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United States42867 Posts
On April 29 2017 07:36 pmh wrote:https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/trump-administration-just-signaled-may-153512830.htmlI can see this work actually. Kim wants to stay in power and the usa and china want denuclearization. The usa can not remove kim anyway without support from china but if china also doesn't want north korea to have nukes then this does seem like a very plausible solution. Kim gets guarantees from both china and the usa that they wont do anything to remove him/seek reunification.and in turn he gives up the nuke program. He would not trust the usa with that off course but he might trust a guarantee from china.
NK already had every guarantee imaginable before they decided to throw all of that away and make a nuke. It is intolerable within the Juche ideology to have another power guarantee your military independence through their own nuclear deterrent. It must be owned by North Korea.
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Just have the us do a fake surrender, Kim Jong un can then keep the respect of his people, and then he doesn't need nukes any more.
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On April 30 2017 00:11 biology]major wrote:
Just have the us do a fake surrender, Kim Jong un can then keep the respect of his people, and then he doesn't need nukes any more.
But then that would make Trump look weak. Sad.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
We've hit the hundred days mark. And I suppose no one could really say it wasn't eventful.
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On April 29 2017 21:07 pmh wrote:
North korea is way different from the situation in Ukraine,its almost the opposite. North korea has china next door to protect them and china does not want a regime change or reunification. (at least that is what I think)
It's not that different though. Ukraine disarmed pretty close after the fall of the Soviet Union and were pretty closely aligned with Russia. It's all about the long term where they could rely on Russia at the time, but then when Russia invaded. Sure China is friendly to North Korea today, but what happens in fifteen years? Can you guarantee they'll always be friends and if a falling out does occur do you really expect the United States and the other nuclear powers to step in when they wouldn't even defend Ukraine?
The biggest difference is that Ukraine had a significant nuclear arsenal whereas North Korea can't even launch a missile.
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Josh Marshall has some commentary on the 100 days marker and why it matters. Basically, it's the part of a presidency where it's easiest to get things done in Congress, and when public opinion is most okay with you trying to get big changes done. Arguably, insomuch as Trump ever had a "mandate" that has largely been lost at this point.
Even if you don't like Marshall/TPM, I think the analysis of the 100 days isn't really a partisan point (although I could see Trump supporters wanting to downplay the significance it, so it might be a partisan point at this exact moment).So here we are at 100 Days, an arbitrary but nevertheless significant milestone in a presidency. I wanted to step back and size up its meaning, both to give ourselves some perspective but also for those from other countries who are less familiar with the US federal system.
From a distance, it looks like the US federal system can up and pass laws pretty much whenever. In practice, particularly when it comes to laws tied to spending and taxation, there is an overlapping series of frameworks, scheduled vacations and legislative calendars, fixed election dates and more that constrain action to a great degree. The schedule of actions tied to writing federal budgets is a big one – though the deadlines have been missed with greater and greater frequency in recent years. Then there’s the matter of fixed election dates. In the US we tend to take this for granted. But it’s not the norm in major constitutional democracies. The fixed schedule matters a lot.
Mix in the American system’s separation of executive and legislative powers and it’s fairly complicated and time-consuming to get things done. So while the 100 Day metric is arbitrary (a concept that dates back to FDR), the first months of a presidency provide a window of opportunity in which a President has a relative free hand. The budget schedule is relatively far off in the distance. Elections are as far away as they can be in the US system. Scheduled vacations are in the distance.
Perhaps most importantly the President has an amorphous but real legitimacy to act. He was elected. He should get to put his program in effect. This is obviously a very fuzzy notion. Nothing mandates that it be the case. But in historical terms it demonstrably is the case.
One other point to keep in mind here is that our system tends in the great majority of cases to bring a new President to power with unified government or a working majority in Congress. This was true with President Obama and President Clinton. It was essentially true with President George W. Bush, though technically there was divided rule in the Senate. It was true with President Reagan, whose party controlled the Senate and had a working majority of Republicans and conservative southern Democrats in the House. The first President Bush is the major recent exception. And in domestic terms he was basically a failed President.
You can dig into the formal and informal rules of American governance. But the upshot is that in the first months of a presidency the stars are aligned to get things done. A complex and perhaps sclerotic mix of governmental gears and pulleys are in a brief phase of alignment. If you look historically at the last forty years, the first months in office (whether or not precisely in the first 100 days) are when presidents got their big legislation passed.
An interesting example and counter-example is the passage of the Affordable Care Act in March 2010, a bit over a year into President Obama’s presidency. This was, as we can see, going on a year and a hundred days and it is certainly Obama’s most important and (seemingly) enduring legislative accomplishment. One might argue that the flurry of legislation and activity tied to the economic crisis was more important. But they were mainly one-time crisis measures rather than permanent reforms. In any case, the key to remember with Obamacare is that while it wasn’t finally passed until the Spring of 2010 the legislative process was well underway by the late Spring of 2009 and bills were coming out of committees in the House by the Summer.
Despite the right-wing mythology that has grown up since, claiming that President Obama pushed legislation through on party line votes and didn’t reach out to Republicans to craft bipartisan legislation, really quite the opposite was the case. Indeed, one of the best critiques of the ACA legislative process is that Obama and the Democrats spent much of 2009 waiting on working groups (“gangs”) of Senate Republicans and Democrats trying to find some point of bipartisan compromise. The final bill was watered down significantly in that process. None of the Republicans voted for the bill anyway.
There’s an interesting debate to be had over whether the Republicans were operating in bad faith all along or whether right-wing opposition simply hardened over the course of the discussions. The real point is that big legislation is hard in the American system. The health care legislative process was slightly delayed by emergency economic crisis legislation in early 2009. But it got started early, took a long time and – this is the critical part – only barely ended up getting passed.
That last part is key. The law only barely got passed because the President and the Democrats were running up against all the constraints that make it important to get laws passed early. Partisan opposition was hardening. The President’s early-term popularity was slackening. Elections were on the horizon.
A central challenge for President Trump was always that he started his presidency distinctly unpopular. He was a plurality rather than a majority President. And he began his presidency with deep and entrenched opposition. On the other hand, he had congressional majorities which should have given him or at least his party a relatively free hand. That didn’t happen. A big problem was that Trump didn’t have any legislation or even a plan of governance ready. He barely even had a government at all in the sense that most key jobs were left (and remain) unfilled. He proceeded to fritter away his first months in office with a mix of scandal, disorganization and legislative ineptitude.
When we consider the 100 day marker, it is not so much that Trump has accomplished virtually nothing of substance. It is that nothing of substance is really underway either. That’s the key thing.
On Monday, President Trump’s 102 day in office, he will begin from more or less a cold start, as though the first three months hadn’t happened. The difference is that he’ll face a calendar that is far less friendly to legislation and he’ll have squandered whatever degree of good will, momentum or confidence he had from congressional Republicans in his ability to be an effective President.
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If the United States is actually planning to bill the South Koreans for an advanced missile defense system that's just been set up in Seoul, as President Donald Trump said during an interview with Reuters, someone should tell the Pentagon. Officials in the building said Friday that they had no orders to halt the transport of the system or ask their allies for a payment.
“Nobody here is making up a bill for the South Koreans,” one defense official explained to BuzzFeed News.
In the Reuters interview, Trump called for South Korea to pay for $1 billion system, outraging a key US ally in the midst of a presidential election where the system known as Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) already is politically divisive. On Friday, an adviser to the leading presidential candidate, Moon Jae-in, called paying for the US setting up THAAD an “impossible option.”
There are both political and practical reasons no one in the military is in a rush to shoot off a bill for the defense system. There already are numerous treaties in place between the two that outline payments and costs for US basing and equipment. The gist: the two nations don’t bill one another on a weapon-by-weapon basis. There are also treaties based on shared interests.
The 1953 mutual defense treaty between the United States and South Korea, for example, says the two nations would come to each other’s aid in the event of an attack and allows the US to station troops on the Peninsula.
