What more proof do you really need? You can't govern exclusively by Fiat. You aren't the king of the United States. Here’s One Reason Why Trump’s Legislative Agenda Is Flailing Governing requires unglamorous work. Trump has no patience for it. By Jonathan Cohn Donald Trump and his aides keep insisting that his presidency has already yielded progress on a historic scale. “I don’t think there’s ever been a president elected who in this short period of time has done what we’ve done,” Trump said at a press conference last week. Actually, Trump’s immediate predecessor achieved a lot more. That’s partly because President Barack Obama took office amid a real crisis, as opposed to the fake one Trump keeps insisting he faces. But it’s also because the two men approached their campaigns, and now their presidencies, so differently. In particular, Trump has no apparent patience for the boring, slow work of politics ― like developing detailed policy plans, or working them out with congressional leaders. And without that kind of unglamorous work, getting stuff done turns out to be awfully difficult. Consider the way the two presidents have approached a signature issue they have in common: infrastructure. Trump’s Infrastructure Plan, And Why It’s Slipping Trump talked about infrastructure constantly on the campaign trail, vowing to build roads, trains, and airports. As a brash outsider, Trump promised, he could force such a program through Congress. And as a real estate developer, he insisted he was uniquely qualified to design and implement what was basically a huge construction program. But it wasn’t until two weeks before Election Day that Trump finally released a proposal with some policy details. And it didn’t line up that closely with what he’d been describing on the campaign trail. His previous rhetoric had made it sound like Trump wanted to be another FDR, borrowing massive amounts of money in order to finance a building binge that would put people back to work. The actual Trump plan turned out to be something very different: A series of tax breaks to make large infrastructure projects more profitable for businesses. In a December interview with The New York Times, Trump confessed that he was still figuring out exactly what he wanted to do ― and that he hadn’t realized FDR-style infrastructure building might alienate conservatives. “That’s not a very Republican thing ― I didn’t even know that, frankly.” Soon, administration officials began hinting that infrastructure might not be a first 100 days program, as Trump had promised. And since then, the whole idea has slipped farther and farther down on the political agenda. Trump still mentions it in public appearances, but the two legislative leaders he needs to get an infrastructure bill through Congress, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have made clear they are ambivalent, at best, about the whole project. If they are coordinating closely behind the scenes, they are keeping it a very good secret. Obama’s Infrastructure Plan ― And Why It Became Law This is not how things transpired eight years ago, when Obama took office. And one reason is that he didn’t wait so long before drawing up plans. During the presidential campaign, he developed and then ran on a detailed policy agenda, including an infrastructure proposal. The initial version was small. But the rapidly deteriorating economy convinced Obama and his aides they needed something much bigger. And, once the campaign was over, they began hashing out how to do that. “We started working on Wednesday morning after the election,” said economist Jason Furman, who advised Obama during the campaign and then in the White House. Over the following month, Obama’s economic team put together a 57-page memo on the economic crisis, including a series of options for how the federal government could address it. Obama went through it and, in December, he decided on the rough shape and size of what he wanted to propose, including about $350 billion for infrastructure. And the work didn’t stop there. “It was the biggest subject of the transition for the economic team,” recalled University of Chicago economist Austan Goolsbee, who also served in the Obama campaign and the administration. “As transition moved [from Chicago] to Washington, there were scores of meetings over all various aspects of the stimulus pretty much every day. Each of the proto-agency teams would come up with ideas … and those ideas would be hammered out in budget meetings and principals meetings, and with the president.” Obama’s team put just as much muscle into outreach with Congress. Furman remembered “an intensive series of Hill meetings with leadership, authorizers and appropriators to orally convey all of these ideas, the size, the composition and many of the specifics. One day just before Christmas break, the meeting was literally about 12 hours long in a huge room in the Capitol, and we set up a schedule as staff rotated in and out to go through about six or so different topic areas ― that was for appropriations ― with parallel meetings with Ways and Means and Finance.” Even after laying this groundwork, and with the economy in freefall, getting the stimulus through Congress was a big political lift. But the prep work meant that Obama and his allies could move the debate along quickly. They knew what they wanted, they had already out worked their message, and could cut deals as necessary. On Feb. 17, 2009, Obama signed the Recovery Act. The roughly $800 billion economic stimulus included $98 billion in dedicated infrastructure spending, plus billions more that went to infrastructure through separate channels, such as aid to state and local governments. This Is How Trump Governs Trump’s party has 52 seats in the Senate, while Obama’s had 59. But the Democratic caucus back then included plenty of conservatives representing Republican states and nervous about big spending. And some Democrats now are actually offering to help Trump on infrastructure, much to the dismay of many liberals. Republicans offered Obama no such assistance. (Obama famously learned that Republicans would oppose his package as he was on his way up to Capitol Hill, a week after inauguration, in order to discuss possible legislative deal making.) Had Trump put even half the effort into infrastructure that Obama did, he might be in a position to take advantage of that Democratic cooperation ― and pass a bill that would not only be popular, but might also be good for the economy. But that’s not what Trump did ― on infrastructure or any other issue, for that matter. During the presidential campaign, Trump mocked Hillary Clinton for her wonkishness: “She’s got people that sit in cubicles writing policy all day,” he said during one interview. “It’s just a waste of paper.” At one point, Trump’s own policy advisers quit because nobody was paying them or taking them seriously. In retrospect, those weren’t aberrations. They were the signatures of a campaign that put a high premium on showmanship, with little regard for substance. So far, at least, the presidency is unfolding in the exact same way.
