How the GOP Made Obama One of America’s Most Powerful Presidents

[mystery-ak]

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/04/barack-obama-gop-most-powerful-213814

 How the GOP Made Obama One of America’s Most Powerful Presidents

By stonewalling new laws and new budgets, Congress handed control to the White House.

By Zachary Karabell

April 14, 2016

Republicans over the past seven years have come to view Barack Obama not just as an ideological enemy but as a “dictator”—an accusation hurled most recently by both Chris Christie and Glenn Beck—a president who has unconstitutionally abused his executive power with an array of unilateral actions.

But Republicans are hardly passive victims of an overweening executive; they are, in fact, paying for their own unilateral surrender of power. The GOP-dominated Congress has sought to weaken and undermine Obama and instead has achieved the opposite. Unable to pass significant legislation after the Affordable Care Act, the Obama White House filled the vacuum by creative use of executive authority, setting a potentially risky precedent for the future balance between the branches but spurred, ironically, by the very opponents who were trying to contain him.

Out of anti-Obama pique, Congress has also relinquished much of its primary tool, the power of the purse. Congress and the White House have not agreed on a budget since 2009, and only at the end of 2015 was an actual budget passed by the House. So while it is technically true that even the most controversial military programs of the Obama years have had de facto congressional support, Congress has failed to use its constitutional control of the budget as a check on executive action.

Some critics also currently speculate that the refusal by most Republican senators to even consider the new nominee for the Supreme Court could lead to an attempt to simply place an appointee on the court. Obama could use the novel interpretation that nothing in the Constitution says the Senate must actually confirm a nominee by vote and that failing to vote could be construed as a tacit and passive approval of a nominee. Were that to happen, it would surely be condemned by Republicans as a naked power grab, but it could also set another precedent for the current imbalance of power between the executive and legislative branches.

Thus, the long-run effect of Obama enmity has been to enable this president to expand the power of the executive branch, perhaps permanently. Not only did Republicans fail to contain Obama, they have enabled him to become one of the most powerful presidents ever, and certainly the most powerful non-wartime president the country has ever known as well as the most active and consequential “lame duck” president in memory.

When it comes to the power game, whether or not Obama has been making good or bad decisions is beside the point. He has won, while the GOP has been scoring on its own goal for the past seven years.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/04/barack-obama-gop-most-powerful-213814#ixzz45zyNB43g

[AnybodyButaDem]

True that the GOP is weak and bows to Obama.  False regarding the reasons. The problem is that too many with the title Republican actually favor Democrat policies.  So they fake a defense.  They pretend to be against things only when they know it is just drama.  They are working for the other side.

More that that, it is a complete failure of the GOP leadership in every single nook and cranny.  They all need to be removed and replaced.  The rest of the Senate and House are weak because they have bad leadership that acts weak except when it comes to power and control over their own members.  Then they find their backbone -- their inner tyrant.  They punish all who disagree, but only on the Republican side, and never for constitutional conservative reasons.  It's hideous.

It is not a conspiracy (Bill, beating you to the charge); it is an observable fact.  Something is seriously broken.  IT IS NOT THAT THEY HAVE BEEN TOO STRONG against Obama, as they are doing with the SCOTUS nomination.  That is a rare right move that they dare NOT make or the voters will revolt even further.  If Obama cheats the process then that is on tyrant Obama.

Bingo.  We see it with the Kasich supporters on this board.  Don't want to cut taxes, worried about "revenues" from taxpayers, and nary any mention of reducing spending.  Throw in them cheering about making it more difficult for GOP primary voters casting a ballot in Colorado, and it's apparent to me the party is completely broken at this point.

Cruz or Trump are the only options.  I'd plug my nose and vote for Kasich over the corrupt HRC.
 

[alicewonders]

Bingo.  We see it with the Kasich supporters on this board.  Don't want to cut taxes, worried about "revenues" from taxpayers, and nary any mention of reducing spending.  Throw in them cheering about making it more difficult for GOP primary voters casting a ballot in Colorado, and it's apparent to me the party is completely broken at this point.

Cruz or Trump are the only options.  I'd plug my nose and vote for Kasich over the corrupt HRC.
 

I'd vote for any of the three GOP candidates before I would vote for - or enhance the chances of a Hillary presidency. 

