Posts Tagged ‘GOP’
No Need To Respond
Sep7
By John Feehery
Ev and Gerry started the whole response thing.
Everett Dirksen and Gerry Ford, the former Senate Republican leader from Illinois and the former House Minority Leader (and later President) from Michigan used to have a radio show broadcast from the Capitol.
They turned that radio show into a televised rebuttal to President Johnson’s 1966 State of the Union Address.
Dirksen, with his mop of white hair, and Ford, with his bald pate, must have been quite a sight in the years leading up to the Age of Aquarius. Dirksen was the one who famously said, “a billion here, and a billion there, and pretty soon you are talking real money.”
I could understand the frustration of the two Republican (and minority) leaders. Lyndon Johnson wasn’t much to tell the truth, and Republicans at the start of 1966 didn’t have any legislative power. Dirksen, a genius when it came to the political communication innovation, probably dreamed up the idea of a joint response, and a new idea was born: Let’s tell our side of the story.
The Ev and Gerry Show only played two seasons as responses to LBJ, but a tradition was born. In 1968, more Republicans wanted to get in the act, and the Republicans ran a response that included 16 different Representatives and Senators. I bet you hearing from more than a dozen politicians in January of 1968, just as the summer of love and the season of destruction and discontent (including the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King), was just what the voting public wanted to hear.
Democrats continued that tradition in responding to Richard Nixon, another President known for truth telling. Mike Mansfield, the long-time Senate Democratic leader, usually anchored the responses to Nixon.
During Ronald Reagan’s first term, the Democrats were so confused about how to respond to the Great Communicator and so riven by internal conflicts that their response included an average of 12 Democrats from every segment of the party. It wasn’t hard for Reagan to beat out that cacophony of voices. By the time Reagan’s second term rolled around, the Democrats gave in and let their respective leaders, Jim Wright and Robert Byrd, do the majority of their rebuttals.
I worked for Bob Michel when he gave his response to Bill Clinton’s first Presidential address. There was disagreement within the Michel office about whether Bob should give the response or give it to somebody else to do. I argued that if Bob wanted to be the Leader (he had Newt Gingrich nipping at his heels at the time), then he should take the response and knock it out of the park. He did exactly that, giving a great speech, but an organized and nasty response to his response by organized (and nasty) labor unions hit Bob hard and he ultimately decided to retire a year later.
In the chaos that followed the resignation of Newt Gingrich in 1998, there was confusion as to who would give the response to an impeached (but not convicted) Bill Clinton. Bob Livingston (who was the interim Speaker until he resigned over a sex-scandal) had picked Jennifer Dunn and Steve Largent to give the response as a way to tweak Dick Armey, who had been a pain in his side. Dunn and Largent had unsuccessfully run against Armey as leader. Denny Hastert (who I also worked for), who ultimately did become Speaker, decided to stick with Dunn and Largent (smartly choosing to avoid the public spotlight), and they gave a run-of-the-mill rebuttal.
Republicans have had three chances to respond to Barack Obama. Bobby Jindal knocked himself out of Presidential contention with his response to Obama’s first Presidential address in 2009. Bob McDonnell (who should run for President, by the way) gave a workmanlike response in 2010. Paul Ryan’s response was overshadowed by Michele Bachmann’s intrusion into the response game. Bachmann spent most of her time in the spotlight looking like she was looking into the wrong camera, which may have hurt her with her colleagues, but obviously didn’t hurt with the Ames Straw poll voters.
John Boehner and Mitch McConnell have made the decision to not respond to President Obama’s latest effort to talk to the American people through the Congress. They say that they want the President’s speech to stand on its own merits.
Looking at the long history of the rebuttal game, they are right to make that call. Nothing good happens in a rebuttal.
Nothing Republicans say will make the President’s address more or less believable. No amount of spin can hide the fact that the President and Congressional Republicans are not on the same page on what do about our nation’s economic troubles. Words from the President’s aren’t going to fix these troubles, and counter-words from the other side aren’t going to make anybody feel any better.
And no amount of talking from the President or the Republicans is going to hide the fact that the NFL is going to still be kicking off at 8:30 eastern time.
The President can talk all he wants just as long as he gets done by the kickoff.
It would nice if we could just stop the responses in their entirety. To Congress, I say this: Give the President a chance to propose, and then dispose of his proposals as you see fit.
There’s no need to respond to this President at this time. Enough has been said already.
Zero
Sep2
By John Feehery
According to Wikipedia, Labor Day has traditionally been the last time it is fashionable for ladies to wear white. This weekend, it might be the time that President Obama starts waving the white flag of surrender.
Labor Day was born out of conflict. Grover Cleveland signed legislation making Labor Day a holiday in 1884 six days after the Pullman strike ended. Cleveland signed it as a peace offering to the labor movement, which was still pretty raw after the national strike where Federal troops were called in and 13 strikers were killed.
This history remains relevant today.
The Labor Department announced today that the American economy created zero jobs in August. Zero. That hasn’t happened since the end of the Second World War – September of 1945 – when people were so busy celebrating the defeat of the Japanese that they didn’t have time to create any jobs.
Some economists are saying that the dreary job numbers were caused, in part, by the debate over the debt ceiling. I find that hard to believe.
There are plenty of other reasons, including the actions of both this President and of the labor movement.
For example, a strike against Verizon meant that 45,000 union workers lost their jobs, at least according to the jobs survey.
Had labor not walked off the work-site, the new jobs number would have been better.
