pudge's Journal: Doing Your Job

On this week's This Week, George Stephanopoulos read a letter from a viewer who asked, "With nearly all of the nation's governors, nearly 80 senators and a majority of Congress supporting emergency funding of AmeriCorps, how can President Bush sit by and do nothing as a vital program he profresses to support is being wiped out by his budget?"

Perhaps I am missing something, but if a majority in both houses support it, what's the problem? It's not like Bush will veto a bill that calls for "emergency funding for AmeriCorps."

I am continually amazed and saddened by the overemphasis on the President in the budgetary and lawmaking process. This is the job of the Congress. The job of raising revenue, specifically, belongs to the House.

So what if the President is "sitting by and doing nothing?" It is not his job to do something, it is Congress' job, and if nothing is getting done on this front, it is because they are sitting by, and doing nothing. I really wish Congress would one day just completely ignore the President's budget requests and do their own. That would make me happy.

GOP Leadership

[extra88]

If the Democrats are all in favor of it, it doesn't take many Republicans to have a majority of Congress but that's sort beside the point. I can think of two likely problems. The funding may be popular but GOP leadership may not like it. Since they control what bills are voted on, they may be preventing this bill from seeing the light of day. Alternately, it could be stuck in a committee run by some asshole like Tom DeLay. I just thought of another option, this bill may be held hostage by any of the above to get concessions on some other issue.

The purpose of the letter (and Stephanopoulos's reading of it) is to cast light on the situation and to tie Bush's name to it. If people associate Bush with the bill it may hurt his popularity if the funding doesn't go through, thus giving him an incentive to see it go through (and to say some nice things in public about AmeriCorps). You may not like it but that's standard politics, associate yourself with the good stuff, associate the other guy with the bad stuff. And it's not like Bush is powerless, he's the leader of his party, he can most likely see this gets done. Now that Jesse Helms is gone, I don't think there's any committee chairman left who's "don't give a damn" enough to hold his ground. I really didn't like that that sonofabitch but at least he wasn't a party lackey.

I don't think the GOP, as a rule, likes AmeriCorps. It was Clinton's thing (though built on a number of existing programs) and I think they think it's too New Deal-y. What they really need to do is lift the 50,000 cap on the number of people they can recruit. As someone mentioned in one of the "jobs" threads recently, there's a lot of applicants so it's not like you can automatically get it just because you want to.

Re:GOP Leadership

[pudge]

Yes, of course their could be reasons why it doesn't see the floor. But the facts remain that Congress doesn't need the President to pass a bill, and if a majority of the Houses and 80 Senators favor it, it will get passed, and yet we still expect it is the President;s job to get it done. It isn't.

I don't like AmeriCorps. It's not an enumerated or implied power of Congress, and it is therefore unconstitutional. But that's beside my point here.

Interesting

[BWJones]

So, this is interesting. If it were not for this morass we are in with the middle east and the $87 Billion/year (likely going to require more) that the White House is requesting, the president could have taken a lesson from history and the job corps to get the economy back on track. Think of all the projects that are left undone that could benefit from such a program. Our national parks are in a sorry state and getting worse, we have urban decay going on much like what was happening in the 80's, etc...et

Wrong level

[jamie]

You're thinking at the wrong level again:

"I really wish Congress would one day just completely ignore the President's budget requests and do their own."

It doesn't work that way. The entity known as "Congress" is composed of 535 individuals, each with separate and highly complex agendas of their own. They can work together on issues that affect them collectively. They cannot and will not join forces on issues that affect each of them differently.

In this case, the President wields a great deal of power

Re:Wrong level

[pudge]

Yes, of course, it would not happen, because Congress in its present form is incapable of it. I said I wished it would happen, not that it could happen. However, it does illustrate the point that not everything needs to come from the President, and if this really does have the widespread support the letter-writer said, then there is no obstacle to passing a bill for it.

Reminds me

[insanecarbonbasedlif]

of the fun here in California. All the gubernatorial candidates are promising that they will do everything. The thing is, they can't act alone. Most of what they promise to do depends on whether or not the state congress is willing to go along with it. I think the Presidential candidates foster the idea that the president is responsible for everything when they're campaigning, and then cry "foul" when they're blamed for all the things that aren't done.