Obama flip flops on 'signing statements'

[30ashopper]

Last week the White House and congressional Democrats and Republicans were involved in intense negotiations over not only the size of the budget for the remainder of the FY2011 budget, and spending cuts within that budget, but also several GOP “riders,” or policy provisions attached to the bill.

One rider – Section 2262 -- de-funds certain White House adviser positions – or “czars.” The president in his signing statement declares that he will not abide by it.

..

During his presidential campaign, then-Senator Obama was quite critical of the Bush administration’s uses of signing statements telling the Boston Globe in 2007 that the “problem” with the Bush administration “is that it has attached signing statements to legislation in an effort to change the meaning of the legislation, to avoid enforcing certain provisions of the legislation that the President does not like, and to raise implausible or dubious constitutional objections to the legislation.”

Then-Sen. Obama said he would “not use signing statements to nullify or undermine congressional instructions as enacted into law.”

President Obama Issues “Signing Statement” Indicating He Won’t Abide by Provision in Budget Bill - Political Punch

What difference two years makes. I bet he figured he'd have a democrat lead congress for his entire first term so that there'd be no need, allowing him to make what turned out to be completely false statements about how he would run things.

 

[AndrewG]

The ends justify the means. We need a leader not a liar.

 

[Matt J]

You guys are just too cute with your outrage.

 

[poppy]

President Obama Issues “Signing Statement” Indicating He Won’t Abide by Provision in Budget Bill - Political Punch

What difference two years makes. I bet he figured he'd have a democrat lead congress for his entire first term so that there'd be no need, allowing him to make what turned out to be completely false statements about how he would run things.

The ends justify the means. We need a leader not a liar.

that the “problem” with the Bush administration “is that it has attached signing statements to legislation in an effort to change the meaning of the legislation, to avoid enforcing certain provisions of the legislation that the President does not like, and to raise implausible or dubious constitutional objections to the legislation.”
Then-Sen. Obama said he would “not use signing statements to nullify or undermine congressional instructions as enacted into law.”
The president said that no one "doubts that it is appropriate to use signing statements to protect a president's constitutional prerogatives; unfortunately, the Bush Administration has gone much further than that."

You really need to read and understand the above statement because below is what he was referring to:

In CRS Report RL33667, the Congressional Research Service compared George W. Bush's use of signing statements to the three previous administrations, reporting that:

34% of President Reagan's signing statements raised constitutional objections​

47% of President George H. W. Bush's signing statements raised constitutional objections​

18% of President Clinton's signing statements raised constitutional objections​

78% of President George W. Bush's signing statements raised constitutional objections​

​

 

[30ashopper]

Then-Sen. Obama said he would “not use signing statements to nullify or undermine congressional instructions as enacted into law.”

 

[Kurt]

Flip Flops - now I'm hungry.

 

[idlewind]

Daily something else comes to light where President Obama does things opposite of what Senator or Candidate Obama said he would do. Or instances where he is now doing exactly what he criticized Bush for doing. All of which points out the obvious, that Obama is a cynical self promoter who will do or say whatever get him what he wants, regardless of principle or the truth.

 

[AlphaCrab]

You guys are just too cute with your outrage.

Actually, more acute than cute.

 

[futurebeachbum]

Daily something else comes to light where President Obama does things opposite of what Senator or Candidate Obama said he would do. Or instances where he is now doing exactly what he criticized Bush for doing. All of which points out the obvious, that Obama is a cynical self promoter who will do or say whatever get him what he wants, regardless of principle or the truth.

I don't disagree. I do think you can shorten that whole description to one word, 'politician' and I think it applies to most (probably all) of them on both sides of the aisle.

We have a group of elected officials for who the term "the greater good" means doing things that are "good" for their sponsors so that their own careers (and checking accounts) can be "greater". I don't think you can find a teaspoon of integrity in the entire group.

 

[idlewind]

I don't disagree. I do think you can shorten that whole description to one word, 'politician' and I think it applies to most (probably all) of them on both sides of the aisle.

We have a group of elected officials for who the term "the greater good" means doing things that are "good" for their sponsors so that their own careers (and checking accounts) can be "greater". I don't think you can find a teaspoon of integrity in the entire group.

The truth is that when one comes along on either side of the aisle who has true integrity we either do not elect them or quickly get them out of office. This starts at the local level and gets progressively worse.