White House photo
More good bills would mean more signing ceremonies.
President Obama's first two years in office were marked not only be a series of high-profile legislative successes, but also the custom that comes with them: signing ceremonies. The White House was only too pleased to invite the media and large crowds to see the president sign all kinds of bills into law: health care reform, Wall Street reform, DADT repeal, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, etc.
Since the start of the 112th Congress, these signing ceremonies have dwindled dramatically. Roll Call reported this week that Republicans apparently aren't happy about it.
Senate Republicans are bristling that the president has cut down on one of his ceremonial duties: signing bills in public.
Most Republicans suspect the dearth of signing ceremonies is an election-year strategy in the mold of President Harry Truman's method of running against a "do-nothing" Congress. To trumpet legislative successes would run counter to the narrative of a hamstrung president, Senate Republicans say.
Of all the things for Republicans to complain about, this has to be one of the more peculiar.
This is, after all, an election year, and I suspect the president would enjoy the good press that comes with getting something done.
But therein lies the point: the prerequisite to formal ceremonies that celebrate a meaningful legislative accomplishment is ... a meaningful legislative accomplishment. If Republicans want more events in which lawmakers stand by Obama's side as he puts his signature on an important bill, perhaps they should complain less, compromise more, and start sending some worthwhile bills to the White House.
It's not as if Obama is quietly signing major legislation into law in secret.
If GOP leaders want some signing ceremonies that could prove Congress is doing something, they can help pass provisions of the American Jobs Act, the DREAM Act, comprehensive immigration reform, and some meaningful energy policies. If they do, I can practically guarantee the president holds some signing ceremonies, with plenty of pens for everyone.
I can appreciate why some lawmakers are sensitive to this being labeled a "do-nothing Congress," even if it's true. But the remedy isn't to blame the scarcity of White House ceremonies; the solution is constructive policymaking.
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How old ARE these people?
In terms of trips around the sun, or in terms of moral and cognitive development? You'll get different answers depending on which you pick.
Why would anyone expect logic, reason or even basic understanding of reality from the Know Nothing Party? As we watch the Republican Party implode much like the Whigs imploded in 1860, we witness the true belief structure of that party become public, and most Americans are not liking what they see. The hate spewing over the past 3 years has exceeded anything I've seen in my 64 years on the planet, the deliberate sabotage of government, the targetting of the most vulnerable members of our society for punishment, the trashing of ordinary citizens exercising their 1st amendment rights, the starting of wars of choice based on lies and then disrespecting those who served in those wars. The Republican Party for the past 30 years has existed only to facilitate the transfer of the nation's wealth from the working classes to the already obscenely rich, they've had a good run for 30 years, now they can take their ill gotten gains, retire to countries where sex tourism is big and leave the rest of us alone or suffer the consequences.
Didn't the republicans pass legislation to name two more airports or post offices or something after Saint Ronald? Surely that would be worth a signing ceremony!
What absolute chutzpah! For Republicans to start out saying their entire purpose was to ensure Mr. Obama was a one-term president, then block everything of substance the White House or Hill Democrats have proposed, and then whine that there haven't been any signing ceremonies is the very definition of chutzpah, or balls, or cojones, or something that probably wouldn't get past your obscenity filter.
If Mitch and Jon over on the Senate side, and Eric and John on the House side, want to sidle up next to the president as he signs legislation, then they should stop blocking legislation. Pass the DREAM act, pass the highway bill, pass the jobs bill. Give the man something to sign.
excellent read....thank you...
Warning!! Logic alert!!
Sorry, that alarm always goes off when republicans and rational thinking are linked in the same thought.
Aww, poor Republicans. Don't like being on the receiving end of the game.
The GOP has so bought into the separate reality that they have constructed that they can no longer understand people who still retain a grasp of the real world.
They have become the characters in a play they created. It attempting to fool a populace, they have fooled themselves.
Fools
You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people part of time but you should never fool yourself.
The Emperor Believes He is Wearing Clothes....but, the people can clearly see he is naked. (and there is shrinkage).
Reaping what they have sown?
We should refer to the "Do Nothing Republicans" not brand the whole Congress - the Dems in the House are certainly standing up to pass legislation of substance; the Senate should have changed the filibuster when they had the chance - most disappointing for getting needed legislation passed and changes we need to really move the economy. Think about how many more would be applying for jobs if the President's Jobs Bill had been passed - likewise, the Transportation bill?
