Tag Archives: White House

Uncategorized

Self-awareness has gone AWOL in Senate

The Huffington Post has taken note of a patently hilarious reaction to the deal struck by the Senate to end the government shutdown, which also increases the national debt limit.

It is that the U.S. Senate comprises 100 individuals who have next to zero self-awareness.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/16/senate-budget-crisis_n_4112253.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

There they were, applauding themselves for all the hard they did in getting the deal done. The applause seems to ignore the reality of what brought us to the brink of fiscal calamity — which was the senators’ role, along with the House of Representatives, in creating the problem in the first place.

Indeed, watching Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell pat each other — and themselves — on the back for all that work will present late-night comedians plenty of grist for the foreseeable future.

None of this needed to happen. None of the federal employees who were furloughed without pay needed to suffer. The nation did not need to endure this drama. Americans did not need to wonder whether their retirement accounts were going to evaporate because Congress and the White House couldn’t reach a deal sooner.

The deal struck, let us remember, provides only a short-term relief. More drama is just around the corner.

And for this the Senate is congratulating itself?

Give me a break.

Uncategorized

Why are we dickering and bickering over debt ceiling?

I’m still scratching my head.

President Obama makes sense when he says that the White House and Congress shouldn’t be negotiating over whether to increase the nation’s debt limit.

Still, here we are. Three days until our borrowing limit hits its maximum. We’re on the verge of defaulting on our national debt obligations. The implications of defaulting for the first time in our nation’s history are cataclysmic, if you believe the hundreds of non-partisan economists around the world.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/14/politics/shutdown-showdown/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Do those cranky members of Congress fail to grasp how angry they’re going to make millions of Americans — including yours truly — if they allow our retirement accounts to get flushed down the toilet?

Do they not read the papers — and other “mainstream media” outlets, for that matter — that tell them their standing among the public is at an all-time low? An NBC-Wall Street Journal poll puts Congress’s standing at 5 percent.

Ladies and gentlemen of Congress, listen up: You work for us. We are your bosses. We can fire you whenever the opportunity presents itself. That opportunity is coming up in about, oh, a year from now when we the entire House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate is up for election.

Why, indeed, are you negotiating over this matter?

Uncategorized

GOP fails to heed the message

Two new polls should turn congressional Republicans downright apoplectic.

The Associated Press/GFK poll puts congressional approval at 5 percent. That’s bad enough. Now comes a new Gallup Poll that says 28 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the GOP, a record low for the Gallup organization.

http://news.msn.com/us/poll-republicans-get-the-blame-in-shutdown

To be sure, Democrats aren’t faring much better. Public opinion surveys are blaming Congress — not the White House or the president — for the government mess that now threatens to blow the economy to smithereens.

And by Congress, I mean members of both parties.

However, since Republicans control the budget-writing arm of the legislative branch — the House of Representatives — they are going to get bulk of the blame if the parties fail to agree on a way to reopen parts of the government and increase the nation’s debt ceiling.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-on-the-potomac/2013/10/republican-approval-rating-falls-to-lowest-point-in-gallup-poll-history/

Some of us keep harping on the obvious: The GOP strategy, which has been all but abandoned, of trying to link defunding of the Affordable Care Act to approving a new budget is a sure loser. Smart Republicans keep harping on that to the wild-eyed crazies comprising the tea party wing of their party.

Now they’re messing with the debt limit, even suggesting that defaulting on our nation’s financial obligations isn’t that big of a deal.

I do believe it is a very big deal.

Failure to resolve this matter is going to wipe out what’s left of the GOP’s paltry support.

Uncategorized

House speaker is held hostage

I can’t believe what I’m about to say … but I’m actually beginning to feel a little sorry for U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

He’s being held hostage by a cabal of his Republican caucus, the tea party wing of his party. He seems powerless to do anything about it.

At issue is this partial government shutdown. House of Representatives Republicans — or shall I say a minority of their members — dislike the Affordable Care Act so much they want to attach defunding mechanisms to any spending bills, which is a non-negotiable item to House and Senate Democrats, not to mention the Big Democrat in the White House, the president of the United States.

The tea party wing has Boehner scared. He doesn’t want to rile them. He doesn’t want to lose his speakership over this issue. So he’s being forced to go along with what they want.

Boehner is the Man of the House, if you will. He is one of 233 Republicans who comprise a majority of the 435 members who serve there. Each of them represents roughly 700,000 Americans, given that the Constitution requires each member’s district to be apportioned equally.

So, a country of some 310 million or so citizens is being “governed,” more or less, by a group of lawmakers whose combined constituency accounts for about 21 million Americans. Let’s see, that amounts to a good bit less than 10 percent of the country, correct?

Let’s play this out a little further. Republicans control one legislative chamber. Democrats control the other one. The White House is being occupied by a Democrat, who appoints a staff and a Cabinet of like-minded individuals, which the Constitution allows him to do. The third branch of government, the judiciary, is ostensibly non-political, although partisans on both sides accuse the court system of comprising “judicial activists,” meaning they’re actually politicians in judges’ clothing.

President Obama tried the other day to make this point as the Affordable Care Act took effect. He said essentially that a “minority of a minority” is calling the shots.

If the House speaker could have his way, he’d bring this whole matter to a vote of the entire House — and the government shutdown could come to a halt. The park system and other “non-essential” offices could reopen, veterans could get their disability checks on time, Americans could get their passports. The government would become fully functional, serving the people whose money pays for it.

