Tag Archives: White House

Obama vetoes ACA repeal bill; what now?

obamacare-1

Who didn’t see this one coming?

Nobody. That’s who.

President Barack Obama today vetoed a bill that would have repealed the Affordable Care Act and cut federal funds from Planned Parenthood.

This was the mother of political statements. And I’m not talking necessarily about the president’s veto.

I’m referring to Congress’s insistence that the ACA — also known as Obamacare — isn’t working, that it’s an albatross, that it represents a government overreach.

It’s also the president’s signature domestic policy achievement. He said all along — going back to other efforts by Republicans in Congress to repeal the law — that he’d veto any such bill if it got to his desk. It did . . . and he did.

I believe Congress needs at this time to cut its losses. It doesn’t have the votes to override the president’s veto, even with its GOP majority in both legislative chambers. Republicans need a two-thirds majority to override; they don’t have it in the Senate.

We’ve got an election coming up. We’ll have a new president a year from now. Depending on who the parties nominate, Congress might have a dramatically different look than it does today — particularly if the Republican presidential nominee happens to have the name Donald J. Trump.

The current Congress still must work with a Democratic president who — on this issue — has drawn a line deep into the dirt between the White House and Capitol Hill.

The Affordable Care Act is going to stay; moreover, the government will continue to provide public money to Planned Parenthood. Don’t mess with either of them.

Let’s get on to the many other complex issues facing the nation.

Tornadoes need federal, political attention

dallas-tornado-from-airport

My wife and I laughed — nervously, I’ll admit — earlier today at our good fortune as we prepare to haul our fifth wheel back home.

We left the Texas Panhandle just ahead of a severe winter storm that blew in from the northwest. We headed for the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex to spend Christmas day with our son, daughter-in-law and our three grandkids — only to watch while tornadoes ripped through the region the afternoon and evening after Christmas.

The tornadoes resulted in several deaths and untold destruction of property all around our kids’ home in Allen.

I’m not well-versed in what happens next, but the destruction would seem to require some federal help. I am aware that state governors have to ask for it but as I write this brief blog post, I am unclear about whether Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is going to seek federal help to clean up the mess that the tornadoes left behind.

President Obama is due to return to Washington in the next day or so. I want to extend an invitation for him to land Air Force One at D/FW airport and take a look at what happened out there.

And the other candidates for president? I’m aware that Republican contender Ted Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas, already has taken a gander at what occurred in his home state.

We’ve still got a bunch of presidential candidates seeking the office. Yes, they can come, too.

Will anything get done? Will there be relief to be delivered to the state? Can it be delivered without attaching strings, such as what occurred when Joplin, Mo., was devastated by tornadoes in 2011 and then-U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor demanded that Congress cut spending elsewhere to “pay” for the relief?

We’ve got a lot of presidential contenders out there on the campaign trail. We’ve also got a president who’ll be flying directly at Texas on his way back to the White House. Texas is a big and important state.

And we’ve got a lot of residents who at this moment likely would appreciate some comfort from words of encouragement and support.

 

 

Still pulling for Jeb

Jeb  Bush

John Ellis Bush, aka Jeb, is trying to goad Donald Trump into making more stupid pronouncements.

To be honest, I might be one of the few Americans, let alone non-Republicans, pulling for Jeb to get Trump’s goat.

Jeb wants Trump one-on-one, in a debate. Just the two of ’em. Man to man.

It won’t happen, of course, given federal election rules that prohibit the exclusion of other declared presidential candidates.

Jeb, though, is trying to inject some of the energy that Trump has said is missing from his campaign.

Why am I pulling for Jeb?

OK, a couple of reasons.

One is that I long have admired the man’s family and its history of public service to the country. I point specifically to his grandfather, the late Sen. Prescott Bush, and — of course — his dad, the 41st president of the United States, George H.W. Bush.

Daddy Bush — known as Poppy to his family — in my view was the most qualified man ever to serve as president. He brought a stellar public service resume to the White House.

The second reason is that while I didn’t vote for older brother George W. for any public office — as Texas governor or as president — I happen to like him personally. I’ve met the 43rd president on three occasions: once on an elevator in New Orleans during the 1988 GOP presidential convention; in a lengthy 1995 interview in Austin not many months after he became governor; and in 1998 when I interviewed him in Amarillo while he was seeking re-election as governor.