The South Koreans aren't keeping the THAAD system permanently — it is only being deployed there, still owned and operated by the US, leaving it seem as though Trump wanted Seoul to pay a billion dollars for a rental. US military officials have called the deployment critical to defend South Korea and the the more than the 27,000 US troops stationed there in the face of increasingly heated rhetoric from North Korea.
Pentagon officials said they did not know about the president’s proposal before the interview.
The THAAD currently is being deployed to the county of Seongju, 135 miles south of Seoul. Navy Adm. Harry Harris Jr, the commander for US Pacific Command, told Capitol Hill earlier this week during congressional testimony that the THAAD "will be operational in the coming days."
None of that stopped Trump from telling Reuters that the South Korean government should pay.
"On the THAAD system, it's about a billion dollars. I said, 'Why are we paying? Why are we paying a billion dollars? We're protecting. Why are we paying a billion dollars?' So I informed South Korea it would be appropriate if they paid. Nobody's going to do that. Why are we paying a billion dollars? It's a billion dollar system. It's phenomenal. It's the most incredible equipment you've ever seen - shoots missiles right out of the sky. And it protects them and I want to protect them. We're going to protect them. But they should pay for that, and they understand that,” Trump said.
Trump’s comments sent parts of South Korea reeling Friday about an already controversial system. Earlier this week, as equipment moved toward the THAAD battery site, protesters allegedly threw water bottles at the vehicles.
His declaration came just a day before Pyongyang tested yet another ballistic missile, the sixth this year; early reports indicate the test failed. It's the first ballistic missile test by the North Koreans since April 4, while China's President Xi Jinping and Trump were meeting at Mar-a-Lago.
US officials had said that they believed that after that visit, China had successfully deterred North Korea from conducting nuclear or long-range missile tests. In an interview with Fox News, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said China had threatened to sanction North Korea if it conducted such tests. It's currently unclear what size missile North Korea tested on Friday.
Source
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On April 30 2017 01:01 ChristianS wrote:Josh Marshall has some commentary on the 100 days marker and why it matters. Basically, it's the part of a presidency where it's easiest to get things done in Congress, and when public opinion is most okay with you trying to get big changes done. Arguably, insomuch as Trump ever had a "mandate" that has largely been lost at this point. Even if you don't like Marshall/TPM, I think the analysis of the 100 days isn't really a partisan point (although I could see Trump supporters wanting to downplay the significance it, so it might be a partisan point at this exact moment). Show nested quote +So here we are at 100 Days, an arbitrary but nevertheless significant milestone in a presidency. I wanted to step back and size up its meaning, both to give ourselves some perspective but also for those from other countries who are less familiar with the US federal system.
From a distance, it looks like the US federal system can up and pass laws pretty much whenever. In practice, particularly when it comes to laws tied to spending and taxation, there is an overlapping series of frameworks, scheduled vacations and legislative calendars, fixed election dates and more that constrain action to a great degree. The schedule of actions tied to writing federal budgets is a big one – though the deadlines have been missed with greater and greater frequency in recent years. Then there’s the matter of fixed election dates. In the US we tend to take this for granted. But it’s not the norm in major constitutional democracies. The fixed schedule matters a lot.
Mix in the American system’s separation of executive and legislative powers and it’s fairly complicated and time-consuming to get things done. So while the 100 Day metric is arbitrary (a concept that dates back to FDR), the first months of a presidency provide a window of opportunity in which a President has a relative free hand. The budget schedule is relatively far off in the distance. Elections are as far away as they can be in the US system. Scheduled vacations are in the distance.
Perhaps most importantly the President has an amorphous but real legitimacy to act. He was elected. He should get to put his program in effect. This is obviously a very fuzzy notion. Nothing mandates that it be the case. But in historical terms it demonstrably is the case.
One other point to keep in mind here is that our system tends in the great majority of cases to bring a new President to power with unified government or a working majority in Congress. This was true with President Obama and President Clinton. It was essentially true with President George W. Bush, though technically there was divided rule in the Senate. It was true with President Reagan, whose party controlled the Senate and had a working majority of Republicans and conservative southern Democrats in the House. The first President Bush is the major recent exception. And in domestic terms he was basically a failed President.
You can dig into the formal and informal rules of American governance. But the upshot is that in the first months of a presidency the stars are aligned to get things done. A complex and perhaps sclerotic mix of governmental gears and pulleys are in a brief phase of alignment. If you look historically at the last forty years, the first months in office (whether or not precisely in the first 100 days) are when presidents got their big legislation passed.
An interesting example and counter-example is the passage of the Affordable Care Act in March 2010, a bit over a year into President Obama’s presidency. This was, as we can see, going on a year and a hundred days and it is certainly Obama’s most important and (seemingly) enduring legislative accomplishment. One might argue that the flurry of legislation and activity tied to the economic crisis was more important. But they were mainly one-time crisis measures rather than permanent reforms. In any case, the key to remember with Obamacare is that while it wasn’t finally passed until the Spring of 2010 the legislative process was well underway by the late Spring of 2009 and bills were coming out of committees in the House by the Summer.
Despite the right-wing mythology that has grown up since, claiming that President Obama pushed legislation through on party line votes and didn’t reach out to Republicans to craft bipartisan legislation, really quite the opposite was the case. Indeed, one of the best critiques of the ACA legislative process is that Obama and the Democrats spent much of 2009 waiting on working groups (“gangs”) of Senate Republicans and Democrats trying to find some point of bipartisan compromise. The final bill was watered down significantly in that process. None of the Republicans voted for the bill anyway.
There’s an interesting debate to be had over whether the Republicans were operating in bad faith all along or whether right-wing opposition simply hardened over the course of the discussions. The real point is that big legislation is hard in the American system. The health care legislative process was slightly delayed by emergency economic crisis legislation in early 2009. But it got started early, took a long time and – this is the critical part – only barely ended up getting passed.
That last part is key. The law only barely got passed because the President and the Democrats were running up against all the constraints that make it important to get laws passed early. Partisan opposition was hardening. The President’s early-term popularity was slackening. Elections were on the horizon.
A central challenge for President Trump was always that he started his presidency distinctly unpopular. He was a plurality rather than a majority President. And he began his presidency with deep and entrenched opposition. On the other hand, he had congressional majorities which should have given him or at least his party a relatively free hand. That didn’t happen. A big problem was that Trump didn’t have any legislation or even a plan of governance ready. He barely even had a government at all in the sense that most key jobs were left (and remain) unfilled. He proceeded to fritter away his first months in office with a mix of scandal, disorganization and legislative ineptitude.
When we consider the 100 day marker, it is not so much that Trump has accomplished virtually nothing of substance. It is that nothing of substance is really underway either. That’s the key thing.
On Monday, President Trump’s 102 day in office, he will begin from more or less a cold start, as though the first three months hadn’t happened. The difference is that he’ll face a calendar that is far less friendly to legislation and he’ll have squandered whatever degree of good will, momentum or confidence he had from congressional Republicans in his ability to be an effective President.
There some truth to that, but he underplays Trump's popularity issue, mainly driven by Democrat politicians. Other presidents, even Obama, at least get some lip service from the other party. The GOP didn't want to really step on his toes to be honest. But all election Trump was made out to be devil spawn, so he has received no such "grace period." So there is no "100 day problem" because there was no 100 day phenomenon, scheduling aside.
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On April 30 2017 07:15 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On April 30 2017 01:01 ChristianS wrote:Josh Marshall has some commentary on the 100 days marker and why it matters. Basically, it's the part of a presidency where it's easiest to get things done in Congress, and when public opinion is most okay with you trying to get big changes done. Arguably, insomuch as Trump ever had a "mandate" that has largely been lost at this point. Even if you don't like Marshall/TPM, I think the analysis of the 100 days isn't really a partisan point (although I could see Trump supporters wanting to downplay the significance it, so it might be a partisan point at this exact moment). So here we are at 100 Days, an arbitrary but nevertheless significant milestone in a presidency. I wanted to step back and size up its meaning, both to give ourselves some perspective but also for those from other countries who are less familiar with the US federal system.
