To: Weasel
Re: McGroin Ownage
I plead only to a partial defeat, as at first glance, I did believe your list of issues was of mixed authorship. (I did document authorship of one item prior to your “Ta-Da”)
But it turns out that the list is of mixed authorship.
“He signed a bill….”
During the first two years of the Clinton presidency, much political capital was wasted in the thankfully vain attempt to socialize medicine, and then came 1994: the congress came under control of the Republicans, who pushed thier own agenda.
The constitution instills the Congress with much more power than the Executive: The power to tax, borrow, and spend lies entirely with Congress. The power to write, debate, and pass legislation, also belongs to Congress, and the Constitution grants the executive only the power to sign or veto. Even a veto can be overridden and the President can only acquiesce.
The Speaker of the House, following the traditions of Lyndon Johnson, has great power, deciding which bills will or will not come to the floor for a vote. Someone named Newt had that job for a while, and legislation that made it to the floor on his watch was overwhelmingly conservative. (Johnson obviously set the same precedent in the Senate.)
With a congress sending bills to Clinton’s desk, largely written by and at least approved by the conservatives in congress, it only seems realistic to expect the majority of those bills to be leaning to the right of the political spectrum.
I have posted before that holding the President solely responsible for a growing or shrinking economy, or for the legislative agenda is ridiculous, as many need to agree in our government, and even the government as a whole is not all powerful.
Therefore it is also my belief that to say Clinton was a great conservative due to the partial and well edited list of legislation is erroneous.
Humbly submitted:
Holden
