Discussion for article #242418
Well, there goes about half the GOP’s source of drama-queen soundbites and political brinksmanship.
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And for two whole cycles!
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Consider what this agreement means.
President Obama and the Democratic Congressional minority have just gotten nearly everything they wanted from the Republican majority, and have protected their funding and policy priorities from what was expected to be a Tea Party/Freedom Caucus gut job.
No more arbitrary spending caps from the sequester. No more hostages or shutdowns until at least 2017.
It continues a trend of President Obama and Democratic victories.
Last month President Obama publicly vetoed the Republicans’ NDAA bill and sent it back to Congress to better address military preparedness and to remove accounting tricks to hide wasteful and unneeded military spending.
Several weeks ago, President Obama and the Democratic Congressional minority were able to uphold the Iran nuclear deal despite majority opposition, because earlier this year they insisted that they would only agree to a Congressional “review” that led to a vote on disapproval – and not on an approval, which would have been unlikely or impossible to achieve.
Also, early this year, a bipartisan bill which ended the Medicare “Doc Fix” passed with comfortable majorities – after being kicked down the road for more than 15 years.
And in advance of the Paris climate talks scheduled for December, despite promises by Republican leadership to kill proactive efforts by the Obama administration, emissions-cutting pledges submitted by 146 countries – that cover nearly 90% of global emissions – could cut average global emissions per capita of greenhouse gases by up to 8 percent by 2025 and 9 percent by 2030 compared with 1990 levels, a U.N. assessment found, and are a good step toward achieving an international global warming goal, the U.N. climate chief said.
And despite Republican obstruction on increasing the federal minimum wage, dozens of local and state governments have done just that in response to President Obama’s urging.
And in spite of intense opposition from labor leaders and Democrats, a draft for the Trans Pacific Partnership multilateral trade agreement was recently signed by 12 Asian and Pacific nations and is awaiting review by Congress.
It’s still early, but we finally may be turning a corner on government by crisis and hostage taking.
Too often we get disappointed seeing the short-term political gains the Republicans have reaped in recent years by demonizing the scary black man President Obama: winning both branches of Congress and a majority of state governments, and successfully blocking much of the Democrats’ agenda.
But here’s the good news: the Republicans are losing – and deep down they know it – and President Obama is winning.
Obama, in his upbeat, even-tempered, professional way, is prodding moderates and independents to rethink their political ideologies, encouraging Democrats to sharpen their focus and rethink their priorities and strategies, and inviting independents and moderate Republicans – and even conservatives --to join him in crafting sensible compromises and solutions to the problems that face us all.
In doing so he is exposing and isolating the extremists as those unwilling to do the hard work of coalition-building and self-government, and making a mockery of the “lame duck” meme.
It has been a long game, yes, and maybe not as immediately satisfying to some Democrats and liberals who would have preferred him to play the part of the stereotypical angry young black rabble rouser.
But with his economic policies that laid the groundwork for recovery, in his domestic policies that protected – and expanded – the social safety net, and in his foreign policies that ended the threat of an Iranian nuclear weapon and the neocon policy of preemptive wars, and which pivoted our focus from the Middle East quagmire to the increasingly important Pacific Rim, he is reviving the dream of the American Century and confronting the illusory neocon dream of American Empire.
And when the history of this era is written, President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Majority Leader Reid will be lionized as the most productive and progressive force in a generation.
What they achieved in just a brief period of time with a small Democratic majority, and with razor-thin votes in Congress, hasn’t been matched since the early years of LBJ’s term. And what they’ve done to protect their priorities since the Republicans won majorities in Congress has been remarkable.