John Boehner can’t have his way. He’s being held captive by members of his own congressional caucus who — if you’ll pardon my borrowing this phrase from another tea party sweetheart, Sarah “Barracuda” Palin — have “gone rogue.”

This is no way to govern.

Uncategorized

VA: A federal agency that actually works

1 Comment

I come before you today to sing the praises of a federal government agency that actually delivers for the people it is intended to serve.

Yes, I realize such praise is highly unlikely on this day when much of the federal government has shut down because of crappy political posturing in our nation’s capital. I have to get this opinion off my chest.

I ventured to the Thomas E. Creek Veterans Affairs Health Care System in Amarillo this morning for a minor — and routine — dermatological procedure. The note I received the other day asked me to report 30 minutes early to ensure that the staff at the VA hospital could stay on time. I figured that was a good call, given that my appointment was in the late morning and it likely would be backed up no matter how early everyone got there.

So, I reported 30 minutes early. My appointment was at 11 a.m. At precisely 11, the nurse practitioner called my name and I went back to the room where she would perform the procedure. We exchanged a few pleasantries; the NP told me she recognized my name from my previous life as a newspaper columnist and offered a nice word about the work I did back then.

She asked about my military service. We talked some more as she filled out some paperwork. She cut the small lesion off my leg, told me what to take to ease the discomfort and said she’d have the results back from the lab in a few days.

I walked out the door at 11:25 a.m.

This event deserves mention today because the federal government gets pilloried almost every minute of every waking hour by those who have a bone to pick with some agency. The VA hospital in Amarillo is known throughout the Texas Panhandle — although I’m certain not unanimously — as an agency that performs beautifully.

The feds at every level — from the White House and Capitol Hill on down — are getting scorn heaped on them because of the shutdown of many key agencies. I would hate to be a tourist today who was hoping to spend a day at one of our national parks.

I’ve only been a VA patient for a few weeks. I enrolled in late spring; indeed, that process took less than 45 minutes from the moment I walked into the lobby to get it started. Thus, my experience with the VA has been fairly limited. I enjoy good health now and hope to sustain it well into my much older age, which should augur well for future appointments with the Department of Veterans Affairs medical establishment.

So, on this day when no one can predict when much of the federal government will work again — if ever — for the people who pay the freight, I want to hand out a bouquet to one agency that’s working just fine.

This veteran appreciates it.

Uncategorized

Follow John Kerry’s lead, Mr. President

I’m beginning to think President Obama needs to change the way he views his administration.

Instead of referring to everything and everyone who works within the administration in the first person singular — as in “my national security team” or “my administration” — the president needs to start using the first person plural.

Bill McKenzie, a columnist and blogger for the Dallas Morning News, is on point with his view that Secretary of State John Kerry has been more “out front” on the Syria crisis than the president.

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2013/09/obama-needs-the-moral-clarity-of-john-kerry-but-what-are-conservative-isolationists-thinking.html/

Obama needs to follow Kerry’s lead.

To do that, though, he’ll need to start adapting to the view that the administration and its policies don’t belong to the man at the top. It’s a shared responsibility. “Our administration,” or “our national security team” would be the more appropriate way to define the team that occupies the White House, the Pentagon, Foggy Bottom and all the other institutions that comprise the massive federal government.

It’s all been a part of one element of Barack Obama’s tenure in the White House that has bothered me. The president tends to treat the government he administers a tad too personally — as if it all belongs to him. He took ownership of the presidency the moment he took the oath of office. The reality, though, is that the office actually belongs to us, the people.

I’m sure y’all have heard him use the first person singular perhaps a bit too liberally during his more than four years in office. Well, he’s now facing arguably the worst crisis of his time in the White House since the very beginning, when he walked into a financial firestorm.

The Syria crisis is testing the president’s resolve. His secretary of state, however, seems to be speaking with tremendous moral authority, not to mention outrage over the Syrians’ use of chemical weapons.

The man in charge of things in D.C., Barack Obama, ought to adopt John Kerry’s outlook — while understanding that everyone on duty at this moment has a shared responsibility to find a solution to this crisis.

Uncategorized

How ’bout them ’72 Dolphins?

It’s a little late, but it ought to be welcome nevertheless.

President Obama is bringing one of the NFL’s most storied teams to the White House for a decidedly belated congratulatory visit. The 1972 Miami Dolphins are coming to town to be honored in a ceremony that should have occurred oh, about four decades ago.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/08/20/obama_to_give_72_dolphins_a_belated_salute_119645.html

The president at the time of the Dolphins’ historic season — in which they went 17-0, capping it off with a 14-7 win in the Super Bowl over the Washington Redskins — was Richard Nixon. He was vacationing in Florida and professed to be a Dolphins fan. He also had told Redskins coach George Allen that he was rooting for them to win the big game.

One other thing might have kept the president from inviting the Dolphins to the White House. Nixon was fresh off his smashing 1972 re-election victory, but was facing increasing scrutiny over the “third-rate burglary” that occurred the previous June at the Watergate Hotel.

President Nixon had other things on his mind, I reckon, and couldn’t be bothered with saluting the Miami Dolphins’ history-making season.

Barack Obama also is a big sports fan and isn’t bashful about bringing in sports teams or individual athletes to be honored.

I’m quite happy to see him honor the Dolphins. Forty years is a little late, but I’m sure this band of aging former athletes and coaches will enjoy the spotlight once again.