President Obama vs. Scott Sumner on Democracy

     The President made a comment today that he's not trying to nullify Congress and that he can't do everything via executive order. I admit I don't find this a very sexy argument for him to be making right now and neither do most Democrats he's speaking in front of. Clearly his comments didn't immediately hit the right place-notice how the clap lines were in the wrong place. 

    "After being heckled by protesters calling for an executive order to stop deportationsearlier in the day and hearing “executive order” shouts during an afternoon fundraiser, Obama addressed the issue head on."

   “Somebody keeps on yelling, ‘executive order,’” Obama said at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser in San Francisco.

   “I’m going to actually pause on this issue because a lot of people have been saying this lately on every problem, which is just, ‘Sign an executive order and we can pretty much do anything and basically nullify Congress,'" he said to some applause. "Wait, wait, wait. Before everybody starts clapping — that's not how it works. We've got this Constitution, we've got this whole thing about separation of powers and branches."

   "Obama has, of course, signed executive orders on a range of key issues — including one last year protecting undocumented young adults from being deported — but argued Monday that there's only so much he can do on his own."

   "So there is no shortcut to politics. And there's no shortcut to democracy," he said. "We have to win on the merits of the argument with the American people. As laborious as it seems sometimes, as much misinformation as there is out there sometimes, as frustrating as it may be some times, what we have to do is keep on going, keep on pushing. And eventually, eventually we move in a better direction."

    http://www.politico.com/politico44/2013/11/obama-dismisses-using-executive-orders-to-nullify-178333.html?hp=r3

     He's right of course-legally he can't do everything through EO though there are a number of things he can and has done and I hope he will do everything he can that route-still, moves done this way aren't always as comprehensive as one passed via the legislative process-it is often a second best solution. 

     I find it kind of frustrating as the Republicans clearly think there is a shortcut to democracy. The filibuster and the gerrymander. Thankfully the filibuster has now been mortally weakened. 

     http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/11/scott-sumner-weighs-in-on-end-of.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DiaryOfARepublicanHater+%28Diary+of+a+Republican+Hater%29

     As the above link also shows, Sumner also thinks there is a shortcut to democracy-he calls this Market Monetarism. 

     http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/10/central-bank-independence-and-scott.html

     Obama is correct though that many things have been successfully won the legislative route as long as the odds sometimes have seemed. 

     During his first term, “when folks said we couldn't end Don't Ask, Don't Tell, in fact, a bunch of people yelled, 'executive order,'” Obama recalled. But he saw legislation — and not an executive order — as the right option and chose to pursue it. “I decided, well let's try to actually pass a law. And we did.”

    "Obama also offered donors assurances that the same persistence that ended the ban on openly gay members of the military will lead to the successful implementation of the Affordable Care Act."

    “Folks have fought us every step of the way but we have kept on going,” he said. “This website is going to get fixed and we are going to be signing people up. And we're gonna make sure that everybody in California and everybody in America who needs health care is gonna get it. We don't stop. We don't stop. We don't stop.”