What does a political party that has brought governance to a virtual standstill, hampered economic recovery, killed millions of jobs and prevented creation of millions more, and wasted untold millions of taxpayer dollars to distract the public’s attention away from its failings? If it is the Republican Party and an African American man is President, they plan a vote to sue the President for being President. One would think that after planning a lawsuit against a sitting President for six months, the Republican House would have a litany of charges ready to go forward, but as myriad news outlets have documented, it appears that Speaker of the House John Boehner is either reticent to expose the House Republicans’ list of charges, or is just using the political stunt as a distraction from Republicans’ ineptitude and refusal to do their jobs.
Over the weekend Boehner penned an op-ed touting the House plans to vote to sue the President, but there were no concrete charges and only a statement that, according to Boehner; “Every member of Congress swore an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. So did President Barack Obama.” It is about the only part of Boehner’s op-ed that is impossible to argue. Of course, Boehner omitted that Congress’ job, according to the constitution, is to make laws and levy taxes; a task Republicans have rejected since Obama took office in 2009. In fact. Last year Speaker Boehner asserted Republicans’ job was not passing laws, or levying taxes for the general welfare of the people, but repealing laws and cutting taxes for the mythological job creators. So it was interesting the Boehner accused President Obama of not doing his job, or doing the job Republican legislators refuse to do, in the run-up to suing him for being President while Black, but that is another story.
It was bound to come out sooner of later, and in typical hypocritical fashion, Speaker of the House John Boehner attempted to tie the House GOP’s impending vote to sue Obama for being Black while President with killing jobs and hurting the economy. In Boehner’s self-plagiarized op-ed, after claiming the President ignores laws and does what presidents have done since George Washington; issued executive orders, he actually came as close to giving a reason for suing the President as his imagination would allow.
Boehner wrote; “Even worse, the President’s habit of ignoring the law as written hurts our economy and jobs even more. Washington taxes and regulations always make it harder for private sector employers to meet payrolls, invest in new initiatives and create jobs — but how can those employers plan, invest and grow when the laws are changing on the President’s whim at any moment?” So, Boehner’s plan to sue the President is really about his whims hurting the economy and killing jobs? Is Boehner seriously implying that the President, of his own accord, levies taxes on the private sector? Or is it the President’s recent initiative to combat climate change’s damage to the economy by exercising his constitutional authority to establish national limits on carbon-dioxide emissions from existing power plants? For the record, the EPA has not yet implemented any rules affecting carbon-dioxide emissions, and when it does, it is well-within the agency’s authority the President used to justify his initiative.
According to the Clean Air Act (1970) passed with bipartisan support in Congress and signed by Republican President Richard Nixon, the basis for the President’s executive action is Section 111(d). It is worth reminding Speaker Boehner that the Environmental Protection Agency was proposed by a Republican president’s executive order due to Congress’s elevated concern about environmental pollution. However, that is not the raging hypocrisy in Boehner’s claim the GOP lawsuit is about the economy or jobs; particularly when Republicans spent inauguration night in 2009 plotting to subvert any attempt by the new President to drag the economy out of the economic morass Bush-Republicans created and led to worst recession since the Great Depression.
Boehner’s claim the President is hurting the economy and killing jobs is ill-timed according to recent job reports and stock market gains, but the hypocrisy in Boehner’s statement is astonishing even coming from him. Leading up to the 2010 midterm elections, and upon taking control of the House in 2011, Boehner trumpeted the Republican’s primary focus was “jobs, jobs, jobs.” The Republicans’ first action was spending cuts set to kill over a million jobs to which Boehner replied, “so be it.” Since then, Republicans have not created one job and went on a job-killing spree that hampered a robust economic recovery they continue unabated.
Republicans have deliberately obstructed every attempt by the President to grow the economy and create jobs, and claim they, on the other hand have passed 40 jobs bills. The bills can best be summarized as more tax cuts for the rich and corporations, stripping regulations to benefit the wealthy’s bottom line, slashing domestic programs for the poor, and punishing working families by eliminating overtime pay; all job-killing actions. Included in the 40 jobs bills is the Path to Prosperity budget raising taxes on the middle class and cutting taxes for the rich, privatizing Medicare, nearly eliminating food stamps, and cutting most programs that continue the GOP’s crusade to kill more jobs and hurt the economy. If anyone in Washington deserves being sued for “hurting the economy and jobs,” it is Republicans and none is more guilty than John Boehner who refuses to allow votes on job bills that would pass with Democratic support.
President Obama recently said Republicans are patriotic and love America, but that is being extremely generous, if not fallacious. Republicans love the rich, corporations, and the dirty energy industry and although in their minds those are America, there is nothing in the Constitution Boehner referenced alluding to an oath to preserve, protect and defend the wealthy or their corporations’ obscene profits.
Republicans can best be defined as sleazy, and their disrepute is why public confidence and approval in Congress is a pathetic 7 percent. Boehner has allowed, no, encouraged a rash of investigations into fabricated scandals that have wasted valuable taxpayer time and money instead of doing the jobs they were sent to Washington to do according to the Constitution Boehner claims the President is not following.
Unfortunately, the American people are unable to take congressional Republicans to court and sue them for abridging their constitutional duties, and it is a travesty. Because if anyone deserves to be sued for hurting the economy and jobs, it is Republicans in Congress and as usual, Boehner’s reason for suing the President is another example of Republicans projecting their gross malfeasance on the African American in the White House; the only man in Washington working to grow the economy and create jobs for the American people.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn't look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
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