From the Times:
WASHINGTON ”” The Obama administration, struggling with continued political fallout over its troubled health care law, said Wednesday that it would allow consumers to renew health insurance policies that do not comply with the law for two more years.
The action is a reflection of the difficulties the president has faced as he tries to build support for the Affordable Care Act, and the backlash over his promise ”” which he later acknowledged was overstated — that individuals who liked their insurance plans could keep them, no matter what.
Under pressure from Democratic candidates, who are struggling to defend the president’s signature domestic policy, Mr. Obama announced in November a one-year reprieve on the cancellation of the noncompliant policies.
But today’s action goes much further, essentially stalling for two more years one of the central tenets of the much-debated law: that health insurance plans had to meet a basic minimum standard for care. The administration’s decision appears to buttress Republican criticism that the law was not ready for implementation last year.
The action also helps Democrats in tight midterm election races because it avoids the cancellation of insurance policies that would otherwise have occurred at the height of the political campaign season this fall.
We’ve come a very long way, now, from the idea that Congress passes laws, and that those laws are, well, the law.
There is still, perhaps, some awareness in Mr. Obama’s mind that this sort of thing is deeply, fundamentally wrong, and wholly at odds with the nation’s founding principles; we can guess this because he still, for now at least, feels the need to offer a little spin, a little cover. His motivation here, we are told with a straight face, is not political, but is rather to “ease the transition” to the better world that lies just ahead — in, oh, 2016 or so. (The kindly Mr. Obama wouldn’t want us to be overwhelmed by all of Obamacare’s wonderfulness all at once; after all, given what we’ve been through with all those failed policies for the past couple of centuries, it might be too much for our weakened constitution.)
We were also reminded, reassuringly, that this latest diktat was pronounced only after “close consultation” with several members of Congress. (I haven’t yet found the part of the Constitution that says the Executive can rewrite duly enacted law provided he has “consulted” his political allies in Congress, but I figure it must be in there someplace. Otherwise, people would be rioting in the streets by this point, right?)
So yes, there is still a tinge of caution there, a sense that, as he’s so fond of saying, there will be “consequences” if he goes too far with this. I don’t for a moment imagine that it rises to anything resembling shame — not this man — but still, perhaps, there is a wariness about limits. If nobody sets any, that won’t be a problem much longer.
Anyway, soon he’ll really be able to get his groove on. This November will be the last time that Mr. Obama will have to worry at all about a national election. After that, he’ll have more flexibility.
19 Comments
He is as stupefyingly”Ž predictable as he is predictably stupid. He is a disgrace to all of his predecessors, including Buchanan, Nixon, and even the execrable Carter.
President Nixon thought that Congress spent too much money, so he impounded funds allocated for programs he didn’t like, directing the Treasury to not pay the bills. President Reagan really, really wanted to give arms to the Contras, so he ignored the Boland Amendment and sold arms to Iran to fund it, President Bush didn’t care much for those pesky FISA restrictions on warrantless surveillance, so he did what he wanted anyway, Congress be damned. During the course of his administration, he identified over 700 laws which he declared his intention not to enforce. These are examples of actual abuse of executive power, which were met with yawns by conservatives (except for George Schultz, who told Reagan that Iran-Contra would be an impeachable offense).
By contrast, President Obama’s phasing in of ACA is entirely legitimate and within historical precedent, as the following article helpfully explains:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-20/obamacare-rewrites-of-health-law-rile-republicans.html
The Left is a repository for Obama’s ideology and a suppository for Obama’s proctology.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfl55GgHr5E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AtoHdiPfnY
Ah, nothing like a little tu quoque when all else fails. I can’t say where you might have got the impression that I’d think that citing abuses of power by previous U.S. presidents would make it OK for Mr. Obama to behave like a caudillo, but since you mention it, I do seem to recall there being a spot of bother from the Left about that Iran-Contra business — and rightly so. (I also recall the Republicans being called “hostage-takers” and “terrorists” just for asking for a legal approach to exactly the same delays that Mr. Obama has since imposed by his imperial whim, but that’s off-topic, I guess.)
But yes! Given the litany of sins you’ve just recited (and all the Democratic ones you’ve curiously omitted), maybe we can agree that it’s time for our laws actually to mean something. If they can’t be enacted when the law says they’re supposed to be, then maybe we should think about them a little more carefully before passing them, eh? After all, if the man who swears the oath won’t respect his own damn law, it seem a little unfair to expect the rest of us to.
As for your link: bollocks. There is absolutely no legal basis for Mr. Obama to do this, as this article helpfully explains. Laws should mean something; the institutionalized laxity described in your link merely sanctions chaos and executive caprice. It is the road to tyranny, where every right becomes a privilege, and the rule of law gives way to the whim of the despot. If that’s what we want, then fine — democracy is a deeply (probably fatally) flawed system, and maybe we’d be better off getting rid of it — but if so, genuine hierarchical rule can be done much better than this godawful mess.
You are one loyal pooch, Pete, and I admire that, but even your fellow liberals are deserting the ship. That last link was from the Washington Post. And here’s none other than Nat Hentoff.
Oh yeah? Well, Nixon was a badder man than Obama. And my dad can lick your dad. And you’re a doody pants.
So there!
Come on, Henry. You’re a smart guy; you can do better than just to bang your spoon on your tray.
A mockery too far.
My bad.
In an ideal world, laws would be executed on the timetables established by Congress. In the world we live in, the exigencies of implementing a complex piece of legislation often require that they be phased in, rather than go into effect all at once. Such delays are at most technical violations, but not substantive ones, as common sense trumps the letter of the law. As the author in your linked piece reports: “the Obama Administration is not the first to take liberties with the laws it is charged with executing, and it will not be the last.”