From a distance, it looks like the US federal system can up and pass laws pretty much whenever. In practice, particularly when it comes to laws tied to spending and taxation, there is an overlapping series of frameworks, scheduled vacations and legislative calendars, fixed election dates and more that constrain action to a great degree. The schedule of actions tied to writing federal budgets is a big one – though the deadlines have been missed with greater and greater frequency in recent years. Then there’s the matter of fixed election dates. In the US we tend to take this for granted. But it’s not the norm in major constitutional democracies. The fixed schedule matters a lot.
Mix in the American system’s separation of executive and legislative powers and it’s fairly complicated and time-consuming to get things done. So while the 100 Day metric is arbitrary (a concept that dates back to FDR), the first months of a presidency provide a window of opportunity in which a President has a relative free hand. The budget schedule is relatively far off in the distance. Elections are as far away as they can be in the US system. Scheduled vacations are in the distance.
Perhaps most importantly the President has an amorphous but real legitimacy to act. He was elected. He should get to put his program in effect. This is obviously a very fuzzy notion. Nothing mandates that it be the case. But in historical terms it demonstrably is the case.
One other point to keep in mind here is that our system tends in the great majority of cases to bring a new President to power with unified government or a working majority in Congress. This was true with President Obama and President Clinton. It was essentially true with President George W. Bush, though technically there was divided rule in the Senate. It was true with President Reagan, whose party controlled the Senate and had a working majority of Republicans and conservative southern Democrats in the House. The first President Bush is the major recent exception. And in domestic terms he was basically a failed President.
You can dig into the formal and informal rules of American governance. But the upshot is that in the first months of a presidency the stars are aligned to get things done. A complex and perhaps sclerotic mix of governmental gears and pulleys are in a brief phase of alignment. If you look historically at the last forty years, the first months in office (whether or not precisely in the first 100 days) are when presidents got their big legislation passed.
An interesting example and counter-example is the passage of the Affordable Care Act in March 2010, a bit over a year into President Obama’s presidency. This was, as we can see, going on a year and a hundred days and it is certainly Obama’s most important and (seemingly) enduring legislative accomplishment. One might argue that the flurry of legislation and activity tied to the economic crisis was more important. But they were mainly one-time crisis measures rather than permanent reforms. In any case, the key to remember with Obamacare is that while it wasn’t finally passed until the Spring of 2010 the legislative process was well underway by the late Spring of 2009 and bills were coming out of committees in the House by the Summer.
Despite the right-wing mythology that has grown up since, claiming that President Obama pushed legislation through on party line votes and didn’t reach out to Republicans to craft bipartisan legislation, really quite the opposite was the case. Indeed, one of the best critiques of the ACA legislative process is that Obama and the Democrats spent much of 2009 waiting on working groups (“gangs”) of Senate Republicans and Democrats trying to find some point of bipartisan compromise. The final bill was watered down significantly in that process. None of the Republicans voted for the bill anyway.
There’s an interesting debate to be had over whether the Republicans were operating in bad faith all along or whether right-wing opposition simply hardened over the course of the discussions. The real point is that big legislation is hard in the American system. The health care legislative process was slightly delayed by emergency economic crisis legislation in early 2009. But it got started early, took a long time and – this is the critical part – only barely ended up getting passed.
That last part is key. The law only barely got passed because the President and the Democrats were running up against all the constraints that make it important to get laws passed early. Partisan opposition was hardening. The President’s early-term popularity was slackening. Elections were on the horizon.
A central challenge for President Trump was always that he started his presidency distinctly unpopular. He was a plurality rather than a majority President. And he began his presidency with deep and entrenched opposition. On the other hand, he had congressional majorities which should have given him or at least his party a relatively free hand. That didn’t happen. A big problem was that Trump didn’t have any legislation or even a plan of governance ready. He barely even had a government at all in the sense that most key jobs were left (and remain) unfilled. He proceeded to fritter away his first months in office with a mix of scandal, disorganization and legislative ineptitude.
When we consider the 100 day marker, it is not so much that Trump has accomplished virtually nothing of substance. It is that nothing of substance is really underway either. That’s the key thing.
On Monday, President Trump’s 102 day in office, he will begin from more or less a cold start, as though the first three months hadn’t happened. The difference is that he’ll face a calendar that is far less friendly to legislation and he’ll have squandered whatever degree of good will, momentum or confidence he had from congressional Republicans in his ability to be an effective President. There some truth to that, but he underplays Trump's popularity issue, mainly driven by Democrat politicians. Other presidents, even Obama, at least get some lip service from the other party. The GOP didn't want to really step on his toes to be honest. But all election Trump was made out to be devil spawn, so he has received no such "grace period." So there is no "100 day problem" because there was no 100 day phenomenon, scheduling aside.
to an extent that's true; but it's also partly that trump is simply that bad, unlike most others. and the issue isn't driven by democrat politicians so much as it is by trump's monumental unfitness for the position.
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On April 30 2017 01:01 ChristianS wrote:Josh Marshall has some commentary on the 100 days marker and why it matters. Basically, it's the part of a presidency where it's easiest to get things done in Congress, and when public opinion is most okay with you trying to get big changes done. Arguably, insomuch as Trump ever had a "mandate" that has largely been lost at this point. Even if you don't like Marshall/TPM, I think the analysis of the 100 days isn't really a partisan point (although I could see Trump supporters wanting to downplay the significance it, so it might be a partisan point at this exact moment). Show nested quote +So here we are at 100 Days, an arbitrary but nevertheless significant milestone in a presidency. I wanted to step back and size up its meaning, both to give ourselves some perspective but also for those from other countries who are less familiar with the US federal system.
From a distance, it looks like the US federal system can up and pass laws pretty much whenever. In practice, particularly when it comes to laws tied to spending and taxation, there is an overlapping series of frameworks, scheduled vacations and legislative calendars, fixed election dates and more that constrain action to a great degree. The schedule of actions tied to writing federal budgets is a big one – though the deadlines have been missed with greater and greater frequency in recent years. Then there’s the matter of fixed election dates. In the US we tend to take this for granted. But it’s not the norm in major constitutional democracies. The fixed schedule matters a lot.
Mix in the American system’s separation of executive and legislative powers and it’s fairly complicated and time-consuming to get things done. So while the 100 Day metric is arbitrary (a concept that dates back to FDR), the first months of a presidency provide a window of opportunity in which a President has a relative free hand. The budget schedule is relatively far off in the distance. Elections are as far away as they can be in the US system. Scheduled vacations are in the distance.
Perhaps most importantly the President has an amorphous but real legitimacy to act. He was elected. He should get to put his program in effect. This is obviously a very fuzzy notion. Nothing mandates that it be the case. But in historical terms it demonstrably is the case.
One other point to keep in mind here is that our system tends in the great majority of cases to bring a new President to power with unified government or a working majority in Congress. This was true with President Obama and President Clinton. It was essentially true with President George W. Bush, though technically there was divided rule in the Senate. It was true with President Reagan, whose party controlled the Senate and had a working majority of Republicans and conservative southern Democrats in the House. The first President Bush is the major recent exception. And in domestic terms he was basically a failed President.
You can dig into the formal and informal rules of American governance. But the upshot is that in the first months of a presidency the stars are aligned to get things done. A complex and perhaps sclerotic mix of governmental gears and pulleys are in a brief phase of alignment. If you look historically at the last forty years, the first months in office (whether or not precisely in the first 100 days) are when presidents got their big legislation passed.
An interesting example and counter-example is the passage of the Affordable Care Act in March 2010, a bit over a year into President Obama’s presidency. This was, as we can see, going on a year and a hundred days and it is certainly Obama’s most important and (seemingly) enduring legislative accomplishment. One might argue that the flurry of legislation and activity tied to the economic crisis was more important. But they were mainly one-time crisis measures rather than permanent reforms. In any case, the key to remember with Obamacare is that while it wasn’t finally passed until the Spring of 2010 the legislative process was well underway by the late Spring of 2009 and bills were coming out of committees in the House by the Summer.
