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Let the vetoes begin! — 39 Comments

1. So we know that the opposition can paint Obama as an obstructionist with multiple vetoes. Is Obama’s multiple veto threat an attempt to parry that? In other words,” Well I told them that I would veto these bills and yet the Republicans sent them to me anyway. This proves that the Republicans just aren’t interested in sending me bills that I can sign or in cooperating with me in any way.”

2. The media always gives the progressive spin.
   So now, suddenly, bipartisanship doesn’t matter and obstructionism is a projection of “strength,” just like dissent is unpatriotic (and, bonus, raaacist), incoherent, illogical, detrimental foreign (and other) policy is “nuanced,” the Constitution is “just a piece of paper,” a “living document,” really, as it was written by slaveholders in the way-back times, and only wingnuts mention the debt. Remember “fierce moral urgency” and “skin in the game” in reference to killing foreigners? That’s so 2005.

   As bad as progressives are, the enablers who whitewash their messaging for the LIVs are worse. Hence, the unseemly glee about the overpaid underbrained but clearly mentally ill hackosaurus who got caught lying last week.

   Live by Idiocracy, die by Idiocracy.

3. “Historically, most presidents have saved their vetoes for the issues that matter most to them, because they have been afraid to challenge what appears to be the will of the majority of the people too many times.”

   Given this, why should he worry?

   “The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 49% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Obama’s job performance. Fifty percent (50%) disapprove”

4. “Historically, most presidents have saved their vetoes for the issues that matter most to them . . . “

   In addition to your reasons, Neo, there is also “political capital.” Spend too much of it on some things you don’t have enough of it on the things that matter.

   For most presidents, of either party, this holds true.

   But, for Obama, it seems like he has en endless supply of political capital because no one (or I should say very few) are willing to call him out of anything. So, he just spends and spends and spends, whether it be tax dollars or political capital – he thinks the supply is endless. And for his political capital it does seem endless.

5. Pingback:The Unprecedented Obstructionism of Barack Obama - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money

6. so you guys are really going to do this?

   vetoes, by president

   (normal person would in fact update this post to reflect it, by which i mean: would erase and pray that google does the same.)

   Obama: 3 (5, pro-rated to a full two terms)

   George W. Bush: 12

   Ronald Reagan: 78

   Gerald Ford: 66 (in less than 3 full years!)

   Richard Nixon: 43 (less than 2 full terms)

   Dwight Eisenhower: 181

   Calvin Coolidge: 50 (less than 2 full terms)

   Teddy Roosevelt: 82

   Grover Cleveland: 584

7. and to add one more thing: it takes a certain ahistoricity to write something like this, and i cannot, in my deepest lizard brain, fathom how one would do such a thing without first USING GOOGLE TO CHECK MY FACTS. but to then watch one commenter after another go down the nonsense rabbit hole–it’s like seeing epistemic closure in its pristine state, in the wild, unaware that Discovery Channel has the cameras rolling. it’s almost…beautiful. but it’s not. it’s just sad.

8. Crud, I show up to make fun of the rubes and find that Robert Green has beat me to it.

   Con 1: “It’s raining outside!”

   Con 2 “Dang Obama! Never rained before

9. Good argument. After all, Article I, sec. 7, cl. 2 reads*:

   “Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If I approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it”

   *Edited for convenience.

10. Robert Green, et al.:

    First of all, note the actual quote, “most presidents have saved their vetoes for the issues that matter most to them, because they have been afraid to challenge what appears to be the will of the majority of the people too many times.” That sentence doesn’t reflect on sheer number totals of vetoes.

    By saying “most presidents save their vetoes for the issues that matter most to them,” I didn’t mean to imply that some presidents haven’t vetoed a great deal of legislation. Often those vetoes have been pocket vetoes, and some have been vetoes of legislation on fairly small matters, but it is certainly not the case that previous presidents have all been reluctant to use their veto power, and even to sometimes use it on larger issues. It’s the second half of the sentence, about challenging the will of the people, that is the point and connects up to the first half. Never has a president come out of the box and immediately threatened a new Congress with this many vetoes on significant legislation that the public favors, and in many cases strongly favors. That is what is happening here. Keystone, for example, has bipartisan support, and has been consistently popular with voters (see this).

    Another point, although a tangential one, in terms of sheer numbers of vetoes: the longer a president is in office with a Congress controlled by the opposite party, the more vetoes you would expect him/her to use. President Obama has issued (as I quoted) “the most ever for the start of a new Congress.” This Congress has been in session only a little more than a month, and this is the first Republican-controlled Congress Obama has faced, one with the numbers to pass bills he doesn’t like (although he had a Republican House since 2010, the Democratic Senate was able to block almost everything the Republican House tried to do).

