I read this long-ass boring book in grad school all about what makes a president successful in Congress. In the end, the answer was - if his party controls Congress, he’s successful, otherwise, he’s not. That was it.
And that fits with Obama’s experience. His only major legislative victories came when he had Dems to do it - the Affordable Care Act being the biggest one. The only others were when he outsmarted the Republicans or took advantage of their own divisions, but that was more about preventing their idiocy than moving foward.
Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush were pretty successful, as was Clinton. We’re getting back to the Carter era “the job is really, really hard and too much for one man” excuses.
Here’s Obama’s real problem. He really just doesn’t have any friends in Congress. It doesn’t help that he got most of his colleagues fired:
Awesome, let’s just go back and forth blaming one side or the other for negotiating, as if refusing to simply give up and go along with your wishes is wrong.
Just pointing out that there is a lot more to this than the Republican obstruction. You’ve got Harry Reid (D-NV) doing his best making sure only the Democrat agenda leaves the Senate.
And I know that a lot of people like to think that it is all about Obama being black but there is a lot more to this “obstructionism” than that:
The pure vitriol thrown at G W Bush from the Dem side. Well now it’s your turn no matter who the president is because nyah nyah you started it.
(Like I predicted) Obama’s lack of time in Federal office before being elected is showing in the lack of gravitas and markers in dealing with Congress.
Obama has appeared weak in dealing with Congress up to recently. So why do you have to compromise with someone that will domino and give in?
Perhaps, but the House GOP leadership has so far refused to allow such legislation to come to a vote because they fear the Tea partiers and they don’t want anything that could be viewed as a victory for Dems, even if it involved a majority of Reps too.
Some stuff hasn’t come up for a vote. But the budget and spending bills have. The budget process is actually working better since the GOP took control of both chambers.
Yes, the 2013 givernment shutdown is strong evidence that the Republican control of Congress has put the budget process back on track.
So are the recent bills that required a dollar-for-dollar offset for eliminating sequestration for this year and next, but a $700 billion tax cut bill did not require any offset at all.
'Tis remarkable, especially after the Dems bent over backward for all of Bush’s plans, and after all of their long hours put into making his Presidency a smashing success. Republican ingrates, to a man!
The policy results have been poor, but the process is moving along better, so call it progress for what it’s worth. We went from debt limit brinksmanship, to a shutdown, to negotiations that produced a result.
From Democrats’ perspective especially this should all be good, since Democrats wanted higher spending and those tax cuts made permanent.
There is no net increase in spending. There are net decreases in taxes.
And we are set to go through the same budget negotiations next year with the threat of sequestration returning.
You cannot deny that the budget process got WORSE under Republican Congresses. It’s just a fact: a two week shutdown, the credit rating of the Unites States downgraded, the invention of sequestration, failure of the super committee, every other year requiring life or death budget negotiations, budget resolutions are as rare as ever, and the reliance on giant omnibus budget bills late in the year has become totally routine. There is nothing about the budget that has improved under Republican Congresses. This is just another one of your opinions formed without benefit of any facts whatsoever.
You say that like there was no reason for the vitriol. Do you need to be reminded of what an irresponsible disaster he was fiscally as president?
Under Obama, there’s been a five percent reduction in unemployment, a significantly reduced budget deficit, a restoring of American honour in the killing of bin Laden, and health insurance for millions more Americans, for just a few examples. What reason is there for vitriol against him? You’d think that was all bad news or something.
Only for a party that just wants naked power, never mind how well the country’s doing, is it bad news. If that’s the American way, so be it, but don’t pretend that isn’t what’s happening.
I would say the US credit rating being lower is a 0 out of 10 on the harm scale.
Fact of the matter is that the yield on US debt did not increase when the credit rating was downgraded. (IIRC it decreased a bit at the time, but probably ended up with no impact one way or the other.) Anyone who wants to make the case that it had some sort of impact needs to make a fact-based case for it, IMO.
Reviewing this thread I was struck how easily an alien would be able to distinguish the two sides just based on the quality of their discourse.
For examples:
See? No specifics, no citations, just a cacophony of vague and unsubstantiated charges. This poster even resorts to flinging obscenity as I’ve shown with the red emphasis.
Contrast that post with this one:
Note the detailed reasoning, the scholarly thoroughness and discipline, the wealth of examples. This poster would fit right in as a Congressman serving with the Party he so eloquently defends.