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, January 29, 2014

Executive (In)Action!

Let's all get lost in the beautiful rainbow of the spin cycle. / ** RCB **

Give credit to the White House communications office: the way it billed last night’s State of the Union was one of the more successful spin jobs it’s pulled off in ages. Those jokers got the whole wide world to believe that President Obama actually has some sort of governing-by-executive-order agenda in mind.

First, the key passage in which Obama introduces this rhetorically mighty approach to the presidency for 2014:

But what I offer tonight is a set of concrete, practical proposals to speed up growth, strengthen the middle class and build new ladders of opportunity into the middle class. Some require congressional action, and I’m eager to work with all of you. But America does not stand still, and neither will I. So wherever and whenever I can take steps without legislation to expand opportunity for more American families, that’s what I’m going to do.

The bulk of the speech, then, was dedicated to outlining those “steps without legislation” that he had in mind. Of the ten or so he offered, only a few reasonably resembled “action” under the loosest definition possible: raising the minimum wage for federal contractors, accelerating fuel efficiency standards for heavy duty vehicles, and starting a new retirement savings bond program through the Treasury available to a targeted segment of the workforce. Fear the tyrant!

The other “actions” aren’t even actions; they’re proposals to talk about further actions with corporate and community leaders, state and local politicians, and exemplary citizens. They’re meetings. According to the fact sheet the White House distributed:

  • The president will “host a summit on Working Families.”
  • The vice president will review federal job training programs to see how to make them better.
  • The president will meet with some CEOs later this week and ask them to hire more long-term unemployed people.
  • The president will try to get some corporations and philanthropists to improve WiFi at schools.
  • “The President will mobilize business leaders, community colleges, Mayors and Governors, and labor leaders to increase the number of innovative apprenticeships in America.” Solid buzzwords there—”mobilize,” “innovative apprenticeships.” (He will have some meetings.)
  • The administration will set up some institutes to study manufacturing innovation. (#innovation!)

Items like these don’t appear to be anything new from this presidency—in fact, he’s issued much stronger executive actions (not deporting children of immigrants, not defending DOMA in court) when he wasn’t operating on some sort of explicit governing-by-executive-action plane.

His main priorities still require congressional action: extending unemployment benefits, increasing the minimum wage for all workers, passing immigration reform and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Passage of an unemployment benefit extension is possible (at some sort of negotiated cost), immigration reform is unlikely, and a minimum wage increase and ENDA are non-starters in the House. But they allow him and the Democratic Party to come up with a decent platform of base-targeted items heading into the midterms, which is obviously what the current year of politics is about—not executive actions.