House backs bill to sue president over laws
By DONNA CASSATA15 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Casting Barack Obama as a president run amok, the House voted on Wednesday for a bill that would expedite congressional lawsuits against the chief executive for failure to enforce federal laws.
The vote was 233-181 in the Republican-led House as GOP lawmakers excoriated Obama for multiple changes to his 4-year-old health care law, steps he's taken to allow young immigrants to remain in the United States and the administration's resistance to defend the federal law banning gay marriage.
Ignoring a White House veto threat, the GOP maintained that the bill was necessary as the president has selectively enforced the nation's laws.
"Throughout the Obama presidency we have seen a pattern: President Obama circumvents Congress when he doesn't get his way," said Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
Democrats countered that the legislation was merely election-year rhetoric to address a non-existent problem. The measure stands no chance in the Democratic-led Senate.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., defended Obama and said Republicans weren't satisfied with a "do-nothing Congress," they wanted to "have a do-nothing president."
Under the bill, the House or Senate would have a fast track for any civil lawsuit against the president if that president "failed to meet the requirement of Article II, section 3, clause 17, of the Constitution of the United States to take care that a law be faithfully executed."
Once litigated in district court, any appeals would be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Republicans cited the Obama administration's delays on several deadlines of the Affordable Care Act that the president signed into law in March 2010. Obama has drawn criticism for his June 2012 decision to allow young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children to gain legal status and remain in the United States if they attend school or join the military.
Republicans also have assailed Obama for tougher action on the environment.
"The president's dangerous search for expanded powers appears to be endless," said Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va.
Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., sponsor of the bill, read a series of statements by Obama when he was an Illinois senator in which he warned of the encroachment of the executive on the powers of the other branches of government.
In urging support, Gowdy said Congress is "not held in high public esteem right now. Maybe we would be respected more if we respected ourselves."
Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, highlighted past unilateral actions by chief executives, including President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation declaring the freedom of all slaves and President Harry S. Truman's integration of the military.
The Obama administration said in a statement that the bill exceeds constitutional limits, and Congress cannot assign additional powers to itself.
More specifically, spokesman Jay Carney criticized Republicans for stalling on immigration overhaul but finding time for the bill on lawsuits that he said would impede the president in limiting deportation of young immigrants.
It's "pretty amazing that today House Republicans went in the opposite direction by passing legislation targeting the deferred action for childhood arrivals policy that removed the threat of deportation for young people brought to this country as children, known as DREAMers," Carney said.
History proves that all the greatest Empires of Power come crumbling down around them.
America has only one way to go and that is down.
Between over population along with illegal immigration, and not maintaining our infrastructures that are quickly failing rapidly across this country , also with Pollution, Global Warming, Crime, Greed, America is doomed to fall and the rest of the world will follow.
When I was born in 1957 there were only 1 Billion People on this whole planet, and now 57 years later there are almost 9 Billion People on earth. The earths natural fuel is being depleted quickly on Earth.
Our Crops are being destroyed from drought in turn creates a domino effect of less food and allot more.
Plagues have returned because of overpopulation along with diseases that were eradicated because of vaccinations that people who no longer get nor give to there children. New deadly drug resistant diseases are hitting everyone in the world. New diseases man can not even figure out that is killing people like Morgellon's Disease.. The Polar Cap has now moved into the North East of America causing like the beginning of a another Ice Age. Most of all OUR LEADERS IN DC ARE DEVIDED as well as so many Americans are in this country. " UNITED WE STAND" "DEVIDED WE FALL" This Country only has one path it has set for itself is certain collapse. You can not have all of these problems and solve them when petty power hungry people in Washington DC who keep fighting each other and get nothing done to save this country. The Masons greed and power has gone to the point of destroying this one great Country called America.
There is NO HOPE for America on this destructive path.
The president should be suing the the obstructionists #^#& in the House for not doing anything but taking a
weekly vote on the issue of repealing Obamacare, while simultaneously not finding time to introduce or pass a single job-producing piece of legislation. Boehner and his gang should not be sued, but instead be pistol whipped hanging upside down in the capital's rotunda for being such obstructionists. If Boehner wants to be known for how many bills he has reversed, not how many he has passed. I wish he would abolish the two-term limit for the presidency.
We have an economy problem. We also have a private sector health care problem. They are one and the same.
The health care problem is causing the economy problem.
We pay $3 trillion annually for health care. Half of that, $1.5 trillion is waste of corruption and greed encouraged by the system. We pay $2X, per capita, what the rest of the planet pays for health care, ...and we get poorer results. The waste is primarily caused by the requirement in the private insurance health care sector of charging a for-profit access fee for permission to then attempt to purchase excessively expensive provider health care goods and services ...and since those goods and services are purchased from the private sector, they are also burdened with profits. That profit on provider services is okay. But we should not be required to first pay a for-profit access fee on a basic human need necessary for survival.
Human beings require food, health care, and shelter for survival. Food and shelter purchases are for-profit purchases, ...but we do not have to first pay a for-profit access fee as we do for permission to purchase health care.
That is what is causing this annual $1.5 trillion of costs to the consumer for non-value spending. That is why each person in the U.S. is, on average, 'giving up' $5,000 per year in income. That $1.5 trillion of waste is equal to 9% of all income in the U.S. each year. We have had this private sector health care insurance system for access for almost 70 years now. Each year, it causes consumer disposable income to be diluted by 9%. Each year consumers have a little more trouble trying to purchase all necessary goods and services. That means that every year demand falls a little more to cause a few more jobs to be lost. And by not having competition for labor, wages began to stagnate. Then repeat that each year for almost 70 years, and you have what we have today: Massive income inequality which has caused extensive job losses and stagnant - to falling - wages.
The middle class continues to shrink because of this condition we have allowed to continue, and the number of people in poverty has increased. Such that today, we have >55% of the population unable to afford all necessary goods and services for survival, ...to cause families to daily budget triage-style to decide if they will eat, get meds, or have a place to sleep.
We must switch to a single-payer, government-run, not-for-profit costs of access, shared-cost, affordable health care system like Medicare.
Since the inception of Medicare in 1965, the costs increases of Medicare have been <6% of GDP, ...while the costs increases for our private sector health care access over the same time period has increased >22% of GDP.
This has resulted in the top 5% controlling $45 trillion of the nation’s wealth which they have accumulated over the last 60 years since we have had this system of health care to cause massive income inequality which is causing this ever-declining economy for the U.S.
The problem of unaffordable health care - and the Catch 22 synergy of economic decline it has begun to produce - are obvious. But the solution is also obvious. We must fix this problem to restore income equality and reverse this economic trend of decline to return to a path of sustainable prosperity for rich and poor alike