[MACVSOG68]

Bingo.  We see it with the Kasich supporters on this board.  Don't want to cut taxes, worried about "revenues" from taxpayers, and nary any mention of reducing spending.  Throw in them cheering about making it more difficult for GOP primary voters casting a ballot in Colorado, and it's apparent to me the party is completely broken at this point.

Cruz or Trump are the only options.  I'd plug my nose and vote for Kasich over the corrupt HRC.
 

Actually the sensible members of this board are worried about how to balance a budget and begin to pay down a debt that is more than 100 percent of GDP, growing precipitously and concerned about the growth of the interest on that debt that may cause economic and fiscal chaos.  I don't recall any of them saying they don't want to see tax cuts as part of an overall realistic plan for the future.  But they also recognize that economic growth isn't always tied to tax cuts, and that we are irresponsible for continuing this nightmarish growth of debt to hand off to our great grandchildren.   I understand how and why the candidates on this side of the aisle are buying votes with unrealistic tax plans and only sketchy unrealistic views about the deficits and the debt.  It's been done since Reagan began his presidency.  Yet, where are all those jobs now and why is the debt up 190 times or over 2000% from where it started in 1980?  How many downturns and recessions have we seen since then?

BTW, revenues, that ugly liberal word is one of the little thingies that will be necessary as we tackle this crisis.  There are only three ways to pay for something: increasing current revenues, pay as you go legislation, or borrowing.  The first two are called fiscal conservatism.

 

[MACVSOG68]

I'd vote for any of the three GOP candidates before I would vote for - or enhance the chances of a Hillary presidency.

Agreed.

[MACVSOG68]

IT IS NOT THAT THEY HAVE BEEN TOO STRONG against Obama, as they are doing with the SCOTUS nomination.  That is a rare right move that they dare NOT make or the voters will revolt even further.

Just to add a tad of balance, Republicans have filibustered presidential nominees under Obama requiring half of the cloture votes ever held for nominees.  There are currently 80+ vacancies for the courts and 50 pending nominations that the Republicans will certainly keep on ice.  And once taking the Senate they have stopped numerous Democrat bills from ever getting more than a first reading.  Until this fiscal year, they were responsible for overall spending cuts for three years.  With Reid using the nuclear option, the alternative to Republicans winning the Senate would have been disastrous. 

[MACVSOG68]

The spending bill they passed this year was appalling.  They're wimps.  Fakers.  Pretenders.

The GOP believes it got several security and taxcut provisions, but the media hasn't been kind to the Republicans over the Omnibus Bill.  Probably one reason Ryan declined to permit a draft motion on his behalf at the convention.  He says he actually wants to pass the various spending bills one at a time rather than work through several temporary measures and wind up with an omnibus package no one could have read.  He does need a year on his own as a speaker.  But the fiscal year is already half gone and this is an election year.   

[MACVSOG68]

There's always an excuse.  I'm not impressed.  They cannot have it both ways.  Either they are willing and able to do the job or they are not.  In so many cases they could have taken on King Zero by denying funding to his overreaches.  They've been chicken.  Oh no....we can't shut down the government.  it wouldn't be them shuttling down the gov't.  It would be Zero.  Zero threatens a veto and they cave.  Not impressed.  So make Zero own it.  Make him veto it.  But no.  I wish I had invested in GOP white flag stock a few years back.  It must be through the roof now.

No excuses.  Since 1994-95 Republicans have been a little gun shy after Clinton won that battle hands down.  And they saw how effective the Cruz filibusters were.  Obama has been very effective at showing so-called "Republican obstruction".  They tried to make him own it, but it didn't work.  But a Republican president won't have it so easy.  Vetoing a spending package will likely backfire on them.  Reagan had his share of vetoes, but wound up signing spending bills that sent the debt into the stratosphere because he got things he wanted.  Why would anyone think a Trump or Cruz could suddenly turn this around spending wise, especially since they both want military increases?  Trump would likely negotiate and compromise more than would Cruz, but neither will come close to spending cuts that would balance out the tax cuts they would be proposing.  And to get those tax cuts, they will have to reach compromises on spending. 

Doesn't matter if you threaten to shut down the government because you won't send a spending bill forward, or veto one that Congress has sent forward.  You're going to get crapped on by the voters.  It's going to take a strong leader who's capable of compromise to get any reasonable spending cuts.