I'm not that sure that changing the filibuster rule would have really done that much. In the short term yes we would have seen gains. In the long run it wouldn't matter because the GOP got control of the House.
The real problem is the hardened ideology of the GOP. The only real answer is to clearly express and teach that to the population so that they can vote effectively.
Oh, Steve, there you go making sense again!
Well, the next time Congress passes a bill to rename a post office just before it closes, the President should invite all of the Republican leadership to a maxed-out signing ceremony. Then start it by congratulating them on passage of the most significant legislation of the current Congress.
I suspect it would get quite a bit of prime-time coverage.
I love D. C. Sessions' suggestion.
The GOP ALWAYS mistakes the cart for the horse; unfailingly yelling about an effect as if it were a cause.
They should be held up to major ridicule. Like this nice piece by Steve.
Re: the signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act
No law yet has closed the gender wage gap — not the 1963 Equal Pay for Equal Work Act, not Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, not the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act, not the 1991 amendments to Title VII, not affirmative action (which has benefited mostly white women, the group most vocal about the wage gap - http://tinyurl.com/74cooen), not diversity, not the countless state and local laws and regulations, not the horde of overseers at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and not the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.... Nor will a "paycheck fairness" law work.
That's because pay-equity advocates continue to overlook the effects of female AND male behavior:
Despite the 40-year-old demand for women's equal pay, millions of wives still choose to have no pay at all. In fact, according to Dr. Scott Haltzman, author of "The Secrets of Happily Married Women," stay-at-home wives, including the childless who represent an estimated 10 percent, constitute a growing niche. "In the past few years,” he says in a CNN report at http://tinyurl.com/6reowj, “many women who are well educated and trained for career tracks have decided instead to stay at home.” (“Census Bureau data show that 5.6 million mothers stayed home with their children in 2005, about 1.2 million more than did so a decade earlier....” at http://tinyurl.com/qqkaka. If indeed more women are staying at home, perhaps it's because feminists and the media have told women for years that female workers are paid less than men in the same jobs — so why bother working if they're going to be penalized and humiliated for being a woman. If "greedy, profit-obsessed" employers could get away with paying women less than men for the same work, they would not hire a man – ever.)
As full-time mothers or homemakers, stay-at-home wives earn zero. How can they afford to do this while in many cases living in luxury? Because they're supported by their husband, an “employer” who pays them to stay at home.
Feminists, government, and the media ignore what this obviously implies: If millions of wives are able to accept no wages and live as well as their husbands, millions of other wives are able to accept low wages, refuse overtime and promotions, work part-time instead of full-time (“According to a 2009 UK study for the Centre for Policy Studies, only 12 percent of the 4,690 women surveyed wanted to work full time”: http://bit.ly/ihc0tl See also an Australian report: http://tinyurl.com/862kzes), take more unpaid days off, avoid uncomfortable wage-bargaining (http://tinyurl.com/3a5nlay) — all of which lower women's average pay.
Women are able to make these choices because they are supported or anticipate being supported by a husband who must earn more than if he'd chosen never to marry. (Still, even many men who shun marriage, unlike their female counterparts, feel their self worth is tied to their net worth.) This is how MEN help create the wage gap. If the roles were reversed so that men raised the children and women raised the income, men would average lower pay than women.
Afterword: The power in money is not in earning it (there is only responsibility, sweat, and stress in earning money). The power in money is in SPENDING it. Women control most of the spending. "A recent research study revealed that the average woman spends eight years of her life shopping [spending] -- over 300 shopping trips per year. Men, only a fraction of that." -
http://www.terryoreilly.ca/blog/show/id/78
See "Will the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act Help Women?" at http://malemattersusa.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/will-the-ledbetter-fair-pay-act-help-women/
By the way, the next Equal Occupational Fatality Day is in 2020. Year 2020 is how far into the future women must work to experience the same number of work-related deaths that men experienced in 2009 alone. http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/04/equal-occupational-fatality-death-day.html
malematters, tell you what, when working men fully share ALL household chores/duties with their working wives, then you might have a point.
Not to mention the whole child-bearing thing...
Who would call themselves 'Male Matters' anyway? Well, that guy, I suppose. I hope he has a quarantine license for the critter on his head.