    I doubt that, even given this, Obama will end up with a large total number of vetoes. For one thing, he doesn’t have that much time. But I predict that his vetoes will be of legislation that is more significant and more popular than the bills his predecessors in office vetoed.

    In addition, there is no question that Obama has the power, and the right, to veto every single piece of legislation handed to him, should he desire to do so. Every president has that same right. That doesn’t make it a good idea, although it may seem that way to you, since you support him.

11. “Never has a president come out of the box and immediately threatened a new Congress with this many vetoes on significant legislation that the public favors”

    Cite

12. Citations are for pointy-headed liberal intellectuals, MPAVictoria. In the alternate universe in which conservatives reside, feelings and gut instinct are the sole barometers of truth.

13. Entire prog peanut gallery misses/ignores the point, strenuously focuses efforts on debunking point that was not made.

    Sad.

14. AMartel,

    The point is…three frigging vetoes! Obama vetoes three times and it means he hates and ignores American voters. Ronald Reagan vetoed 78 times and it means he personally visited every US citizen and took their pulse.

15. I think there needs to be an art-rock band called the Prog Peanut Gallery. Someone give Robert Fripp a ring!

    P.S. Here’s a list of the bills Obama’s threatened to veto:

    1.) The Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act
    2.) No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act
    3.) H.R. 596 (which would repeal the ACA in its entirety)
    4.) The Save American Workers Act of 2015 (which would require employees to work 40-hour weeks in order to obtain employer-provided healthcare)
    5.) Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act (which would overturn the President’s executive action on immigration)
    6.) The Promoting Job Creation and Reducing Small Business Burdens Act (which would severely weaken the Dodd-Frank Act)
    7.) The Regulatory Accountability Act of 2015 (which would weaken the ability of regulatory bodies to effectively do their jobs)
    8.) Keystone XL Pipeline Act
    9.) Natural Gas Pipeline Permitting Reform Act

    At least half of these bills are direct assaults on what Obama and his supporters consider his administration’s greatest achievements. There aren’t many presidents in American history who would act differently.

16. I’m inclined to agree with neo neocon. Numbers are one thing, but what’s more important is how we feel about Obama’s vetoes. And certainly we feel that Obama is acting totally out of bounds, here.

    More seriously, the Keystone Pipeline is something most people don’t care that much about but the people who do care really against it. Congress can always attempt to override the veto if they don’t like it or attempt to elect a president in 2016 who will support it. I don’t understand why this is controversial, unless you’re experimenting with some kind of rhetorical argument in an attempt to see if it “sticks.”

17. Obama’s a FAR LEFT ARCHPROGRESSIVE PARTISAN who is being OBSTRUCTIONIST and ignoring the WILL of the PEOPLE and BIPARTISAN EFFORTS to reach CONSENSUS in order to cater to the RADICAL DEMANDS of his idle rich/poor BASE, the EXTREMELY EXTREME left wingers who have HIJACKED the Democratic Party which used to be reliably and reasonably liberal but now is just a fever swamp of HATE and GREED.
    And STOOOPID.

18. Waffle and MPAVictoria:

    See this, this, and this. From the second link:

    President George W. Bush, President Clinton, President Reagan and President Truman each issued threats in two speeches, according to copies of all State of the Union messages cataloged at the American Presidency Project, a collection of data maintained by two political scientists.

    Mr. Bush in 2008 said he would veto tax increases and then said he would veto spending bills that didn’t trim pork-barrel spending. And in 2004 he said he would veto changes to his Medicare prescription drug program.

    Mr. Clinton in 1996 talked about having vetoed a GOP budget that would have cut the Earned Income Tax Credit, and then said he would veto legislation to let employers delay pension payments. And in 1994 he issued a threat to veto any health care bill that reached his desk without covering all Americans.

    I haven’t been able to find contemporaneous polls on the popularity of those vetoes. But it seems likely from looking at them that most of these presidents’ vetoes were probably in line with public opinion (tax breaks, Earned Income Tax Credit, trimming pork-barrel spending, Medicare Part D). If you have some evidence to the contrary, you’re free to give some cites.

    In addition, the numbers of their veto threats (as previously mentioned, and discussed in the other linked articles) were much smaller than the number of Obama’s veto threats.