Despite the right-wing mythology that has grown up since, claiming that President Obama pushed legislation through on party line votes and didn’t reach out to Republicans to craft bipartisan legislation, really quite the opposite was the case. Indeed, one of the best critiques of the ACA legislative process is that Obama and the Democrats spent much of 2009 waiting on working groups (“gangs”) of Senate Republicans and Democrats trying to find some point of bipartisan compromise. The final bill was watered down significantly in that process. None of the Republicans voted for the bill anyway.
There’s an interesting debate to be had over whether the Republicans were operating in bad faith all along or whether right-wing opposition simply hardened over the course of the discussions. The real point is that big legislation is hard in the American system. The health care legislative process was slightly delayed by emergency economic crisis legislation in early 2009. But it got started early, took a long time and – this is the critical part – only barely ended up getting passed.
That last part is key. The law only barely got passed because the President and the Democrats were running up against all the constraints that make it important to get laws passed early. Partisan opposition was hardening. The President’s early-term popularity was slackening. Elections were on the horizon.
A central challenge for President Trump was always that he started his presidency distinctly unpopular. He was a plurality rather than a majority President. And he began his presidency with deep and entrenched opposition. On the other hand, he had congressional majorities which should have given him or at least his party a relatively free hand. That didn’t happen. A big problem was that Trump didn’t have any legislation or even a plan of governance ready. He barely even had a government at all in the sense that most key jobs were left (and remain) unfilled. He proceeded to fritter away his first months in office with a mix of scandal, disorganization and legislative ineptitude.
When we consider the 100 day marker, it is not so much that Trump has accomplished virtually nothing of substance. It is that nothing of substance is really underway either. That’s the key thing.
On Monday, President Trump’s 102 day in office, he will begin from more or less a cold start, as though the first three months hadn’t happened. The difference is that he’ll face a calendar that is far less friendly to legislation and he’ll have squandered whatever degree of good will, momentum or confidence he had from congressional Republicans in his ability to be an effective President.
Trump may well be effectively a lame duck for his whole term.
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On April 30 2017 07:15 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On April 30 2017 01:01 ChristianS wrote:Josh Marshall has some commentary on the 100 days marker and why it matters. Basically, it's the part of a presidency where it's easiest to get things done in Congress, and when public opinion is most okay with you trying to get big changes done. Arguably, insomuch as Trump ever had a "mandate" that has largely been lost at this point. Even if you don't like Marshall/TPM, I think the analysis of the 100 days isn't really a partisan point (although I could see Trump supporters wanting to downplay the significance it, so it might be a partisan point at this exact moment). So here we are at 100 Days, an arbitrary but nevertheless significant milestone in a presidency. I wanted to step back and size up its meaning, both to give ourselves some perspective but also for those from other countries who are less familiar with the US federal system.
From a distance, it looks like the US federal system can up and pass laws pretty much whenever. In practice, particularly when it comes to laws tied to spending and taxation, there is an overlapping series of frameworks, scheduled vacations and legislative calendars, fixed election dates and more that constrain action to a great degree. The schedule of actions tied to writing federal budgets is a big one – though the deadlines have been missed with greater and greater frequency in recent years. Then there’s the matter of fixed election dates. In the US we tend to take this for granted. But it’s not the norm in major constitutional democracies. The fixed schedule matters a lot.
Mix in the American system’s separation of executive and legislative powers and it’s fairly complicated and time-consuming to get things done. So while the 100 Day metric is arbitrary (a concept that dates back to FDR), the first months of a presidency provide a window of opportunity in which a President has a relative free hand. The budget schedule is relatively far off in the distance. Elections are as far away as they can be in the US system. Scheduled vacations are in the distance.
Perhaps most importantly the President has an amorphous but real legitimacy to act. He was elected. He should get to put his program in effect. This is obviously a very fuzzy notion. Nothing mandates that it be the case. But in historical terms it demonstrably is the case.
One other point to keep in mind here is that our system tends in the great majority of cases to bring a new President to power with unified government or a working majority in Congress. This was true with President Obama and President Clinton. It was essentially true with President George W. Bush, though technically there was divided rule in the Senate. It was true with President Reagan, whose party controlled the Senate and had a working majority of Republicans and conservative southern Democrats in the House. The first President Bush is the major recent exception. And in domestic terms he was basically a failed President.
You can dig into the formal and informal rules of American governance. But the upshot is that in the first months of a presidency the stars are aligned to get things done. A complex and perhaps sclerotic mix of governmental gears and pulleys are in a brief phase of alignment. If you look historically at the last forty years, the first months in office (whether or not precisely in the first 100 days) are when presidents got their big legislation passed.
An interesting example and counter-example is the passage of the Affordable Care Act in March 2010, a bit over a year into President Obama’s presidency. This was, as we can see, going on a year and a hundred days and it is certainly Obama’s most important and (seemingly) enduring legislative accomplishment. One might argue that the flurry of legislation and activity tied to the economic crisis was more important. But they were mainly one-time crisis measures rather than permanent reforms. In any case, the key to remember with Obamacare is that while it wasn’t finally passed until the Spring of 2010 the legislative process was well underway by the late Spring of 2009 and bills were coming out of committees in the House by the Summer.
Despite the right-wing mythology that has grown up since, claiming that President Obama pushed legislation through on party line votes and didn’t reach out to Republicans to craft bipartisan legislation, really quite the opposite was the case. Indeed, one of the best critiques of the ACA legislative process is that Obama and the Democrats spent much of 2009 waiting on working groups (“gangs”) of Senate Republicans and Democrats trying to find some point of bipartisan compromise. The final bill was watered down significantly in that process. None of the Republicans voted for the bill anyway.
There’s an interesting debate to be had over whether the Republicans were operating in bad faith all along or whether right-wing opposition simply hardened over the course of the discussions. The real point is that big legislation is hard in the American system. The health care legislative process was slightly delayed by emergency economic crisis legislation in early 2009. But it got started early, took a long time and – this is the critical part – only barely ended up getting passed.
That last part is key. The law only barely got passed because the President and the Democrats were running up against all the constraints that make it important to get laws passed early. Partisan opposition was hardening. The President’s early-term popularity was slackening. Elections were on the horizon.
A central challenge for President Trump was always that he started his presidency distinctly unpopular. He was a plurality rather than a majority President. And he began his presidency with deep and entrenched opposition. On the other hand, he had congressional majorities which should have given him or at least his party a relatively free hand. That didn’t happen. A big problem was that Trump didn’t have any legislation or even a plan of governance ready. He barely even had a government at all in the sense that most key jobs were left (and remain) unfilled. He proceeded to fritter away his first months in office with a mix of scandal, disorganization and legislative ineptitude.
When we consider the 100 day marker, it is not so much that Trump has accomplished virtually nothing of substance. It is that nothing of substance is really underway either. That’s the key thing.
On Monday, President Trump’s 102 day in office, he will begin from more or less a cold start, as though the first three months hadn’t happened. The difference is that he’ll face a calendar that is far less friendly to legislation and he’ll have squandered whatever degree of good will, momentum or confidence he had from congressional Republicans in his ability to be an effective President. There some truth to that, but he underplays Trump's popularity issue, mainly driven by Democrat politicians. Other presidents, even Obama, at least get some lip service from the other party. The GOP didn't want to really step on his toes to be honest. But all election Trump was made out to be devil spawn, so he has received no such "grace period." So there is no "100 day problem" because there was no 100 day phenomenon, scheduling aside.
I actually think this paragraph addresses this fairly nicely:A central challenge for President Trump was always that he started his presidency distinctly unpopular. He was a plurality rather than a majority President. And he began his presidency with deep and entrenched opposition. On the other hand, he had congressional majorities which should have given him or at least his party a relatively free hand. That didn’t happen. A big problem was that Trump didn’t have any legislation or even a plan of governance ready. He barely even had a government at all in the sense that most key jobs were left (and remain) unfilled. He proceeded to fritter away his first months in office with a mix of scandal, disorganization and legislative ineptitude.