My face-to-face contact with George W. Bush persuaded me beyond a doubt that he got a  bum rap from those who accused him being a dim bulb. Bush proved to be an amazingly quick study as governor.

Will the younger Bush be able to energize his moribund campaign? I hope he does and I also hope he’s able to knock Donald J. Trump down a peg or four along the way.

I am not going to predict it will happen, but my version of hope does spring eternal.

 

 

 

President declares victory … over whom, what?

barack

It’s being reported tonight that President Obama today declared victory as he and his family took off out west on their family Christmas vacation.

I get that he’s anxious to finish his final full year as president on a high note. I question, though, whether there’s a victory yet to declare.

The president held his annual end-of-year press conference touting a few key victories: the Iran nuclear deal, the continuing enrollment of the Affordable Care Act, the recent budget deal worked out by Congress, re-establishing ties with Cuba, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and some other things.

They’ve all produced good signs of progress. But victory?

Not yet.

There’s still that ongoing fight with the Islamic State. He pledged yet again that the United States is hitting ISIL “harder than ever” and vowed to ramp up the pounding that U.S. and allied nations are delivering to the terrorist monsters. That fight is far from over. Indeed, it might never end. It won’t end by the time the current president leaves office and likely won’t end by the time the next one departs the White House.

It all reminds me of the time the late U.S. Sen. George Aiken, R-Vt., once declared that it would be in the best interest of the country to “declare victory” in Vietnam and just go home.

Well, at least don’t have to “go home.” Still, there’s much more work to do before the 44th president hands the White House keys over the 45th.

Enjoy the time with your family, Mr. President. Come on back, though, and get to work.

Oh … and Merry Christmas to you as well.

 

A congressional breakthrough … maybe?

Pelosi-Ryan-jpg

A single dinner involving two political leaders of opposing parties likely doesn’t signal much all by itself.

It might portend a potential thaw in relations on Capitol Hill. I reiterate … it might.

Newly elected House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., invited House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to his Capitol Hill office for a two-hour get-together. They had a meal in the office and talked a little shop and got to know each other a little better.

What does this mean?

It might be a precursor to some actual progress in Congress between political leaders who’ve been fighting each other — often using some intemperate language to describe the other sides’ motives and intentions.

Democrats and Republicans are battling at the moment over a new budget. They did manage to cobble together a five-day stopgap measure that keeps the government running … but only for a short time. More bargaining is due in the next few days for everyone to agree on a $1.1 trillion federal budget that funds the government through most of next year.

Oh yeah. It’s also an election year.

Ryan and Pelosi reportedly don’t know each other well. This meal in Ryan’s office was billed as sort of an ice-breaker.

Where do we go from here? That remains anyone’s guess.

Congress, though, needs to figure out a way to assert its constitutional responsibility to actually govern. There’s been too much fighting between the parties, not to mention between the majority party — that would be the Republicans — and the White House.

The president must share responsibility in this ongoing inability to find common ground. However, just as members of Congress want to take credit for the good things that happen, they also need to take responsibility for the negative occurrences.

Ryan and Pelosi likely aren’t going to become best friends forever — aka BFFs. A dinner, though, well might set the stage for a new working relationship that restores the concept of good government to Capitol Hill.

GOP turns on itself over immigration

anti-immigration

It’s fascinating to the max to watch what has happened to today’s Republican Party.

It is at war with itself. Immigration is the catalyst that has ignited the spark among the gaggle of GOP pols seeking the party’s presidential nomination.

There once was a time when Democrats were torching each other. The Vietnam War split Democrats between the Hawk Wing and the Dove Wing. Stay the course in ‘Nam or get the hell out of there … immediately if not sooner!

Well, the intraparty division sent Democrats into the presidential electoral wilderness for a time. Then Watergate occurred and the nation elected Democrat Jimmy Carter for a single term in 1976; Republican Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980 launched a 12-year run of GOP White House control.

Democrats are relatively united these days.

Republicans? They’re fighting like the dickens over immigration.