Nixon’s impounding of Congressional authorizations, Iran Contra, Bush’s warrantless wiretaps, and 700+ signing statements are all substantive violations of Congressional intent. They are deliberate attempts to subvert the will of Congress (and with Iran Contra and FISA, they were kept secret to avoid detection). By contrast, ACA delays are entirely congruent with the intent of the law: expanding coverage, rationalizing a dysfunctional health care system, reducing health care inflation, and so forth.. If Obama’s transgressions are misdemeanors, the actions of Nixon, Reagan, and Bush are felonies carrying life without parole.
There is no tu quoque here, because there is no equivalency between phasing in the implementation of a law and grossly violating the spirit and intent of a law. These examples provide a stark illustration of the difference between the ways that conservatives are insouciant when one of their own grossly violates the separation of powers, while trivial actions by progressives are blown out of all proportion and falsely characterized as tyranny and despotism.
The other errors in your post are just as easy to point out.
While there was “a spot of bother from the Left about that Iran-Contra business,” there was an entirely different reaction from the dark side. Oliver North was treated as a national hero.
Republicans were not characterized as terrorists and hostage-takers for writing legislation to delay the mandates. They were characterized as terrorists and hostage-takers for shutting down the government and threatening default to achieve policy objectives they did not have the votes to achieve through the normal legislative process.
The Washington Post is home to several right wing bloggers, most notably Jennifer Rubin. Suggesting that WaPo is abandoning Obama is like saying that the Times opposes his agenda because Douthat and Brooks are regular contributors. If “fellow liberals” are deserting Obama, it doesn’t show up in his approval ratings, which have been steady at around 40%. Nor is this important: his approval ratings will probably decline for the remainder of his Presidency, and then gradually increase once he is out of office.
Ultimately Obamacare and the other achievements of the Obama administration will be widely recognized, and conservatives will follow the path outlined by J. B. S. Haldane: “I suppose the process of acceptance will pass through the usual four stages: i) This is worthless nonsense, ii) This is an interesting, but perverse, point of view, iii) This is true, but quite unimportant, iv) I always said so.”
They simply said, in perfect conformance with the way the legislative bodies of the United States are supposed to work: “you expect us to supinely acquiesce, to discard our aims and principles, and give you whatever you want. We, on the other hand, would like, in exchange for giving you what you want, a small thing: to delay the implementation of certain burdensome provisions of the ACA.” The president and Harry Reid refused to compromise, and so the government was briefly shut down. Later, he waved his hand, on no discernable Constitutional authority, and implemented just what the Republicans had so reasonably asked for, and did so for the most transparently obvious political purposes, disguised as concern for ameliorating the devastating consequences of the ill-conceived law he and his accomplices shoved down our throats.
As for the rest of your comment, I don’t recall being “insouciant” about Iran-contra, or Watergate, or any of the other historical excesses we might be able to dig up; I don’t remember commenting on them at all. (If I had, it would not have been with approval.) I will say, though, that I agree with Nat Hentoff and a great many others that the malfeasances of this administration, which I will not bother to enumerate here because it would take so long, are anything but “trivial”, and that Mr. Obama has habitually violated the “spirit and intent” of the laws he so shamelessly disregards.
Your loyalty, however, to this awful man — this grotesque incompetent, this subversive fraud, this preening and malevolent narcissist, this despiser of American tradition and implacable enemy of everything the U.S.A. was built upon and once stood for — is so unshakeable in its canine fidelity that we are very unlikely indeed to make any progress in this discussion. Either you see what this person is, and what he is really trying to do, or you don’t; I’ve done what I can to open your eyes. If you do see what he really is, and what he is trying to make of America, and can still be so doggedly, reflexively, uncritically defensive of anything and everything he does, then our our axioms are so incommensurable that further conversation about any of this is pointless. Even if Barack Obama were literally caught red-handed in an act of brutal murder, I have a feeling that if I were to point it out to you, you’d just tell me about something else that “conservatives” had given George Bush a pass on.
Regarding your last paragraph: this administration will be looked back upon as the final turning point, as the time in history when the arc of American greatness turned at last from ascent to irrevocable decline, and ultimately to decay and disintegration. It will be seen as the moment when, under the leadership of a vainglorious man of low character, full of seething resentment and base ambition, the fatal and inevitable weaknesses of democracy finally overcame a once-great nation and people.
Obama as Tiberius Gracchus?
Far too kind.
I realize I seem to have an almost intemperate antipathy toward this man — but he is a very familiar and very dangerous type, and for such as he to hold the Presidency for two terms at this juncture in our history is, in my opinion, a catastrophe from which the nation will not recover. It is deeply disturbing to me that so many people whom I otherwise respect can fall so completely under his spell.
That said, it may be that the problem is really where we’ve got to in our history, and in the descent of our national character, regardless of who the President is. On that view, Mr. Obama is just an opportunistic pathogen.
“opportunistic pathogen” a new and unique descriptor. Very well said, and extremely apt. (This from a guy with two years of med school)
Malcolm,
May I have your permission to quote portions of the comment you “Posted March 6, 2014 at 3:50 pm”?
Thanks, Bill.
And sure, Henry. Quote anything you like, anytime. I did get pretty warmed-up in that one, I guess. It’ll probably cost me a tax audit.
Oy.
I wish I could say you took the words out of my mouth. But I can’t. It’s what I’ve been shooting for since 2008, but you got it exactly right.
“This Awful Man“