    The bills Obama is threatening to veto are listed here. It’s not possible to find polls on all of them, but on Keystone (as I already gave a cite for) the vast majority of polls have been strongly in favor of Keystone. Same for a ban on late-term abortion, which Obama would veto. Same for HR 30, which has to do with getting 30-hour workers off the hook for the Obamacare penalty. Same for taxpayer-funded abortions. As far as repealing Obamacare goes, more people continue to oppose Obamacare (46%) than favor it (40%), and more are in favor of contracting it or repealing it entirely (46%) rather than expanding it or keeping it the same (42%). Only 19% want it to stay as is; 23% want it expanded, 14% want it scaled back, and 33% want it repealed (largest category of the four).

    Those are examples of some of the popular bills Obama is threatening to veto, and the fact that previous presidents do not compare in number and kind.

    In addition, the fact these bills’ bipartisan support also underlines their relative popularity with the the public; it is unlikely that moderate Democrats would be supporting them if they weren’t popular in their districts.

19. so your narrow point is that obama has issued an unusual number of veto threats? ok, you give us three examples of previous presidents, so that doesn’t help your claim at all. and you continue to ignore the ACTUAL number of vetoes, which seems more germane your underlying point, that obama is doing something unusual (with the usual “tyrannical” subtext). and he is. he’s vetoing less than any of his predecessors, in most case by an order of magnitude. so your subtext is that reagan is a runaway fascist. you say “things that matter to him extraordinarily” and yeah, OBAMACARE MATTERS A LOT TO OBAMA! And four of the eight vetoes (arguably five) are about the same damn thing: getting rid of obamacare. which he will veto for obvious reasons. so that’s a not unusual amount of threats which live historically who knows where, for reasons that are intrinsic to obama’s legacy as a president. and i have plenty of keystone polls that show it isn’t popular. this entire post was a waste of the pixels it tortured into appearing in order.

20. Robert Green:

    There are actually twelve vetoes listed in that linked article (see this). HR 596 is about “getting rid of Obamacare), and HR 30 is the one about Obamacare and 30-hour workers, which is not about “getting rid of Obamacare” but about modifying it in a way that is supported by Republicans and many Democrats as well (even those who support Obamacare). The other 10 are not about getting rid of Obamacare.

    The Keystone article I already linked to makes it quite clear that Keystone is very popular, according to polls.

21. Again: on what planet would a president willingly destroy some of his greatest legislative achievements? There is no historical precedent, and for good reason.

    Also: George W. Bush actually did veto popular legislation, like SCHIP and the stem cell research bill. He didn’t just issue threats; he actually went so far as to reject bills that enjoyed bipartisan support. And you know what? That wasn’t out of the ordinary or an abuse of power. Stupid and shortsighted, sure, but he was operating well within the norms and limits of presidential politics.

    P.S. Didn’t you warn us a few years back about the unreliability of opinion polls? How did they go from imperfect measures of the public’s will in 2005, to the purest reflection of democracy in 2015? It seems as though you’re deviating from one of neoconservatism’s central tenets, i.e. complete disdain for the public and its opinions.

22. The Keystone article I already linked to makes it quite clear that Keystone is very popular, according to polls.

    Not popular enough to elect Romney over the issue, though.

    Keystone won’t get built for the same reason we will not get credible gun control in the USA: because the people who favor it don’t care that much about it, and the people who are against it do care enough about it to cause elections to turn over it.

23. Dr. Waffle:

    As I wrote earlier—of course Obama has the power to veto any or all legislation he wants, as do all presidents. And of course other presidents have vetoed legislation. I won’t repeat myself on all the rest of it, but the summary is that Obama is threatening to veto more major legislation that is popular than have previous presidents, and that therefore he shows a greater lack of regard for public opinion than they.

    And of course polls are imperfect, but they’re the only way to measure public opinion.

    You clearly have no understanding of what I stand for or why I call myself “neocon,” nor are you interested.

    I’ve been polite to you and the others who’ve come here today as a result of a particular link, but of course I don’t expect you to reciprocate in kind. I’ve responded with facts and cites to the substance of your questions, and that’s it.

24. Obama vetoed only two bills from 2009-2014. Both were passed by the Democrat controlled Congress in 2010. Although the House was in Republican hands from 2011 to the present, Harry Reid prevented any of their bills from being brought up in the Senate. President Obama has had things pretty much his way until now, thanks to a Democrat Congress for two years and then Harry Reid for six. Of course the ACA required a Democrat controlled Congress, the Cornhusker Kickback, and the Louisiana Purchase to get enough votes on board to potentially pass it. Even then, the use of reconciliation in the Senate was required to get it to the President’s desk.