At a certain point he doesn't get to blame Democrats for his lack of accomplishments. All of that was an anticipable condition of his presidency, and a scenario he was aware of - or should have been - when he made his campaign promises. When you promise that Obamacare will be repealed day 1 and Mexico will be forced to pay for the wall by day 3, having few accomplishments by day 100 looks pretty bad, and "but the Democrats!" isn't worth a lot as a defense.
To be clear, I'm glad people with pre-existing conditions are still protected, and that NAFTA is still in place. I'd prefer he be ineffectual given his goals.
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All of that was an anticipable condition of his presidency
He literally said he thought being President would be easier than his last job. His ineffectiveness is almost exclusively despite Democrats (he's gotten their support more than once, which is a lot more than Republicans gave Obama at this point) rather than because of them.
EDIT: Not sure Democrats have actually stopped anything yet?
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On April 30 2017 14:23 GreenHorizons wrote:He literally said he thought being President would be easier than his last job. His ineffectiveness is almost exclusively despite Democrats (he's gotten their support more than once, which is a lot more than Republicans gave Obama at this point) rather than because of them. EDIT: Not sure Democrats have actually stopped anything yet?
The Democrats stopped Trumpcare for now; however, they did need Republican help. They've also been able to stop funding for the wall thus far.
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On April 30 2017 15:01 RenSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 30 2017 14:23 GreenHorizons wrote:All of that was an anticipable condition of his presidency He literally said he thought being President would be easier than his last job. His ineffectiveness is almost exclusively despite Democrats (he's gotten their support more than once, which is a lot more than Republicans gave Obama at this point) rather than because of them. EDIT: Not sure Democrats have actually stopped anything yet? The Democrats stopped Trumpcare for now; however, they did need Republican help. They've also been able to stop funding for the wall thus far.
When the GOP controls both houses of congress + the presidency you can't really say they stopped anything. Trumpcare was just so bad barely anyone could get behind it.
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On April 30 2017 13:22 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On April 30 2017 07:15 Introvert wrote:On April 30 2017 01:01 ChristianS wrote:Josh Marshall has some commentary on the 100 days marker and why it matters. Basically, it's the part of a presidency where it's easiest to get things done in Congress, and when public opinion is most okay with you trying to get big changes done. Arguably, insomuch as Trump ever had a "mandate" that has largely been lost at this point. Even if you don't like Marshall/TPM, I think the analysis of the 100 days isn't really a partisan point (although I could see Trump supporters wanting to downplay the significance it, so it might be a partisan point at this exact moment). So here we are at 100 Days, an arbitrary but nevertheless significant milestone in a presidency. I wanted to step back and size up its meaning, both to give ourselves some perspective but also for those from other countries who are less familiar with the US federal system.
From a distance, it looks like the US federal system can up and pass laws pretty much whenever. In practice, particularly when it comes to laws tied to spending and taxation, there is an overlapping series of frameworks, scheduled vacations and legislative calendars, fixed election dates and more that constrain action to a great degree. The schedule of actions tied to writing federal budgets is a big one – though the deadlines have been missed with greater and greater frequency in recent years. Then there’s the matter of fixed election dates. In the US we tend to take this for granted. But it’s not the norm in major constitutional democracies. The fixed schedule matters a lot.
Mix in the American system’s separation of executive and legislative powers and it’s fairly complicated and time-consuming to get things done. So while the 100 Day metric is arbitrary (a concept that dates back to FDR), the first months of a presidency provide a window of opportunity in which a President has a relative free hand. The budget schedule is relatively far off in the distance. Elections are as far away as they can be in the US system. Scheduled vacations are in the distance.
Perhaps most importantly the President has an amorphous but real legitimacy to act. He was elected. He should get to put his program in effect. This is obviously a very fuzzy notion. Nothing mandates that it be the case. But in historical terms it demonstrably is the case.
One other point to keep in mind here is that our system tends in the great majority of cases to bring a new President to power with unified government or a working majority in Congress. This was true with President Obama and President Clinton. It was essentially true with President George W. Bush, though technically there was divided rule in the Senate. It was true with President Reagan, whose party controlled the Senate and had a working majority of Republicans and conservative southern Democrats in the House. The first President Bush is the major recent exception. And in domestic terms he was basically a failed President.
You can dig into the formal and informal rules of American governance. But the upshot is that in the first months of a presidency the stars are aligned to get things done. A complex and perhaps sclerotic mix of governmental gears and pulleys are in a brief phase of alignment. If you look historically at the last forty years, the first months in office (whether or not precisely in the first 100 days) are when presidents got their big legislation passed.
An interesting example and counter-example is the passage of the Affordable Care Act in March 2010, a bit over a year into President Obama’s presidency. This was, as we can see, going on a year and a hundred days and it is certainly Obama’s most important and (seemingly) enduring legislative accomplishment. One might argue that the flurry of legislation and activity tied to the economic crisis was more important. But they were mainly one-time crisis measures rather than permanent reforms. In any case, the key to remember with Obamacare is that while it wasn’t finally passed until the Spring of 2010 the legislative process was well underway by the late Spring of 2009 and bills were coming out of committees in the House by the Summer.
Despite the right-wing mythology that has grown up since, claiming that President Obama pushed legislation through on party line votes and didn’t reach out to Republicans to craft bipartisan legislation, really quite the opposite was the case. Indeed, one of the best critiques of the ACA legislative process is that Obama and the Democrats spent much of 2009 waiting on working groups (“gangs”) of Senate Republicans and Democrats trying to find some point of bipartisan compromise. The final bill was watered down significantly in that process. None of the Republicans voted for the bill anyway.
There’s an interesting debate to be had over whether the Republicans were operating in bad faith all along or whether right-wing opposition simply hardened over the course of the discussions. The real point is that big legislation is hard in the American system. The health care legislative process was slightly delayed by emergency economic crisis legislation in early 2009. But it got started early, took a long time and – this is the critical part – only barely ended up getting passed.
That last part is key. The law only barely got passed because the President and the Democrats were running up against all the constraints that make it important to get laws passed early. Partisan opposition was hardening. The President’s early-term popularity was slackening. Elections were on the horizon.
A central challenge for President Trump was always that he started his presidency distinctly unpopular. He was a plurality rather than a majority President. And he began his presidency with deep and entrenched opposition. On the other hand, he had congressional majorities which should have given him or at least his party a relatively free hand. That didn’t happen. A big problem was that Trump didn’t have any legislation or even a plan of governance ready. He barely even had a government at all in the sense that most key jobs were left (and remain) unfilled. He proceeded to fritter away his first months in office with a mix of scandal, disorganization and legislative ineptitude.
When we consider the 100 day marker, it is not so much that Trump has accomplished virtually nothing of substance. It is that nothing of substance is really underway either. That’s the key thing.
On Monday, President Trump’s 102 day in office, he will begin from more or less a cold start, as though the first three months hadn’t happened. The difference is that he’ll face a calendar that is far less friendly to legislation and he’ll have squandered whatever degree of good will, momentum or confidence he had from congressional Republicans in his ability to be an effective President. There some truth to that, but he underplays Trump's popularity issue, mainly driven by Democrat politicians. Other presidents, even Obama, at least get some lip service from the other party. The GOP didn't want to really step on his toes to be honest. But all election Trump was made out to be devil spawn, so he has received no such "grace period." So there is no "100 day problem" because there was no 100 day phenomenon, scheduling aside. I actually think this paragraph addresses this fairly nicely: Show nested quote +A central challenge for President Trump was always that he started his presidency distinctly unpopular. He was a plurality rather than a majority President. And he began his presidency with deep and entrenched opposition. On the other hand, he had congressional majorities which should have given him or at least his party a relatively free hand. That didn’t happen. A big problem was that Trump didn’t have any legislation or even a plan of governance ready. He barely even had a government at all in the sense that most key jobs were left (and remain) unfilled. He proceeded to fritter away his first months in office with a mix of scandal, disorganization and legislative ineptitude. At a certain point he doesn't get to blame Democrats for his lack of accomplishments. All of that was an anticipable condition of his presidency, and a scenario he was aware of - or should have been - when he made his campaign promises. When you promise that Obamacare will be repealed day 1 and Mexico will be forced to pay for the wall by day 3, having few accomplishments by day 100 looks pretty bad, and "but the Democrats!" isn't worth a lot as a defense. To be clear, I'm glad people with pre-existing conditions are still protected, and that NAFTA is still in place. I'd prefer he be ineffectual given his goals.
