Sounds Like An Expression Of Contempt For Separation Of Powers, To Me

Posted on | September 1, 2011 | 20 Comments

by Smitty

Isn’t this an admission Obama has not been doing all he can for jobs?, asks Prof. Jacobson of BHO’s direction:

Obama directed several federal agencies to identify “high-impact, job-creating infrastructure projects” that can be expedited now, without congressional approval.

Doesn’t this go beyond the usual “What if a Bush had said that?”

It may sound like a reactionary take, but, given the last two years of creepy hijinks from this Administration, one is left to wonder where this is all going.

Furthermore, just what is the Administration going to do that won’t cost more money, when there hasn’t been any for some time? Oh, and this is the last month of the fiscal year. What strange, graft-laden mockeries will emerge?

This is the time to go after the nanny state with a cleaver, not expand it. I hope John Boehner tells the good President to talk to the hand, and that the American people back Boehner to the hilt. Enough of this noise.

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Comments

20 Responses to “Sounds Like An Expression Of Contempt For Separation Of Powers, To Me”

Anonymous
September 1st, 2011 @ 7:35 pm

All of the squawking from the left about 30’s era work programs are no longer possible due to red tape and over use of the courts to push back on economic use of anything. Obama’s attempt to convince us that he’ll cut time from concept to execution for government projects is mere prestidigitation. Even if that timeline was compressed by half that’s still years not months.
ed
September 1st, 2011 @ 8:04 pm

So.

Obama is basically admitting that he hasn’t bothered up until now to find out if there is anything the federal government can do to increase job creation?

And that is supposed to be a positive?
Charles
September 1st, 2011 @ 8:24 pm

I think they key word here is “expedited”. These will likely be those “shovel ready” projects approved by Congress in the stimulus package that have been tied up for 2.5 years in red tape.
James
September 1st, 2011 @ 8:32 pm

Translation: “Those projects that we’ve been sitting on for years, now’s the time to activate them.”
Anonymous
September 1st, 2011 @ 8:36 pm

I tried to give you a “Like”, but I have great difficulties doing so. I click on “Like”. It always takes a long time to go thru. Sometimes I give up, and click elsewhere. Sometimes it “times out”. I do have an old PC, but a fiber optic, super duper, connection to an ISP.

Anyone else have this problem? If not, doesn’t mean I’ll trade in my old gray mare. She may not be what she use to be, but she’s stuck with me thru thick and thin.
DaveO
September 1st, 2011 @ 8:38 pm

The legal way of doing this (I know I know – don’t bug me about Barry’s relationship to anything ‘legal’):

Project already funded
Personnel hired and on board
The 3-5 years of planning and prep work are done

The other way of doing it is to reveal a low-key, or classified project as complete (whether it is in truth is irrelevant) and claim credit.

SO, what Team Barry is really doing is directing the Executive to shovel dollars to unions and select business owners (i.e. bundlers) as quickly as possible before Congress and the Super-Committee notice.
Anonymous
September 1st, 2011 @ 8:57 pm

Do you recall, or remember at all, those wonderful, wonderful years?

When Congress, aggressively defended their role/Rights, under the Constitution. For you “youngins’, this was a long time ago, in a, some would now say, a mythical, “Republic”, far, far away, quaintly called “America”. Trust me. Even Democrat congresscritters pushed back against “Executive” over reach, regardless of Party.

Separation of Powers, did matter matter, then. It was afterall, what kept tyranny and jack booted fascist (National SOCIALIST Party) off our necks.

It’s your country. Your children. Your grandchildren. Your (extended) family. What are you going to do?
Anonymous
September 1st, 2011 @ 9:51 pm

I get that little circling gear sometimes too I’m sure it has a lot more to do with disqus than our computers or connections. Apparently merely becoming aware isn’t enough to keep it awake.
Anonymous
September 1st, 2011 @ 9:51 pm

Very likely.
McGehee
September 1st, 2011 @ 9:59 pm

I just tried to use “Like” on another thread with my iPhone and it didn’t respond. I’m posting this comment in the same browser session; we’ll see if it works.
Wilbur Post
September 1st, 2011 @ 10:34 pm

A “high-impact, job-creating infrastructure project”? I got one. A one- way bullet train to ship Barack Obama to North Korea.
AngelaTC
September 1st, 2011 @ 10:58 pm

This House has no freaking spine. They let him wage a war without Congressional approval. They let him rewrite immigration law. Now they’re going to let him spend they didn’t approve.