Two of the main protagonists are Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida. Rubio has accused Cruz of endorsing “amnesty” for illegal immigrants.

Cruz has fired back with his own allegations that Rubio has flip-flopped on the issue.

It’s all quite fun to watch, at least it is to me.

Cruz and Rubio both are playing semantics over what they — and each other — have said about immigration. Cruz seeks to become the most conservative of the Gang of 14 (GOP presidential candidates) on the issue. I don’t know what Rubio is trying to do, other than trying to muddy up Cruz’s stated positions on immigration.

They both share a common dislike of President Obama’s policies, which include granting temporary amnesty to millions of undocumented immigrants while sparing the children who were brought here by their parents illegally the misery of being kicked out of the only country they’ve ever called home; that would be the United States of America.

I don’t know when the pendulum will swing back to the old ways of Democrats tearing each other’s lungs out. I guess it will … eventually. For now, though, leave it to those silly Republicans to provide the entertainment.

 

Reid weighs in on Rubio’s (lack of) attendance

Senator Marco Rubio of Florida speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at National Harbor, Maryland March 14, 2013. Two senators seen as possible candidates for the 2016 presidential election will address a conservative conference where Republicans will try to regroup on Thursday after their bruising election loss last year.  REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque  (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS) - RTR3EZQO

Is it really and truly the business of the Senate minority leader to comment on the attendance record of one of his colleagues?

Well, yes it is.

Harry Reid is a Nevada Democrat; Marco Rubio is a Florida Republican. Reid said this week that Rubio ought to quit his Senate seat if he’s going to keep running for president of the United States.

Why does it matter to Reid?

Well, it matters to Reid because it ought to matter to all Americans. Senator are federal employees. They get paid $174,000 annually from the federal Treasury, into which we all contribute with our tax money.

Rubio has indicated he doesn’t much like serving in the Senate. It’s too, um, tedious for the young man. He wants to become the Leader of the Free World, to make things happen in a hurry. He’s not seeking re-election to the Senate in 2016.

Reid’s call is on point, as Rubio keep racking up no-shows on Senate votes.

A newspaper in Rubio’s home state, the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, has called on Rubio to quit. He’s ripping off the state’s taxpayers and his constituents, the Sun-Sentinel said. And this is a paper that endorsed Rubio when he ran for the office in 2010.

Let’s be clear: Rubio isn’t the first rookie senator to take a pass on doing his day job while looking for a better-paying public service gig. Sen. Barack Obama did the same thing in 2007-2008 when he ran for president. Should he have quit his Senate seat when he ran for the White House? Yeah, probably. But that’s all water over the dam now.

What’s on the table now is whether Marco Rubio should keep collecting that fat — taxpayer-subsidized — salary without doing much of the work that’s required of him.

Hit the road, Sen. Rubio. Campaign for president all you want, but do it on your own time … not ours.

 

Memo to Marco: Quit your day job

Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., presides over Senate Foreign Relations Committee, subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights, And Global Women's Issues hearing on overview of U.S. policy towards Haiti prior to the elections, Wednesday, July 15, 2015, on Capitol Hill in Washington.   (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Marco Rubio doesn’t like his day job.

Too bad. He ought to quit and concentrate on the other job he is seeking.

He’s a United States senator from Florida seeking to become president of the United States.

Rubio told the Washington Post that the Senate frustrates him. His friends and close associates say he “hates” the Senate. It’s too slow. Too bound by procedure. Too this and too that. Rubio is a young man on the move and he wants a job that will enable him to get things done in a hurry.

Rubio wants out of a job that pays him a pretty handsome salary, about 175 grand annually. But now that he’s seeking the presidency, he’s been off the Senate grid for most of the year.

His Senate absenteeism has drawn fire from the home folks. According to the Post: “On the campaign trail, Rubio comes under attack from rivals who say he’s become an absentee federal employee. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, in a less-than-subtle knock on his former homestate ally, has said senators who miss work should have their pay docked.

“’It’s just, kind of, like, dude, you know, either drop out or do something,’ Bush’s son, Jeb Bush Jr., told New York University College Republicans earlier this month, in comments first reported by Politico Florida. The junior Bush, a Floridian, cast himself as an aggrieved constituent. ‘We’re paying you to do something, it ain’t run for president.’”

