The President struck a "tax cut" deal with Republicans. Democrats in the House refused to pass the President's deal.
Due to the Senate's filibuster rule, Republican Senators get to veto any law or spending bill. With 41 Republican Senators, they can block any law via filibuster, if they all vote the same way. That means the Democrats must compromise with Republicans, if they want to pass any laws. The Democrats could impose the "nuclear option" and change the filibuster rule via a majority vote. Starting in January, Republicans are going to have a majority in the House, giving them veto over any laws or spending without filibuster tricks.
Technically, the President only has one lawmaking decision. He can sign a law or veto it. That's it. That's all the President gets to do.
The President can exercise discretion regarding enforcement of a law. The President can use his pardon power to stop people from being prosecuted for breaking a law. The President can try to persuade Congressmen to do what he wants. However, the President doesn't get to write laws. He can only sign or veto.
President Obama is missing the point. The President does not write laws. The President only gets to decide whether to sign or veto a law passed by Congress. If you take a literal reading of the Constitution, "sign or veto" is the only lawmaking decision the President may make.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
What Is The President's Lawmaking Role?
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This situation looks almost ideal. Absolutely ideal would be having the entire lawmaker's body not able to pass any single law, of course.
But, even in such an ideal case, they can pass a law that they all like, no matter the party, and that leaves us with any law designed to enrich the lawmakers uniformly, at our expense.
I conclude, that even in ideal situation, we are all screwed. Jefferson figured it out long long time ago, when he said that no one should be able to vote on any matter concerning private property of another. If we had this today as a restrictive qualification for any law, we would not be anywhere near the situation we are in now.
This crucial point however is rarely discussed. Because, if adopted, it would preclude parasitism as a conceivable practice, period. How would a parasite survive then?
The order of the world is not communism, capitalism or socialism. Nope, those are only fnords to distract one's attention from the main fact of life, and that is that the whole world is run on a system of parasitism to a more or less strict degree.
The overriding law anywhere on earth is that a parasite should be able to take someone's private property, be it his labor, production, land or life.
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