To be clear, I'm not someone who touts his competence, but that measly paragraph is actually the meat of what happened. Previous presidents got more done because they had better majorities and some fearful good will by the losing party.
I'd prefer he be ineffectual given his goals.
Would you say that you hope he fails? 
Edit:
And you bet your rear that he gets to blame Democrats forever, Obama did it. Though I suspect Trump and his influential SIL will do more Democrat outreach as time goes on, assuming the Dems don't go whole hog on the "Trump wants it so we don't" strategy.
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On April 30 2017 17:22 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On April 30 2017 13:22 ChristianS wrote:On April 30 2017 07:15 Introvert wrote:On April 30 2017 01:01 ChristianS wrote:Josh Marshall has some commentary on the 100 days marker and why it matters. Basically, it's the part of a presidency where it's easiest to get things done in Congress, and when public opinion is most okay with you trying to get big changes done. Arguably, insomuch as Trump ever had a "mandate" that has largely been lost at this point. Even if you don't like Marshall/TPM, I think the analysis of the 100 days isn't really a partisan point (although I could see Trump supporters wanting to downplay the significance it, so it might be a partisan point at this exact moment). So here we are at 100 Days, an arbitrary but nevertheless significant milestone in a presidency. I wanted to step back and size up its meaning, both to give ourselves some perspective but also for those from other countries who are less familiar with the US federal system.
From a distance, it looks like the US federal system can up and pass laws pretty much whenever. In practice, particularly when it comes to laws tied to spending and taxation, there is an overlapping series of frameworks, scheduled vacations and legislative calendars, fixed election dates and more that constrain action to a great degree. The schedule of actions tied to writing federal budgets is a big one – though the deadlines have been missed with greater and greater frequency in recent years. Then there’s the matter of fixed election dates. In the US we tend to take this for granted. But it’s not the norm in major constitutional democracies. The fixed schedule matters a lot.
Mix in the American system’s separation of executive and legislative powers and it’s fairly complicated and time-consuming to get things done. So while the 100 Day metric is arbitrary (a concept that dates back to FDR), the first months of a presidency provide a window of opportunity in which a President has a relative free hand. The budget schedule is relatively far off in the distance. Elections are as far away as they can be in the US system. Scheduled vacations are in the distance.
Perhaps most importantly the President has an amorphous but real legitimacy to act. He was elected. He should get to put his program in effect. This is obviously a very fuzzy notion. Nothing mandates that it be the case. But in historical terms it demonstrably is the case.
One other point to keep in mind here is that our system tends in the great majority of cases to bring a new President to power with unified government or a working majority in Congress. This was true with President Obama and President Clinton. It was essentially true with President George W. Bush, though technically there was divided rule in the Senate. It was true with President Reagan, whose party controlled the Senate and had a working majority of Republicans and conservative southern Democrats in the House. The first President Bush is the major recent exception. And in domestic terms he was basically a failed President.
You can dig into the formal and informal rules of American governance. But the upshot is that in the first months of a presidency the stars are aligned to get things done. A complex and perhaps sclerotic mix of governmental gears and pulleys are in a brief phase of alignment. If you look historically at the last forty years, the first months in office (whether or not precisely in the first 100 days) are when presidents got their big legislation passed.
An interesting example and counter-example is the passage of the Affordable Care Act in March 2010, a bit over a year into President Obama’s presidency. This was, as we can see, going on a year and a hundred days and it is certainly Obama’s most important and (seemingly) enduring legislative accomplishment. One might argue that the flurry of legislation and activity tied to the economic crisis was more important. But they were mainly one-time crisis measures rather than permanent reforms. In any case, the key to remember with Obamacare is that while it wasn’t finally passed until the Spring of 2010 the legislative process was well underway by the late Spring of 2009 and bills were coming out of committees in the House by the Summer.
Despite the right-wing mythology that has grown up since, claiming that President Obama pushed legislation through on party line votes and didn’t reach out to Republicans to craft bipartisan legislation, really quite the opposite was the case. Indeed, one of the best critiques of the ACA legislative process is that Obama and the Democrats spent much of 2009 waiting on working groups (“gangs”) of Senate Republicans and Democrats trying to find some point of bipartisan compromise. The final bill was watered down significantly in that process. None of the Republicans voted for the bill anyway.
There’s an interesting debate to be had over whether the Republicans were operating in bad faith all along or whether right-wing opposition simply hardened over the course of the discussions. The real point is that big legislation is hard in the American system. The health care legislative process was slightly delayed by emergency economic crisis legislation in early 2009. But it got started early, took a long time and – this is the critical part – only barely ended up getting passed.
That last part is key. The law only barely got passed because the President and the Democrats were running up against all the constraints that make it important to get laws passed early. Partisan opposition was hardening. The President’s early-term popularity was slackening. Elections were on the horizon.
A central challenge for President Trump was always that he started his presidency distinctly unpopular. He was a plurality rather than a majority President. And he began his presidency with deep and entrenched opposition. On the other hand, he had congressional majorities which should have given him or at least his party a relatively free hand. That didn’t happen. A big problem was that Trump didn’t have any legislation or even a plan of governance ready. He barely even had a government at all in the sense that most key jobs were left (and remain) unfilled. He proceeded to fritter away his first months in office with a mix of scandal, disorganization and legislative ineptitude.
When we consider the 100 day marker, it is not so much that Trump has accomplished virtually nothing of substance. It is that nothing of substance is really underway either. That’s the key thing.
On Monday, President Trump’s 102 day in office, he will begin from more or less a cold start, as though the first three months hadn’t happened. The difference is that he’ll face a calendar that is far less friendly to legislation and he’ll have squandered whatever degree of good will, momentum or confidence he had from congressional Republicans in his ability to be an effective President. There some truth to that, but he underplays Trump's popularity issue, mainly driven by Democrat politicians. Other presidents, even Obama, at least get some lip service from the other party. The GOP didn't want to really step on his toes to be honest. But all election Trump was made out to be devil spawn, so he has received no such "grace period." So there is no "100 day problem" because there was no 100 day phenomenon, scheduling aside. I actually think this paragraph addresses this fairly nicely: A central challenge for President Trump was always that he started his presidency distinctly unpopular. He was a plurality rather than a majority President. And he began his presidency with deep and entrenched opposition. On the other hand, he had congressional majorities which should have given him or at least his party a relatively free hand. That didn’t happen. A big problem was that Trump didn’t have any legislation or even a plan of governance ready. He barely even had a government at all in the sense that most key jobs were left (and remain) unfilled. He proceeded to fritter away his first months in office with a mix of scandal, disorganization and legislative ineptitude. At a certain point he doesn't get to blame Democrats for his lack of accomplishments. All of that was an anticipable condition of his presidency, and a scenario he was aware of - or should have been - when he made his campaign promises. When you promise that Obamacare will be repealed day 1 and Mexico will be forced to pay for the wall by day 3, having few accomplishments by day 100 looks pretty bad, and "but the Democrats!" isn't worth a lot as a defense. To be clear, I'm glad people with pre-existing conditions are still protected, and that NAFTA is still in place. I'd prefer he be ineffectual given his goals. To be clear, I'm not someone who touts his competence, but that measly paragraph is actually the meat of what happened. Previous presidents got more done because they had better majorities and some fearful good will by the losing party. Would you say that you hope he fails? Edit: And you bet your rear that he gets to blame Democrats forever, Obama did it. Though I suspect Trump and his influential SIL will do more Democrat outreach as time goes on, assuming the Dems don't go whole hog on the "Trump wants it so we don't" strategy.
