We can't wait. Finally, President Obama has had enough of what he rightly calls an "increasingly dysfunctional Congress." Over the past week, he has begun to use his own authority to issue executive orders to move reforms the country desperately needs. "Where they won't act, I will."
He's issued orders that will help an estimated 1.6 million college students pay off their student loans, assist an estimated 1 million homeowners renegotiate their mortgages, help thousands of veterans find a job. He's established an online center to help small businesses looking for export markets. And Monday, he issued an executive order designed to help seniors with prescription drugs that are in short supply, calling on the Federal Food and Drug Administration to increase monitoring, move more rapidly to adjust production when needed, and using the Justice Department to crack down on corporate collusion or price fixing.
By issuing executive orders, the president takes the offensive, instead of waiting on Congress to act. When the Republican Congress repeatedly refuses to act on the president's initiatives, the public sees a government that doesn't work.
The tendency is to blame both sides, so the obstructionist strategy works. Congress has earned the lowest levels of public approval ever, but approval of the president has declined, as well. If your overriding goal is to ensure that Obama is a one-term president, as Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced, then obstruction of needed reforms makes a perverse sense, even if it virtually guarantees a stagnant economy, mass unemployment and declining wages.
But by acting, the president stops banging his head against that wall. Instead, he demonstrates what he is fighting for, where his priorities are -- and he exposes what that partisan wall in Congress is blocking. He takes the offense -- and that makes Republicans uncomfortable, as demonstrated by Republican House Budget Chair Rep. Paul Ryan complaining at the Heritage Foundation about the president practicing the "politics of division."
Governance by executive order goes back to George Washington, who issued the first order in 1789. Of all the presidents since Washington, Obama actually has issued the fewest executive orders. But the Constitution allows a president to protect the nation's interest from a Congress in rebellion.
The leaders of the opposition party have proved their priority is not jobs, not public health for all, not stopping foreclosure, and not stopping onerous loans for students but is only to stop the president.
The orders allow the president to take initiative, but there are severe limits. The president cannot appropriate funds by executive order. Any order he issues can be erased by the Congress, the courts, or by a later executive order.
Obama's orders can't take the steps we need to alleviate the mortgage crisis or to forestall the coming student loan debacle. He can't put people to work on his own hook. At the end of the day, we still need Congress to act to create jobs and get this economy going.
But Senate Republicans filibustered to block even a debate on the president's jobs plan. In a stagnant economy, they have stalled action to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance and to keep teachers and cops on the jobs.
Ending these programs will cost jobs -- and quite possibly tilt a staggering economy back into a recession.
So, the president has no choice but to keep pushing.
Follow Rev. Jesse Jackson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/revjjackson
I have 250 words to respond. Thank you for your service. I marched with you in 1975 in Philadelphia. The city was cutting out arts programs. You looked me dead in the eyes while I looked you dead in your soul and I loved you then, as I thank you now. I won't comment on Obama's current tactical dilemma du jour, the theme of your post, because -- as my favorite saxophone player said, you are the Country Preacher. Obama's (our) travail will be outlasted by the longer period wave happening in history, the emergence of full democracy in the world, which began in Birmingham. On a bus of all places. In 2016, and maybe earlier (God forbid), the names will change, but the struggle and those like you who have sustained an impossibly long commitment to improving democracy will be on the playing field. Marching, teaching, writing, and adding earning my thanks. And participation. On one of those marches, I'll look into your eyes and you ought to be able to see the soul looking back that you have inspired.
Do you understand?
Donations from the big banks, corporations, health care industry etc, etc??
Pretty disgraceful in my opinion, now that his job is up, and approval is tanking, now he wants our support again. Sorry Rev, fed up. Good luck with whoever comes in in 2012.
It was pretty much inevitable. Obama spent us into bankruptcy,he couldnt get his approval rating any lower, and it pops back up a couple of points, and the number of people working increases because of aliens and he claims the credit and the media says we are recovering and he becomes the rooster in the hen house.
Next step is for michelle to end the PR stunts that keep failing and go back to what see does best, hate YT and eat lobster in exotic places. And then he gets re-elected.
And then we finally go down the toilet because the number of intelligent people who can see whats going on is below 30 percent.
The other 70 would drown in a bathtub without government programs. And if you think the first term of was scary, wait till you see the second round.
Obama will go after your guns and give the USA over to the United Nations completely and try to burn the constitution.
Best be ready for all that with whatever reaction is appropriate to preserve the constitution if possible. This is the scariest president the world has ever seen.
So far. He reminds me of a 600 mile wide pavement grader going 200 miles an hour started at Miami and headed for Seattle that somebody left running and then hopped off of to start a drinking binge.
We blacks have tried to build small businesses only to have them torn apart by health care and regulations.
1. The Democrats didn't create a Jobs Bill
2. The Democrats refuse to raise the debt limit
So who fault is that
That's great for those 1 million homeowners who can renegotiate their mortgage, but what about the other 5-10 million who cannot? The best way for this President to help homeowners is to stop pressuring the Attorneys General to enter into a settlement with the banks and servicing agencies that gives everyone who committed fraudulent and criminal acts during the housing bubble and current foreclosure crisis a free pass. He needs to encourage them, along with the federal agencies involved like the OCC, HUD and Justice Department, to actively and aggressively investigate the mortgage practices in originations, securitizations and foreclosures - and to prosecute anyone and everyone who is found to have committed those acts. Perp walks and jail time is what this country needs to see every day before we can start trusting that our government is working for us instead of against us.
The Attorneys General then need to use their powers to place moratoriums on any and all foreclosures until after they truly investigate and punish the criminals. Then, and only then, can they, or should they, begin negotiations to appropriately compensate the victims in their states.
The secretary of the department affected by each of the executive order should do a media round for several of the days following the announcements to keep the order in the news. The public’s mind is short and needs to be reminded numerous times.
Also, it would help if several democratic senators or representatives would occasionally do a media round giving some support to parts if not all of the American Jobs Bill. The President is doing a good job but he needs HELP. There are plenty republican voices stating how the plan will not work……..there should be an equal number of democratic voices stating that it will work.
If he wants a second term, he's got make some serious commitments to the core democratic values, draw clear and distinct lines in the sand and DELIVER.
Action is what is needed, words don't suffice anymore.