It’s obvious Repubs are only making a stink about this to spite Obama.
I mean seriously, this delayed mandate should be seen as a ray of sunshine looming through the giant dark cloud that is Obamacare. At least from the perspective of the GOP.
But no, instead of seeing this as a win for small business owners that the GOP claims to hold so dear, they’d much rather cry foul. Because ya’ know, it’s Obama.
The problem is in him delaying laws until the last election that matters to him. It’s 100% political. Delaying the employer mandate only makes the law better if you believe the employer mandate is actually problematic. Anyone here believe that?
If not, then you’re basically endorsing the delaying of laws because they pose a political problem for the party in power. Which again, is useful to remember. This power will be used again, for exactly this reason, whenever it’s convenient, now that we’ve established that Presidents can implement or refuse to implement any laws they desire.
John Boehner has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.
One would think *you *did.
Your statements are at odds with the statements coming from the Treasury Dept. on why the delay is necessary. The Treasury Dept. has a well-written memo detailing the reasons for the delay, backed up by the requests from those affected for more time to formulate reporting requirements, forms, etc. What evidence do you have to back up your version of why the delay in the employer mandate is happening?
Can you quote one post that said this? Perhaps my memory is faulty.
He may (and I hope does) feel that impeachment is too harsh a penalty. (Of course, he also knows impeachment won’t lead to conviction and removal given the makeup of the Senate).
What he wants is mandamus. And there’s no path to mandamus here.
The link to the thread is in post #39 above. Here it is again: linky
Toward the end of that thread, you admitted that you were expecting us (i.e. we liberal respondents to the thread) to have answered differently than we did, and more like the way you apparently now remember that we did.
I’m saying that you were wrong then and you’re wrong now. Do you think that’s so unlikely that you won’t even review the previous thread for yourself? If you don’t wish to test your worldview against actual events, if your “liberal hypocrisy” belief system is a closed epistemology, then me quoting various posts won’t fix it.
For the benefit of others in this discussion, here’s a few notable quotes. Be warned, they tend to follow a set of goalposts which rather arbitrarily march around the field:
OK, now I recall the issue a bit more clearly.
When I began that thread, my point was to illustrate the disconnect: people would support Obama’s acting extra-legally to delay a mandatory program, and not support an incoming Republican president who did the same thing. I argued that this was inconsistent.
As that thread developed, though, the argument was teased out more. What I said above was accurate, but incomplete: The bulk of responses in that thread were Obama’s doing the right thing, but a GOP president wouldn’t be. What I failed to identify (or, quite frankly, even recall) was that the further argument justified that stance by saying that the REASON Obama’s doing the right thing, but a GOP president wouldn’t be, is that Obama’s action can be safely attributed to an overall desire to make the program successful while the Hypothetical New GOPer’s desire was to hobble the program.
And as proof of that concept, a new hypothetical was offered: existing GOP President shepherds through a program beloved by conservatives, and then a new Democratic President is elected. The bulk of responders in that thread said that under those circumstances, they would support the power of the GOP Prez to extra-legally tweak the program, but not the New Dem Prez do to the same, for the same reasoning: GOP Guy is trying to make his program work; New Dem Guy is trying to hobble it.
In other words, the apparent inconsistency was shown to be consistent when viewed in the proper context.
I didn’t remember that.
My apologies.
With some clarifications, I agree with your corrected assessment of the thread (and accept your honest apology).
those of us arguing against you in that thread typically did not think there’s anything extralegal or particularly strange about the delay in reporting requirements (and hence enforcement) of the employer mandate. This sort of adjustment in enforcement timing is literally commonplace within other agencies such as OSHA, MSHA and EPA whenever comprehensive rule changes happen, whether they’re internal to the respective agency or statutory changes. Businesses must be reasonably able to comply with new requirements, particularly those which require new or different accounting, documentation and reporting. Sometimes there are unforeseen difficulties which require more time than originally assumed. It’s a poor administration which would ignore these exigencies.
The respective intents of Obama nor Hypothetical Republican POTUS were not arbitrarily assumed. In the present case being potentially litigated by Mr. Boehner it is clearly and extensively documented as a time-bound response to real world difficulties cited by businesses in adjusting to the changes; in the hypothetical cases, they were mostly phrased to make it clear an entire legislative package would be either indefinitely stalled or permanently scuttled via executive inaction and/or roadblocking as a response to political or ideological disagreement.
For the lawyers: who, if anyone, would have standing? Would a business who the rules were supposed to apply to have standing (I know they generally oppose it, but I’m sure Boehner could find someone sympathetic enough to go for it)? What about an employee who would have benefited from it? I would think they would be in plentiful supply.
BTW, why is this thread in the Elections forum? It does not belong here.
Yes, a person actually harmed would probably have standing. Congressional standing doesn’t come up very often, but the best illustration is probably the line-item veto controversy. The short version is that Congress gave Clinton the authority to cancel out individual provisions in any bill presented to him for signature.* This was a pretty blatant violation of the Presentment Clause, which governs the way legislation may be enacted.
(Senator) Robert Byrd and some other Democrats who had voted against the bill sued, and argued that they had standing because the bill was passed over their objection. Byrd was basically suing Congress on Congress’ behalf, since he sued in his capacity as a legislator. SCOTUS told them to take a hike, because their “injuries” were no different from anyone else’s.* In fact, SCOTUS has never found that Congresspeople had standing to bring actions against other branches (or themselves).
Ultimately, the City of New York sued because Clinton deleted certain appropriations that benefited the city. This time SCOTUS found standing because the city would be directly and uniquely affected by the line item deletions, and that was the end of the Line Item Veto Act.
*Standing requires (among other things) an injury that is “particular to” the plaintiff. Byrd was not harmed by the LIVA any more than any other citizen. So you or I could not sue to stop the Iraq invasion because we opposed it or didn’t want our tax dollars funding it. But a service member would have standing to sue on the grounds that he was being deployed to fight. He would lose, because challenges to the authority of the POTUS as commander-in-chief are “political questions” that the court will not hear, but he would have the requisite particularized injury.
Because it’s a political stunt intended primarily to influence the next election.
I daresay it will but Boehner won’t like it.