Failing? It is failing because the democrats are blocking his cabinet and other appointments. He is working with less than half his crew. Oh, and, BTW, he has only been there for a month. Get a life!
Actually, Obama inflicted far more damage by this time in his presidency, bringing to the table some 40 years worth of amalgamated bad ideas of socialist meddlers, later slapping and smearing lipstick all over it throughout 2009 for public support, and then strong-arming passage of the ACA in 2010 by an unwilling but unwary Congress. Community organizers are cut out only for fomenting discord, and make far worse presidents than any businessperson, successful or otherwise.
That's a characteristic of his, to trick people into working under the assumption that they would be paid for their work, and then refusing to pay them in full for that work, even when contracts were signed. He prefers to let his lawyers convince companies to take a much smaller percentage of what they are owed or else face lengthly court battles that would eat up any potential profits. Even then, even when they reluctantly agree to take a hit, he liked to deny them even that, again using the power of his position to force even more concessions. The man belongs in prison, he acts like a mob boss, minus most of the physical intimidation and "whacking".
I don't know where you get your information, but you might consider another source, because that's a lie. Currently in the executive branch of the US government, there are 549 important positions that require Senate confirmation. As of February 17, 515 of those positions didn't even have a Trump administration nominee. 20 of them were awaiting confirmation and 14 of them have been confirmed. What is "blocking" the Trump administration from filling those positions is its own ineptitude and failure (source).
Trump's cabinet-pick confirmations are taking longer than Obama's did WASHINGTON — Nearly a month into his presidency, President Donald Trump's Cabinet is not quite empty. But compared with where past administrations stood by this point, it's nowhere near as full. As of Thursday, 13 of Trump's nominees had been confirmed by the Senate; among the seats still open are the secretaries of commerce, energy, and housing and urban development. It took 24 days to get Trump's secretaries of veterans affairs and the Treasury confirmed. It took 18 days to get his education secretary confirmed — after a contentious process that jammed Senate phone lines and spurred two Republicans to vote no. His pick for labor secretary, Andrew Puzder, withdrew, although Trump quickly named Alexander Acosta for the slot on Thursday. By contrast, during the first seven days of Barack Obama's presidency, his secretaries of agriculture, education, energy, interior, VA, state, housing and urban development, transportation, treasury and the EPA were confirmed, according to the Partnership for Public Service, which tracks such data. George W. Bush had most of those posts filled within 10 days of his inauguration. For decades, presidential Cabinet confirmations were mostly pro forma: hold a hearing, take a vote, swear in the new secretary. The failure rate for nominations of Supreme Court justices has been 18 percent. The failure rate for Cabinet nominees? About 4 percent. http://www.dispatch.com/news/201702...nfirmations-are-taking-longer-than-obamas-did BTW, it works best if the boss actually hires the people he works well with. It there isn't a boss, how many underlings can you back fill?
You can't confirm someone if they haven't been nominated but I know this bit of wisdom will not stop the Reich-wingers from another baseless meme blaming Democrats Ad nauseam. It's all those idiots have.
Again, that is mostly due to the Trump administration being slow to carry out its duties. The incoming Obama administration had vetted its nominees and had them complete their ethics paperwork even before the election. On the other hand, several of the Trump nominees still hadn't completed their paperwork, even as they were supposed to be appearing before the confirmation committees.
So the did not have the paper work completed JANUARY 9TH. The last time I looked at the calendar, it was February 21 and their paperwork was completed way back in early January. Oh, but I guess you would deny the delay had nothing to do with the democrats boycotting the committee meeting after all of the paperwork had been completed? And nothing to do with the democrats demanding that they have their for 30 hours of debate over each and every approval after all of the paperwork had been completed? And nothing to do with the democrats voting against each and every approval after all of the paperwork had been completed? Ah, and I am sure you will come back with just how "bad" each and every nominee is to you. I seem to remember much of the same feeling 8 years ago, but somehow the committee meeting progressed on time, the nominees got voted on, and the press loved it all.
The story you quoted was comparing the confirmations of Obama's nominees with those of the Trump administration. It actually describes the same problem I've already pointed out. The Democrats doing their grandstanding "debate" all through the night didn't slow down the process.
So in your world, the Democrats are entirely to blame, and the Trump administration's sloppy, dilatory approach to the nomination process had nothing to do with it. That's ridiculous, and it's more evidence that you are willing to ignore facts that contradict your beliefs, as if any were needed.
Let's do a little math. So far there have been at least 10 nominees slowed by the democrats. Each took 30 hours of "debate" required by the democrats. That is at least 2 days apiece being generous to your side. Each took committee time - at least a day apiece. Then there are weekends and a recess. Since January 9th, there has only been 30 working days. You do the math.
