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A couple weeks ago, Speaker John Boehner (our most favorite orange-hued politician of all time), released a draft resolution authorizing the House of Representatives to sue President Obama. The House is expected to approve this resolution today. Well, our Commander-in-Chief had some profound words for the GOP in response: “Stop being mad all the time. Stop just hatin’ all the time. Let’s get some work done.”
So what’s up with this whole suing-the-president thing? As Boehner elucidated in the first sentence of his op-ed published Monday, it’s apparently about defending the constitution: “President Obama has overstepped his constitutional authority—and it is the responsibility of the House of Representatives to defend the Constitution.”
More specifically, he and the House Republicans are claiming he’s overstepping his authority by having extended the Affordable Care Act’s deadline for large employers to provide healthcare coverage. Which, actually, is pretty interesting because Obamacare is basically the sworn enemy of the GOP and they are suing him over not enforcing it as scheduled. Theories on Boehner’s move abound.
What is clear in this whole morass of he-said she-said is it's the dems who are currently cleaning up in light of the lawsuit action. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee raised $1 million on Monday alone—celestial coincidence that it was the same day Boehner’s impassioned op-ed went up? Probably not. The op-ed likely only helped fuel democratic opposition to the lawsuit. Given that such a lawsuit is a slippery slope on the way to impeachment, it makes sense that democrats would mobilize around their fearless leader.
And so they have: "Since the announcement of the lawsuit, we've raised more than $7.6 million,” DCCC chairman Representative Steve Israel told the Christian Science Monitor.
Democratic moneymaker or not, the president is openly condemning the lawsuit: “Everyone sees this as a political stunt, but it’s worse than that because every vote they’re taking . . . means a vote they’re not taking to help people.”
In addition to inviting Congress to retreat from hateration nation, Obama also called on the legislative branch to help close a loophole that allows companies to move their headquarters overseas, which enables them to dodge corporate taxes.
The president was speaking in Kansas at an economic event—one that fortuitously coincides with the releasing of government news everyone can be stoked about: the economy is sizzling, having expanded at an annual rate of 4% in the spring quarter.
Great! Now we can afford to buy some popcorn to accompany what is sure to be some pretty interesting upcoming political theater.