All because they want to do the same if and when they get the White House back?

Not the change we need.
JeffS
September 1st, 2011 @ 11:39 pm

Folks, I’m about to apply some professional knowledge here.

There is no such thing as a “shovel ready” project. Even an “expedited” construction project requires Olympian efforts to get through a Byzantine bureaucratic system of procurement, design, legal, environmental, and other functions. Hell, just identifying and getting the land to build on can take years, even if Federal property is already available.

Further, the only projects that Federal agencies can field without Congressional approval are those authorized under existing authorities and programs, for which there is available funding. That means Congress had to already authorize a general program for infrastructure construction, and then feed it money. There are many such out there, for roads, airports, water resources, etc.

And those programs are likely already committed several budget cycles out.

(Say, has Congress passed the FY2012 budget yet? What? Do I hear…..crickets!?!??!?!?!)

So the best that President Present could get are a bunch of projects that have been in the planning process for some time, and that the agency is able or willing to expend a lot of energy getting rammed through their own bureaucracy. Most of those will be minor or unnecessary projects of little to no consequence. Just guessing here, but the majority of them will be less than a couple million bucks each.

This is hardly a significant economic impact, even if one considers wealth re-distribution, as practiced by the Federal government and funded by American tax payers, to be an economic force.

What Obama is doing here is stonewalling, by pretending to Do Something
Important To Save The Country. It’s pretty much the same crap with the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, i.e., a lot of shit and noise
that resulted in little more than smoke getting blown up the collective
ass of America. And I do mean collective.

How so? When ARRA came out, there were two general responses by the relevant Federal agencies:

(1) A mad scramble to identify projects that met all of the qualifications for ARRA funding, and an attempt to grab a piece of the pie.

or

(2) A loud guffaw from the realists.

And this was for massive funding specifically authorized by Congress for “shovel ready” projects. There, category #1 outnumbered #2 by 10 to 1.

Now, they are tasked to do the same thing, only without additional funding available. I imagine that the response by the agencies this time will be desultory. At best. And category #1 will be outnumbered by #2 by 20 to 1. At least.

Obama’s got nothing. As usual.
JeffS
September 1st, 2011 @ 11:41 pm

Whoops, my bad. There is at least one “shovel ready” project out there.
Liberals Suddenly Excited For The President To Go Around Congress » American Glob
September 1st, 2011 @ 9:34 pm

[…] Stacy McCain thinks it sounds like an expression of contempt for the separation of powers… Doesn’t this go beyond the usual “What if a Bush had said […]
Adjoran
September 2nd, 2011 @ 5:12 am

Part of his motivation is also to shift some blame to the agencies if they can’t find these miracle projects in the closet or under a desk somewhere. Obama wouldn’t own up to eating the last cookie.
JeffS
September 2nd, 2011 @ 6:02 am

Yeah, that’s likely so, Adjoran. That would also fit Obama’s habit of throwing allies under the bus.
Anonymous
September 2nd, 2011 @ 9:07 pm

And we don’t know those are his agencies?
JeffS
September 3rd, 2011 @ 12:04 am

You are entirely correct, but trust me on this:

A lot of people do not associate Federal agencies with the Executive Branch. The degree of ignorance of the Constitution, especially when it comes to practical applications, is appalling. Not to mention, Federal agencies are much more handy targets than the White House.

Or, the truly foolish will chalk up such failures to bureaucratic incompetence (of which there is ample supporting evidence).

So, yeah, a lot of people (not all of them lefties) will given Obama a pass if he blames the agencies for this failure.
Anonymous
September 3rd, 2011 @ 2:00 am

One more item for our to-do list. The shield the Winston Smith Media has formed for President 0 may start to crack. There is some reporting on the House committee and GAO investigation into some the green boondoggles that are coming to light.

I don’t think zero can save himself by attacking his own agencies, on the other hand if he’s bashing them and we’re bashing them the numbnuts might get the idea that there is some there there.