Let Us Be Clear: Obama Deserves Chief Responsibility for Gov't Shutdown. Boehner and the GOP may well be "anarchists" and Reid and the Dems may be useless. But it's the president who runs the show. Nick Gillespie | October 1, 2013 The one thing that shouldn't be slighted, though, is that it is ultimately Barack Obama's fault. He's the deciderer, right, the top dog? The eight years of his time in office will be known to future generations as the Obama Years and not the Boehner Perplex or the Reid Interregnum. With great power - and Obama insists he has the unilateral right to kill anyone, even a U.S. citizen, that represents a national security threat - comes great responsiblity. Instead, President Obama is indulging in incredible displays of peevishness such as this one yesterday during an interview with NPR's Steve Inskeep. Asked what he might offer to House Republicans, who have called for, most recently, a delay in Obamacare's individual mandate and a bunch of other late-breaking proposals generally unrelated to how much the government will be spending over the next 12 months: "Steve when you say what can I offer? I shouldn't have to offer anything," Obama said. "They're not doing me a favor by paying for things that they have already approved for the government to do. That's part of their basic function of government; that's not doing me a favor. That's doing what the American people sent them here to do, carrying out their responsibilities...
It violates the spirit of the Constitution to legislate via blackmail. And it is anti-democratic regardless of whether Democrats or Republicans attempt it. Fortunately, it often backfires on the instigating party. Our Constitution provides ample ways for overturning or modifying existing laws through the legislative and amendment processes. When you attempt to circumvent those normal routes, you are in effect trying to circumvent democratic process, which has majority rule as the feature that distinguishes it from totalitarian forms of government. This same feature is also democracy's great flaw, which prompted Winston Churchill to observe that "Democracy is the worst kind of government, but better than any other kind."
Sorry, but you're wrong. The Founders wrote a Constitution that set up three coequal but separate branches of government. They envisioned that this three legged stool approach provided a defense against abuses of power by any one branch. As wise men, they knew that each branch would inevitably attempt to encroach on the authority of the others, and thus they provided each branch with ample weapons to defend their turf. The only thing unusual about this battle between the executive and legislative branches is that the legislative branch is itself divided. The Constitution clearly requires both houses to pass spending bills however, so it cannot be said that the Founders didn't envision this type of deadlock. What strikes me as undemocratic is Obama granting untold waivers to political allies, yet pretending the law is fully in place. He has shown a troubling tendency to confuse his role with that of a dictator on numerous issues. At some point the only real check on him, the republican House, has to draw the line. Let's hope they don't lose their nerve.
Not paying for Obamacare... exactly what the founding fathers would have wanted. its why the house has the power of the purse. The bastards who voted it in...got swiftly voted out of power. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_of_the_purse The power of the purse is the ability of one group to manipulate and control the actions of another group by withholding funding, or putting stipulations on the use of funds. The power of the purse can be used positively (e.g. awarding extra funding to programs that reach certain benchmarks) or negatively (e.g. removing funding for a department or program, effectively eliminating it). The power of the purse is most often utilized by forces within a government that do not have direct executive power but have control over budgets and taxation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_of_the_purse The power of the purse plays a critical role in the relationship of the United States Congress and the President of the United States, and has been the main historic tool by which Congress can limit executive power. One of the most recent examples is the Foreign Assistance Act of 1974, which eliminated all military funding for the government of South Vietnam and thereby ended the Vietnam War. Other recent examples include limitations on military funding placed on Ronald Reagan by Congress, which led to the withdrawal of United States Marines from Lebanon. Appropriation bills cannot originate in the Senate, but the Senate can amend appropriation bills that originate in the House.
Note... to R leadership... if you succeed in stopping obamacare... I will state you did the right thing and therefore not sellouts.
You raised some very good points, in my opinion, with regard to the legitimacy of Obama granting waivers. I'd like to see the Congress challenge this as a united body. Factions have challenged it, but it deserves a bipartisan challenge. I emphatically don't agree that the founders intended the three branches to be coequal. I have read that many times, but it is wrong. History clearly indicates that the Founders agreed, after much argument and controversy, that the Legislative Branch, and specifically the peoples House, should be vested with the greatest power and authority among the branches. James Madison wrote in Federalist 51, regarding the ability of each branch to defend itself from actions by the others, that "it is not possible to give to each department an equal power of self-defense. In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates." And I would add that, among the legislative branch, the greatest power and authority, by far, is given to the House rather than the Senate. Furthermore the the Executive branch was clearly intended to be subservient to the legislative branch, as was the judicial branch. May I call your attention to Article III of the U.S. Constitution: The Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with the exception, and under such regulation as the Congress shall make." It is Congress that is empowered by the Constitution to regulate the Court and not vice versa.!!! This is what historian and politician Newt Gingrich was referring to when during the Presidential debate he said, "or Congress could just ignore the Supreme Court." Naturally this raised eyebrows since so few are aware that the Constitution makes Congress superior to the Court. But Gingrich was right , though his words were inaccurate. He implied that Congress could simply ignore a ruling of the court, which would cause a Constitutional crisis, but what he meant is that Congress could prevent the Court from ruling. And that is correct! Of course, over time, the original intentions of the Founders have been corrupted, and may not even be recognizable in our modern government, where the Executive branch has usurped much of the power the Founders intended for Congress. If you are truly interested in this topic, then I can recommend highly Gore Vidal's Little Book "Imperial America" as the most readable account of the American Constitution's evolution. It is one of Vidal's best books, and one of his most opinionated, which is an achievement in itself, since he was, in general, among the most opinionated and exasperating persons to ever walk the face of the Earth.