Obama got to blame Republicans forever because, surprise, they were in a position to block him for the 6 years and did so frequently. Unlike the Republicans who control a majority in all 3 branches of government. If the Democrats filibuster everything that moves then maybe you would have a point, but they haven't even had to sofar.
If you can't see the difference of the 2 situations then your twisted view of reality is to far gone to have a conversation with.
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On April 30 2017 18:23 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On April 30 2017 17:22 Introvert wrote:On April 30 2017 13:22 ChristianS wrote:On April 30 2017 07:15 Introvert wrote:On April 30 2017 01:01 ChristianS wrote:Josh Marshall has some commentary on the 100 days marker and why it matters. Basically, it's the part of a presidency where it's easiest to get things done in Congress, and when public opinion is most okay with you trying to get big changes done. Arguably, insomuch as Trump ever had a "mandate" that has largely been lost at this point. Even if you don't like Marshall/TPM, I think the analysis of the 100 days isn't really a partisan point (although I could see Trump supporters wanting to downplay the significance it, so it might be a partisan point at this exact moment). So here we are at 100 Days, an arbitrary but nevertheless significant milestone in a presidency. I wanted to step back and size up its meaning, both to give ourselves some perspective but also for those from other countries who are less familiar with the US federal system.
From a distance, it looks like the US federal system can up and pass laws pretty much whenever. In practice, particularly when it comes to laws tied to spending and taxation, there is an overlapping series of frameworks, scheduled vacations and legislative calendars, fixed election dates and more that constrain action to a great degree. The schedule of actions tied to writing federal budgets is a big one – though the deadlines have been missed with greater and greater frequency in recent years. Then there’s the matter of fixed election dates. In the US we tend to take this for granted. But it’s not the norm in major constitutional democracies. The fixed schedule matters a lot.
Mix in the American system’s separation of executive and legislative powers and it’s fairly complicated and time-consuming to get things done. So while the 100 Day metric is arbitrary (a concept that dates back to FDR), the first months of a presidency provide a window of opportunity in which a President has a relative free hand. The budget schedule is relatively far off in the distance. Elections are as far away as they can be in the US system. Scheduled vacations are in the distance.
Perhaps most importantly the President has an amorphous but real legitimacy to act. He was elected. He should get to put his program in effect. This is obviously a very fuzzy notion. Nothing mandates that it be the case. But in historical terms it demonstrably is the case.
One other point to keep in mind here is that our system tends in the great majority of cases to bring a new President to power with unified government or a working majority in Congress. This was true with President Obama and President Clinton. It was essentially true with President George W. Bush, though technically there was divided rule in the Senate. It was true with President Reagan, whose party controlled the Senate and had a working majority of Republicans and conservative southern Democrats in the House. The first President Bush is the major recent exception. And in domestic terms he was basically a failed President.
You can dig into the formal and informal rules of American governance. But the upshot is that in the first months of a presidency the stars are aligned to get things done. A complex and perhaps sclerotic mix of governmental gears and pulleys are in a brief phase of alignment. If you look historically at the last forty years, the first months in office (whether or not precisely in the first 100 days) are when presidents got their big legislation passed.
An interesting example and counter-example is the passage of the Affordable Care Act in March 2010, a bit over a year into President Obama’s presidency. This was, as we can see, going on a year and a hundred days and it is certainly Obama’s most important and (seemingly) enduring legislative accomplishment. One might argue that the flurry of legislation and activity tied to the economic crisis was more important. But they were mainly one-time crisis measures rather than permanent reforms. In any case, the key to remember with Obamacare is that while it wasn’t finally passed until the Spring of 2010 the legislative process was well underway by the late Spring of 2009 and bills were coming out of committees in the House by the Summer.
Despite the right-wing mythology that has grown up since, claiming that President Obama pushed legislation through on party line votes and didn’t reach out to Republicans to craft bipartisan legislation, really quite the opposite was the case. Indeed, one of the best critiques of the ACA legislative process is that Obama and the Democrats spent much of 2009 waiting on working groups (“gangs”) of Senate Republicans and Democrats trying to find some point of bipartisan compromise. The final bill was watered down significantly in that process. None of the Republicans voted for the bill anyway.
There’s an interesting debate to be had over whether the Republicans were operating in bad faith all along or whether right-wing opposition simply hardened over the course of the discussions. The real point is that big legislation is hard in the American system. The health care legislative process was slightly delayed by emergency economic crisis legislation in early 2009. But it got started early, took a long time and – this is the critical part – only barely ended up getting passed.
That last part is key. The law only barely got passed because the President and the Democrats were running up against all the constraints that make it important to get laws passed early. Partisan opposition was hardening. The President’s early-term popularity was slackening. Elections were on the horizon.
A central challenge for President Trump was always that he started his presidency distinctly unpopular. He was a plurality rather than a majority President. And he began his presidency with deep and entrenched opposition. On the other hand, he had congressional majorities which should have given him or at least his party a relatively free hand. That didn’t happen. A big problem was that Trump didn’t have any legislation or even a plan of governance ready. He barely even had a government at all in the sense that most key jobs were left (and remain) unfilled. He proceeded to fritter away his first months in office with a mix of scandal, disorganization and legislative ineptitude.
When we consider the 100 day marker, it is not so much that Trump has accomplished virtually nothing of substance. It is that nothing of substance is really underway either. That’s the key thing.
On Monday, President Trump’s 102 day in office, he will begin from more or less a cold start, as though the first three months hadn’t happened. The difference is that he’ll face a calendar that is far less friendly to legislation and he’ll have squandered whatever degree of good will, momentum or confidence he had from congressional Republicans in his ability to be an effective President. There some truth to that, but he underplays Trump's popularity issue, mainly driven by Democrat politicians. Other presidents, even Obama, at least get some lip service from the other party. The GOP didn't want to really step on his toes to be honest. But all election Trump was made out to be devil spawn, so he has received no such "grace period." So there is no "100 day problem" because there was no 100 day phenomenon, scheduling aside. I actually think this paragraph addresses this fairly nicely: A central challenge for President Trump was always that he started his presidency distinctly unpopular. He was a plurality rather than a majority President. And he began his presidency with deep and entrenched opposition. On the other hand, he had congressional majorities which should have given him or at least his party a relatively free hand. That didn’t happen. A big problem was that Trump didn’t have any legislation or even a plan of governance ready. He barely even had a government at all in the sense that most key jobs were left (and remain) unfilled. He proceeded to fritter away his first months in office with a mix of scandal, disorganization and legislative ineptitude. At a certain point he doesn't get to blame Democrats for his lack of accomplishments. All of that was an anticipable condition of his presidency, and a scenario he was aware of - or should have been - when he made his campaign promises. When you promise that Obamacare will be repealed day 1 and Mexico will be forced to pay for the wall by day 3, having few accomplishments by day 100 looks pretty bad, and "but the Democrats!" isn't worth a lot as a defense. To be clear, I'm glad people with pre-existing conditions are still protected, and that NAFTA is still in place. I'd prefer he be ineffectual given his goals. To be clear, I'm not someone who touts his competence, but that measly paragraph is actually the meat of what happened. Previous presidents got more done because they had better majorities and some fearful good will by the losing party. I'd prefer he be ineffectual given his goals.
Would you say that you hope he fails? Edit: And you bet your rear that he gets to blame Democrats forever, Obama did it. Though I suspect Trump and his influential SIL will do more Democrat outreach as time goes on, assuming the Dems don't go whole hog on the "Trump wants it so we don't" strategy. If the Democrats filibuster everything that moves then maybe you would have a point, but they haven't even been able to sofar.