Moreover, since the Republicans succeeded in taking over both chambers of Congress in 2014, Obama has racked up an impressive string of successes:
- Signed an executive order on immigration which affects an estimated 4-5 million people;
- Released stringent new pollution regulations governing the nation’s coal-fired power plants;
- Got a favorable FCC order safeguarding Net Neutrality;
- Eased travel restrictions with Cuba and started talks on normalizing relations;
- Reached a historic agreement with China – the world’s largest polluter – on climate change and emissions, visa reform, trade deal (on tariffs), and an agreement to avert military confrontation;
- Got an understanding with India and Brazil, among the world’s largest polluters, on limiting greenhouse gas emissions;
- Vetoed Keystone XL Pipeline fast-track bill and prevailed at a veto over-ride attempt;
- Got DHS funded for the full fiscal year, along with the rest of his budget;
- Dollar at very high levels, despite the gloom-and-doom warnings of tight-money advocates, and which promises to inject more foreign capital into the US;
- ACA enrollment increased this year to 16 million, lowering the percentage of uninsured Americans to just nine percent;
- 67 consecutive months of job growth;
- Seven states and 30 cities take up Obama’s call and raise their minimum wage;
- Obamacare survives second Supreme Court challenge;
- Gay marriage now legal in all 50 states;
- Iran nuclear agreement survives Congressional vote; and
- Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement signed by 12 countries and is now awaiting review by Congress.
This was not supposed to happen. Obama was supposed to be a lame duck, demoralized and irrelevant going into 2015. But Obama refuses to play the game by the Republicans’ rules, and in so doing he highlights their inaction and fecklessness.
Worse for them, President Obama is setting the agenda going into the election season.
Much remains to be done. This work will take years and future administrations, but the groundwork is being laid. And Obama is preparing and inspiring a new generation of leadership with his management style, which the Republicans deride as “leading from behind” but which is actually a progressive form of leadership that involves a sharing of power that comes from mutual respect and not domination over others.
It is not apparent now, but it will become apparent in retrospect a generation from now, that we are living in the Age of Obama.
EDITED AND UPDATED
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Recherche des temps perdu, indeed! Governing like it used to be before Newt Gingrich and his American Contractors badly remodeled Congressional politics and bi-partisan comity.
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This is an agreement on the top-line numbers. The Republicans can still screw things up by not passing the appropriations bills on time (or even the continuing resolutions), or they can simply go back on the agreement and put in a whole different set of numbers.
Yep his wins means WE win!
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Did I just shit my pants?! I think I just shit my pants. Can you smell it? I think I smell it. Is that doughnut jelly filled?
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Worst President evah! I mean, I never got my PONY!
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They’ll just pretend it didn’t happen and False News will back them up.
Thanks for this in-depth description of the president’s accomplishments in the face of being called diffident or unengaged, and in particular recognizing the impatience of those who want him to be a flame thrower. .
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Thank you, littlegirlblue, I feel it’s important that we recognize success in order to combat the sense of hopelessness, apathy and despair so often engendered by the media and the ravages of the political process, and also to give us the hope we’ll need to tackle the job of building on those successes.
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Sit yourself down over the next rainy weekend, and take your time reading all the fine print.
If the Grumpy Old Party and the Obama White House got together on this, it means that someone with no money (or very little of it) is getting screwed sometime in the next year or two.
Banner headlines like this never cover all the things that the GOP gives with the right hand while Obama allows them to take away with the left hand.
Let’s see a front page story on who gets gypped out of how much while this is made to look so good.
It’s all smoke and mirrors. And as usual, no one is looking for the fires that make the smoke.
Can you be a little more specific?
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Suck it, Tea Party. Also, thanks for your total inability to restrain yourselves in the slightest.
Edit: I’m hoping the billionaires getting so visibly involved in politics suffer a similar fate for similar reasons. That might be too much to hope for, but maybe the crazy billionaires trying to turn the US into a christian theocracy will go over a cliff. Please.
Great list. Those of us (just me?) who don’t have many of these mentally stored for ready retrieval would do well to commit some suitable ones to memory for the times you are talking to an uncommitted voter or to a would-be Dem voter who avoids voting because “the parties aren’t much different.”
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That debt-ceiling thing–I thought it was flexible. This time around, the Treasury said one date, then another. So how can they say now it is fixed until March of 2017?
I wish Teddy Kennedy could have been here for the ride.
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It is based on estimates of future cash flow. Likely, March 2017 is how long they think they will be okay, based on current projections, while operating in normal fashion. The Treasury can usually extend the insolvency date a couple months by “lending” funds from one pot to another, shifting some payment dates a few days, etc., but it isn’t a healthy practice.
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