    The Congress is now free to pass bills that the President doesn’t like. We will see plenty of vetoes because the President does not care about the results of the 2014 elections or polls now that he’s a lame duck. Back in 2009 he was quick to point out to the Republicans that, “I won,” and “Elections have consequences.” Apparently they have consequences only when he wins.

25. Now that Harry Reid is no longer in charge, bills will go to Obama that require a veto as a matter of record. More importantly, Democrats in the Senate will have to vote to sustain or over turn vetoes. The recent election makes it clear that sucking up to Obama is risky business for incumbent Democrat senators.

26. With the Left, they are always right.

27. IF the gop majority was smart they would slap down a multitude of common sense bills they knew he would veto. The way to send a narcissist bat caca crazy is to back it into a corner. Reveal the rabid rat for all the world to see.

28. Reconciliation was required to get Obamacare to the President’s desk? Ah you mean it passed the Senate by 59 votes instead of the Constitutionally required 60?

29. I see the buzzards have returned to Hinckley.

    Ineducable, waste of time. Setting up straw men and attacking them, and as always, feeling cleverer than Little Jack Horner.

    Abyssus abyssum invocat.

30. James Garfield was president for 200 days in 1881, most of which he spent dying. He is the last president who used the veto as few times as Obama.

31. rea:

    As already explained, Obama has had no reason to use the veto till now.

    First he had a Democratic Congress, and then he had a Democratic Senate with Harry Reid blocking legislation Obama didn’t like.

32. Blogs are wonderful things until they are hijacked by people who do not share a common ethos, as this thread demonstrates.

33. Obama’s idea of work: Using a pen to sign or veto a bill.

34. I find it amusing that one of the comments cited vetoes by Republican presidents but not Democrat presidents. Curious cherry picking of facts.

    I would not look at the mere number of vetoes, but what was vetoed and why. Likewise, I really don’t look at the number of Executive Orders, but what laws and activities they were impacting.

    Concerning the Keystone pipeline – I would prefer to see the rest of pipeline built. The option to transport above ground has resulted in some nasty crashes of the rail cars. Considering all the concern about it, it will be one of the safest pipelines constructed and monitored. Let’s get some of the older pipelines retired or updated.

    The southern part of the pipeline seems to be working ok (Cushing to Houston).

35. I think its funny that you’re trying to be all sober-minded and serious and stuff and then you write about Obama, “The last time he cared about the will of the people was on November 6, 2012.”

    Your blog roll also amuses. American Thinker can only be described as “thought full” (sic) by someone who who confuses “thought” with “delusion.”

    Thanks for the chortle, but you’re really going to have to up your crazy game if you want to swim with the big fish.

36. keta;

    So glad to amuse.

    But just to help you out a little—those little blurbs after the names of blogs on my blogroll sometimes contain very mild puns or wordplay. In this way, the phrase “thought full” is not a misspelling of the word “thoughtful.” It’s a play on “thoughtful” and “full of thought.” Another example would be Powerline, which has the blurb “foursight”—not a misspelling of “foresight,” but a pun on that word combined with the idea of there being four writers at that blog who have insight.

    This explanation isn’t really for you, since I know you’re not here to learn anything or listen to anything. It’s for anyone else who might actually be curious.

    And quelle surprise that you don’t think much of the blogs on my blogroll—who ever would have guessed?

37. Hey, did I stumble upon a “Hobbit” or a “Lord of the Rings” blog post here?

    Why else would there be so many trolls?

    Actually, Neo, although they can be annoying, it is very amusing (and amazing) at how well you handle them.

    Thank you for your wonderful blog posts; and insightful world view. Folks can learn a lot by reading you, with an open mind of course. It can also be an education to read through what a lot of your regular commenters have to say.

38. Alas, your point about “saving the veto for important issues” doesn’t hold water, if indeed it means anything at all. Has it ever occurred to you that Obama’s “threatened” vetoes are on issues that are of great importance to him? One could not expect Obama to sign off on legislation gutting health care reform, for example. As for Keystone, I am more interested in why Congress considers this a matter of great importance, such that that they are trying to force Obama to approve it. If the Republicans want to fight the 2016 campaign over Obama’s veto of Congress tying to ram through a pipeline project that would create a handful of permanent jobs, let them. Or perhaps they themselves should save their energies for things that are of actual importance.

39. Trying to, rather than “tying to” 🙂

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