Fixed it.
And that's why I said "assuming." We'll see if Trump is more like Bill Clinton or Barack Obama in time.
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On April 30 2017 18:34 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On April 30 2017 18:23 Gorsameth wrote:On April 30 2017 17:22 Introvert wrote:On April 30 2017 13:22 ChristianS wrote:On April 30 2017 07:15 Introvert wrote:On April 30 2017 01:01 ChristianS wrote:Josh Marshall has some commentary on the 100 days marker and why it matters. Basically, it's the part of a presidency where it's easiest to get things done in Congress, and when public opinion is most okay with you trying to get big changes done. Arguably, insomuch as Trump ever had a "mandate" that has largely been lost at this point. Even if you don't like Marshall/TPM, I think the analysis of the 100 days isn't really a partisan point (although I could see Trump supporters wanting to downplay the significance it, so it might be a partisan point at this exact moment). So here we are at 100 Days, an arbitrary but nevertheless significant milestone in a presidency. I wanted to step back and size up its meaning, both to give ourselves some perspective but also for those from other countries who are less familiar with the US federal system.
From a distance, it looks like the US federal system can up and pass laws pretty much whenever. In practice, particularly when it comes to laws tied to spending and taxation, there is an overlapping series of frameworks, scheduled vacations and legislative calendars, fixed election dates and more that constrain action to a great degree. The schedule of actions tied to writing federal budgets is a big one – though the deadlines have been missed with greater and greater frequency in recent years. Then there’s the matter of fixed election dates. In the US we tend to take this for granted. But it’s not the norm in major constitutional democracies. The fixed schedule matters a lot.
Mix in the American system’s separation of executive and legislative powers and it’s fairly complicated and time-consuming to get things done. So while the 100 Day metric is arbitrary (a concept that dates back to FDR), the first months of a presidency provide a window of opportunity in which a President has a relative free hand. The budget schedule is relatively far off in the distance. Elections are as far away as they can be in the US system. Scheduled vacations are in the distance.
Perhaps most importantly the President has an amorphous but real legitimacy to act. He was elected. He should get to put his program in effect. This is obviously a very fuzzy notion. Nothing mandates that it be the case. But in historical terms it demonstrably is the case.
One other point to keep in mind here is that our system tends in the great majority of cases to bring a new President to power with unified government or a working majority in Congress. This was true with President Obama and President Clinton. It was essentially true with President George W. Bush, though technically there was divided rule in the Senate. It was true with President Reagan, whose party controlled the Senate and had a working majority of Republicans and conservative southern Democrats in the House. The first President Bush is the major recent exception. And in domestic terms he was basically a failed President.
You can dig into the formal and informal rules of American governance. But the upshot is that in the first months of a presidency the stars are aligned to get things done. A complex and perhaps sclerotic mix of governmental gears and pulleys are in a brief phase of alignment. If you look historically at the last forty years, the first months in office (whether or not precisely in the first 100 days) are when presidents got their big legislation passed.
An interesting example and counter-example is the passage of the Affordable Care Act in March 2010, a bit over a year into President Obama’s presidency. This was, as we can see, going on a year and a hundred days and it is certainly Obama’s most important and (seemingly) enduring legislative accomplishment. One might argue that the flurry of legislation and activity tied to the economic crisis was more important. But they were mainly one-time crisis measures rather than permanent reforms. In any case, the key to remember with Obamacare is that while it wasn’t finally passed until the Spring of 2010 the legislative process was well underway by the late Spring of 2009 and bills were coming out of committees in the House by the Summer.
Despite the right-wing mythology that has grown up since, claiming that President Obama pushed legislation through on party line votes and didn’t reach out to Republicans to craft bipartisan legislation, really quite the opposite was the case. Indeed, one of the best critiques of the ACA legislative process is that Obama and the Democrats spent much of 2009 waiting on working groups (“gangs”) of Senate Republicans and Democrats trying to find some point of bipartisan compromise. The final bill was watered down significantly in that process. None of the Republicans voted for the bill anyway.
There’s an interesting debate to be had over whether the Republicans were operating in bad faith all along or whether right-wing opposition simply hardened over the course of the discussions. The real point is that big legislation is hard in the American system. The health care legislative process was slightly delayed by emergency economic crisis legislation in early 2009. But it got started early, took a long time and – this is the critical part – only barely ended up getting passed.
That last part is key. The law only barely got passed because the President and the Democrats were running up against all the constraints that make it important to get laws passed early. Partisan opposition was hardening. The President’s early-term popularity was slackening. Elections were on the horizon.
A central challenge for President Trump was always that he started his presidency distinctly unpopular. He was a plurality rather than a majority President. And he began his presidency with deep and entrenched opposition. On the other hand, he had congressional majorities which should have given him or at least his party a relatively free hand. That didn’t happen. A big problem was that Trump didn’t have any legislation or even a plan of governance ready. He barely even had a government at all in the sense that most key jobs were left (and remain) unfilled. He proceeded to fritter away his first months in office with a mix of scandal, disorganization and legislative ineptitude.
When we consider the 100 day marker, it is not so much that Trump has accomplished virtually nothing of substance. It is that nothing of substance is really underway either. That’s the key thing.
On Monday, President Trump’s 102 day in office, he will begin from more or less a cold start, as though the first three months hadn’t happened. The difference is that he’ll face a calendar that is far less friendly to legislation and he’ll have squandered whatever degree of good will, momentum or confidence he had from congressional Republicans in his ability to be an effective President. There some truth to that, but he underplays Trump's popularity issue, mainly driven by Democrat politicians. Other presidents, even Obama, at least get some lip service from the other party. The GOP didn't want to really step on his toes to be honest. But all election Trump was made out to be devil spawn, so he has received no such "grace period." So there is no "100 day problem" because there was no 100 day phenomenon, scheduling aside. I actually think this paragraph addresses this fairly nicely: A central challenge for President Trump was always that he started his presidency distinctly unpopular. He was a plurality rather than a majority President. And he began his presidency with deep and entrenched opposition. On the other hand, he had congressional majorities which should have given him or at least his party a relatively free hand. That didn’t happen. A big problem was that Trump didn’t have any legislation or even a plan of governance ready. He barely even had a government at all in the sense that most key jobs were left (and remain) unfilled. He proceeded to fritter away his first months in office with a mix of scandal, disorganization and legislative ineptitude. At a certain point he doesn't get to blame Democrats for his lack of accomplishments. All of that was an anticipable condition of his presidency, and a scenario he was aware of - or should have been - when he made his campaign promises. When you promise that Obamacare will be repealed day 1 and Mexico will be forced to pay for the wall by day 3, having few accomplishments by day 100 looks pretty bad, and "but the Democrats!" isn't worth a lot as a defense. To be clear, I'm glad people with pre-existing conditions are still protected, and that NAFTA is still in place. I'd prefer he be ineffectual given his goals. To be clear, I'm not someone who touts his competence, but that measly paragraph is actually the meat of what happened. Previous presidents got more done because they had better majorities and some fearful good will by the losing party. I'd prefer he be ineffectual given his goals.
Would you say that you hope he fails? Edit: And you bet your rear that he gets to blame Democrats forever, Obama did it. Though I suspect Trump and his influential SIL will do more Democrat outreach as time goes on, assuming the Dems don't go whole hog on the "Trump wants it so we don't" strategy. If the Democrats filibuster everything that moves then maybe you would have a point, but they haven't even been able to sofar. Fixed it. And that's why I said "assuming." We'll see if Trump is more like Bill Clinton or Barack Obama in time.
Yeah, Bill Clinton also has a story of grabbing one by the anatomical parts of the body. He had to say he didn't have anything to do with Monica Lewinsky. It's FAKE NEWS as Trump says. :D
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The notion that Democrats are to blame for Trump's lack of effectiveness so far makes no sense. House Republicans are the logjam and probably will be that way no matter who is president. Throw in Trump's inability to lead and you can see who is to blame.
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EPT