Administration cracked down on workers in a Gibson Guitar plant. Apparently, the Justice Department decided that they didn’t like the wood that Gibson imported from India (even though it was perfectly good wood and taken in an environmentally responsible fashion). The result is that Gibson Guitar makers are going to lose their jobs, thanks to the Obama Justice Department.
There are plenty of other examples of regulatory over-reach, all aimed to kill jobs.
An AP story detailed the President’s regulatory plans:
“President Barack Obama says his administration is considering seven new government regulations that would cost the economy more than $1 billion a year, a tally Republicans will pounce on to argue that Congress needs the power to approve costly government rules.
In a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, Obama lists four proposed Environmental Protection Agency rules and three Department of Transportation rules estimated to cost in excess of $1 billion. One of the proposed EPA rules — an update to the health-based standard for smog — is estimated to cost the economy between $19 billion and $90 billion.
The letter, dated Tuesday, comes as the Republican-controlled House prepares to consider legislation that would require congressional approval for any new regulations that would impose a significant cost on industries.
The four environmental regulations, which target air pollution and coal residue primarily from coal-fired power plants, have already been attacked by House Republicans, who have said they would kill jobs and harm the economy.”
Earlier this week, the Obama Administration announced plans to put even more burdens on small businesses, which prompted this response from the American Small Business League:
“The Obama Administration plans to require all federal contractors and subcontractors to report employee pay and benefits. This comes despite President Obama’s recently publicized announcement to curb regulatory burdens, particularly on small businesses. Existing federal regulations require federal contractors to report the five most highly compensated executives for sub-contracts under prime contracts exceeding $25,000. The pending requirement for reporting employee pay will add to already burdensome regulations on small business contractors. The American Small Business League (ASBL) believes this regulation will create friction between small business owners, their employees and customers.”
Obama’s National Labor Relations Board has been on a tear lately.
It sued to prevent Boeing from opening a new plant to build aircraft in South Carolina because it felt that the company was moving to the Palmetto State to avoid labor unions.
Good for lawyers. Not good for workers.
Recently, the same NRLB sued a Catholic school to try to get it to hire union workers, basing the lawsuit on the curious and flimsy rationale that the Catholic school was not Catholic enough.
Here is a story on that imbroglio that appeared in the Washington Examiner:
“It’s not enough for President Obama’s National Labor Relations Board to target the Boeing plant in South Carolina. Now the NLRB thinks it can tell a church school when it’s not religious enough.
Most people have heard by now of NLRB’s unprecedented decree that Boeing Co. cannot build a new airline production facility in South Carolina. But Obama’s NLRB is also claiming the authority to dictate labor policies and order union elections at Catholic universities if they are not religious enough.
St. Xavier University was founded in 1846, the oldest Catholic school in Illinois. Its corporate member is a Catholic body with the “powers for the governance of” St. Xavier, that “links the University to the [Catholic] Church and makes it an officially recognized member of the Church.
St. Xavier’s Board of Trustees must have at least four nuns from the order that founded the school, and, according to its bylaws, its governing body must “ensure [St. Xavier] continues its educational and religious mission.
After quoting these sources and many others, NLRB’s regional director concluded in true Orwellian fashion that “the evidence establishes” that St. Xavier is “a secular educational institution or university.”
To support this astounding conclusion flying in the face of the facts (not to mention common sense), NLRB claimed a 1979 Supreme Court affirms this authority.
Yet that case — NLRB v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago — actually says the complete opposite of what Obama’s NLRB claims.
In an instance of deja vu, the Supreme Court and Catholic Bishop considered a challenge to an NLRB order asserting authority over lay teachers at Illinois Catholic high schools. (Sound familiar?)
NLRB claimed that it had no authority over a church, but that it possessed power over church-related bodies that are not purely religious, such as schools. The court considered whether the National Labor Relations Act granted NLRB such power.
Noting the religious mission of Catholic schools, the Supreme Court declared, “Good intentions by government … can surely no more avoid entanglement with the religious mission of a school” than legislation the court previously struck down as unconstitutional violations of religious liberty.
Turning to the facts of that case, the court reasoned, “The church-teacher relationship in a church-operated school differs from the employment relationship in a public … school. There is no escape from conflicts flowing from [NLRB's] exercise of jurisdiction over teachers in church-operated schools and the consequent serious First Amendment questions that would follow.”
The court then noted that nothing in the law’s language suggested NLRB has power over any church-affiliated organizations. The court invoked one of the most basic principles of American law, that a federal statute “ought not to be construed to violate the Constitution if any other possible construction remains available.”
Accordingly, the court held that federal law did not give NLRB the power it was claiming, so the court need not consider whether to strike down that provision. Instead, it held NLRB lacked any legal jurisdiction to judge the schools’ religiosity, and vacated NLRB’s order.
Far from authorizing NLRB’s action against St. Xavier, the ruling does the opposite of affirming the government has no such power over church schools. NLRB’s contrary assertion is a frightening power grab that must be taken to court.
So economic and social conservatives now have a common problem. Obama’s NLRB is being wielded as an instrument of unfettered federal power. Congress and the courts must act to end this imperial overreach.”
The simple fact is that this Administration is completely out of control. They are the reason that jobs are not being created. They are the reason that small business is not growing. They are the problem, not the solution.
The number zero has a rather murky history. Nobody knows who came up with the concept of zero (most counting starts at 1). Some say that it was the Indians (from India) who first came up with the concept of zero, while others say it was the Mayans.
The one thing I know is that when zero jobs are created, it is not good new for the President, no matter who the President is.
