Posted on 12/10/2003 7:46:16 PM PST by voicereason
Taxpayers now have a trillion dollar Medicare albatross hanging around their necks as a direct consequence of President Bush's powerful leadership skills vis a vis Congress.
What has been done in Congress can be undone in the same manner. Pressure must be brought on Congress from two directions: from citizens AND from President Bush.
Don't you agree?
I haven't. I have never been more persuaded that President Bush can, if he has a mind to, lead Congress to a correct decision to jettison this disaster of a piece of legislation. He has been elected to lead, and I expect him to lead.
You apparently expect him to follow.
After President Bush's amazing display of leadership over Congress last week, no rational person could dispute this.
By all means, call the White House. Tell them you want George W. Bush to get out in front on this issue.
If President Bush doesn't step up, Congress will do nothing. I don't care how many letters you send to them or how many phone calls clog up their answering machines. Why should they? The legislation enhances the power of incumbency. They have no incentive to change it on their own.
Yep. Lots of Bush Bashing going on lately.
Bush was honest. He said, while signing it, parts were good and parts were bad. He'd leave it up to the SCOTUS to do the right thing and clean it up.
They didn't. We need constitutional judges, and not the activists we have there now.
Support Bush's judicial nominees.
Tom Ridge is disgusting proposing this. BTW, Tom is nothing but an extension of George W. Bush.
As much as I love GWB compared to the previous scumb bag, this is wrong. Sure, reward people for being illegal. I must be getting too old.
In the case of CFR, their is dual culpability. Congress for passing the necessary bill, and the President for signing the piece of legislation that he admitted was flawed.
This is not about "Bush" bashing, this is about addressing a serious issue with more than enough blame to go around. In this particular case, Bush did not take the leadership position and allowed bad legislation to become law. I would not even have suggested that the White House be contacted if he had had the fortitude to veto the law and Congress had overridden the veto. Those responsible would have been easy to point out at that point.
Bush did fail in my opinion in that he was hoping SCOTUS would strike down the law, and it didn’t happen. The signing of the bill on CFR was in direct contradiction of the Presidential Oath of Office:
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
CFR is a simple law, not even an Amendment. If you don't like it at this point, it just needs to be killed with another law.
And newsflash: Congress writes such laws.
Actually, Congress creates Bills or Legislation. They do not became law until signed by the President, or Congress has overridden a President's veto. Please see below:
XVIII. PRESIDENTIAL ACTION
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Veto Message - Line Item Veto
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Article I, Section 7, of the Constitution provides in part that--
Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it becomes a Law, be presented to the President of the United States.
In actual practice, the Clerk, or the Secretary of the Senate when the bill originated in that body, delivers the original enrolled bill to a clerk at the White House and obtains a receipt. The fact of the delivery is then reported to the House by the Clerk. Delivery to a White House clerk has customarily been regarded as presentation to the President and as commencing the 10-day constitutional period for presidential action.
Copies of the enrolled bill usually are transmitted by the White House to the various departments interested in the subject matter so that they may advise the President on the issues surrounding the bill.
If the President approves the bill, he signs it and usually writes the word "approved" and the date. However, the Constitution requires only that the President sign it.
The bill may become law without the President's signature by virtue of the constitutional provision that if the President does not return a bill with objections within 10 days (excluding Sundays) after it has been presented to the President, it becomes law as if the President had signed it. However, if Congress by their adjournment prevent its return, it does not become law. This is known as a "pocket veto"; that is, the bill does not become law even though the President has not sent his objections to the Congress. The Congress has interpreted the President's ability to pocket veto a bill to be limited to final adjournment "sine die" of a Congress where Congress has finally prevented return by the originating House and not to interim adjournments or first session adjournments where the originating House of Congress through its agents is able to receive a veto message for subsequent reconsideration by that Congress when it reconvenes. The extent of pocket veto authority has not been definitively decided by the courts.
Notice of the signing of a bill by the President is sent by message to the House in which it originated and that House informs the other, although this action is not necessary for the act to be valid. The action is also noted in the Congressional Record.
A bill becomes law on the date of approval or passage over the President's veto, unless it expressly provides a different effective date.
Veto Message
By the terms of the Constitution, if the President does not approve the bill "he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it". A bill returned with the President's objections, need not be voted on at once when laid before the House since the vetoed bill can be postponed, referred back to committee, or tabled before the question on passage is pending. A vetoed bill is always privileged until directly voted upon, and a motion to take it from the table or from committee is in order at any time.
Once the relevant Member moves the previous question on the question of override, the question is then put by the Speaker as follows: "Will the House on reconsideration agree to pass the bill, the objections of the President to the contrary notwithstanding?" Under the Constitution, a vote by the yeas and nays is required to pass a bill over the President's veto. The Clerk activates the electronic system or calls the roll with those in favor of passing the bill answering "Aye", and those opposed "No". If fewer than two-thirds of the Members present vote in the affirmative, a quorum being present, the bill is rejected, and a message is sent to the Senate advising that body of the House action. However, if two-thirds vote in the affirmative, the bill is sent with the President's objections to the Senate, unless that body has acted first, together with a message advising it of the action in the House.
The procedure in the Senate is the same as a two-thirds affirmative vote is also necessary to pass the bill over the President's objections. If the Senate joins the House and votes two-thirds in the affirmative to pass the bill, the measure becomes the law of the land notwithstanding the objections of the President, and it is ready for publication as a binding statute.
This was taken from fromThomas, Library of Congress.
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Oh, and as for Congress being the only who can make "laws", what would you call an Executive Order that has been printed in the Federal Register and allowed to sit for the required time (I can't remember if it's 30 or 60 days) without and action by Congress? It's essentially treated as law.
But, once again this isn't about being on any type of witch-hunt. It's about being able to question and comment on appropriately; those issues that we feel need to be addressed by our elected officials.
Nonsense. Of course this is a witch hunt. You want everyone to blame Bush. You want people to call Bush. You want to see Bush bashed.
But it is only *Congress* that can now fix the CFR problem, and your spiel for this thread didn't even talk about contacting Congress.
You just want to bash Bush, even though that can't correct the problem at this point in time.
If *Congress* doesn't repeal CFR, then we are stuck with it.
Hmmmm, so who should we spend our time contacting, Bush or Congress?!
Is that still allowed?
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