I don’t begrudge the Republican senator for wanting to seek higher office. I’ve noted already that other senators have done the same thing.

But the way I see it, if Rubio dislikes the job he has so much that he’s willing to admit it publicly, then perhaps it’s time for him to quit that job., let the governor of his state appoint a suitable successor — who’ll do the job and actually earn that six-figure salary — and then devote all his waking-hours energy to seeking that White House gig.

Rubio already has declared he won’t seek re-election to the Senate next year. He’s decided one term is enough.

Here, though, is a bit of history that Rubio should consider.

In the event he gets elected president next year, he’s likely to find that the presidency is hamstrung as well by certain processes. An anecdotal story has been bandied about Washington for the past 50-plus year about how another young, go-go senator got elected president and became frustrated that he couldn’t snap his fingers to get things done instantaneously.

President John F. Kennedy learned that his new job tied his hands on occasion and that he had to learn to work through the process. Then again, he hated the Senate, too.

Give up your day job, Marco.

Trump causes fits with his poll fetish

trumpdonaldtwo09192015getty

Donald Trump has a poll fetish that is second to none.

The Republican presidential candidate keeps harping on his standing in the polls, which might be the most fascinating measure of how unconventional a politician he truly has become.

Pols say they don’t care about polls. Not Trump. He loves ’em, especially when they show him leading the GOP pack as they have since almost the moment he entered the contest.

The New York Times, though, reports that Trump is giving hints of a possible “exit strategy” once the polls start to give way to other front runners.

Trump is no masochist, he said on “Meet the Press” not long ago, meaning that he won’t stay in the race if it becomes clear he won’t win his party’s presidential nomination.

You know, this is giving me fits.

I do not believe Trump is remotely qualified to become Leader of the Free World. On every level imaginable, he is unfit for the highest office in the land … if not the world.

His campaign has generated many more laughs than serious talking points.

However — and I don’t think I’m alone in this — I really don’t want him to exit the campaign. His insults, gaffes and remarkable intemperance are giving his Republican opponents — not to mention the rest of us — lots of grist to toss around.

Is he plotting a possible way out of this campaign?

In the longer term, probably so.

In this crazy, goofy and unpredictable campaign season, though, I’m half-hoping he stays in it for a while longer.

 

VP teeters on brink of huge decision

biden

Vice President Joe Biden is giving me heartburn.

Will he run for president in 2016 … or not?

I’ll stipulate up front that I’m not going to predict what he’ll do. I didn’t think Democrat Hillary Clinton would run for the U.S. Senate in 2000 after she and her husband left the White House; she did. I thought Republican Colin Powell might run for president in 1996; he didn’t.

I’ve waffled on the vice president’s immediate political future so much I’m giving myself motion sickness.

Biden ponders run

Part of me wants him to run. I happen to like the vice president and admire his long record of public service — gaffes and all.

He’s experienced immense personal tragedy, with the deaths in 1972 of his wife and daughter in a car crash that injured his two sons; then came the death of his older son, Beau, of brain cancer just a few months ago.

Biden has shown courage and grace in the face of these tragic events.

Another part of me, though, wants him to avoid being labeled for the rest of his life as a “loser” if he fails to win the Democratic nomination. Clinton is the frontrunner, although she’s been damaged by controversy involving e-mails and Benghazi. Biden has run twice already, in 1988 and again in 2008.

Joe Biden isn’t the perfect alternative to Clinton, but he’ more perfect than, say, socialist U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who’s polling quite well these days head to head against Clinton.

Only the vice president and his family know what he’ll decide. He’s expected to announce his plans within the next 10 days or so.

As tempting as it is in this forum to try to guess out loud what he’ll do, I’ll remain quiet. It’s Joe Biden’s call to make all by himself.

It’s clear that Biden wants to be president. It’s not at all clear whether he believes he’s got what it takes to derail the frontrunner.

I’m trying to imagine the immense pressure that accompanies a decision like the one facing the vice president. I can’t comprehend it.

You do what your heart tells you to do, Mr. Vice President.