law requires a majority of both houses. Yes, funding bills must originate in the House, but if the House sends something that the Senate won’t pass, it does not pass. The House is trying to change that rule, and if they succeed, they will be more powerful then the Senate.
Digressing slightly, I find this fascination with what James Madison wanted amusing. First, Madison started the Convention by floating the Virginia Plan, in which representation in both houses was determined by population. This got shot down, and we ended up with the Connecticut compromise. Second, under Madison’s original plan and the final plan, Senators were elected by state legislatures, not the people.
In short, what the Founders individually wanted isn’t what we got. Instead, we got a compromise solution in which both houses must agree on budgets and taxes. We’ve since amended that solution over 20 times.
My point remains the same – if the House has an absolute veto on the budget, then the House is the more powerful body, and that paves the way for a parliamentary democracy.
The Founders were quite familiar with the English Civil War
Yes, and that’s one reason why the Constitution states that defense appropriations can’t cover more than two years. That way the executive can’t do the sort of thing that prompted the English Civil War — spending lots of money on wars without legislative assent.
But the Constitution, and U.S. history to this point, doesn’t contemplate the scenario we are seeing played out now, where one house of Congress refuses to fund the government at any level until the other house and executive consent to changes in unrelated laws.
Couldn’t this gambit — refusing to pass funding bills until some unrelated law is repealed or changed — be carried out by the Senate as well?
In theory, yes. I’ve not seen a Parliamentary system which would allow the upper house to do that. The history of modern government is that when upper houses attempt to block action, they get snowplowed by the lower house and/or the popular vote (see the 17th Amendment).
But at any event, the current situation is the House attempting to (again, perhaps unwittingly) create a Parliamentary system. I suppose the Senate could try to create a Senatorial system if so minded.
I don’t agree. The House was intended to control the power of the purse in our system. As initially conceived, deficit spending would only comprise a very small portion of total spending, so anything enacted into law would have to, more or less, fit into the finite revenues collected by the federal government.
In other words, in a system that operated with anything resembling fiscal responsibility, the House would always be picking and choosing what to fund and what not to fund. It’s an inherent power intentionally placed within the House. And, of course, they would exercise that power before passing a budget in order to obtain concessions from the other house and from the president. It’s only because we’re not passing budgets and don’t match spending with revenues at all that this seems odd today. But it’s a legitimate and core power of the House.
Regardless of your politics, a negotiation can only happen when both parties are willing to go to the table. And, for the moment, the House holds all of the cards. The president and the Senate are being needlessly obstinate, as I’m sure they could get a compromise that’s much less than what the House has offered up so far. Of course, it’s clear that the Democrats crave a prolonged shutdown, believing–and I think, not correctly–that a long shutdown benefits them and hurts the GOP. More likely, this impasse will create an even stronger dislike of government in this country, which is the last thing the Democrats should want. Or the establishment Republicans, for that matter.
The House was intended to control the power of the purse in our system.
That power is shared — spending bills don’t pass without the assent of the Senate and President (or else a veto override). No one body or person controls the purse.
the House holds all of the cards
So the House should always get whatever it wants? Should there be any limit on the House’s power over legislation?
That’s not what I’m saying. Each branch has powers unique to it. The House has the purse. It’s the most potent single power, really, and it would be more obvious if we weren’t so off the rails as far as the budget is concerned.
The only time that power really can be wielded is when the budget is up for review. If the House were to concede and talk about everything later (as Reid has suggested), it loses its leverage.
I think the Senate and the president are in a tough place, because the House is operating within its authority, and it’s really incumbent on the Senate and the president to find a way to get the House to back down. Saying they won’t negotiate is rather counterproductive. Indeed, the House has an excellent argument that funding additional programs like the ACA isn’t really feasible with spending so out of control, not to mention that the law isn’t generally popular. The House is, in theory, the “popular” branch, which is why it has this power in the first place.
Also, our perspective today has changed because of the way spending far outreaches revenues but also because the Senate is no longer qualitatively different in composition from the House, because it is now popularly elected.
Here’s what Madison had to say (among other things) in The Federalist #58:
” . . . when a man named Albert Shanker got ahold of a nuclear device.”
Guys, the whole thing started when after talking really, really tough, President Obama “caved” to Bashir al-Assad, who really is a terrorist. The Republicans in Congress who are only terror-wanna-be’s thought they could get the same deal, and that is why the Federal Government is shut down.