Tagged: The Party Line

Congress has now turned its attention to the “Return of the Fiscal Cliff: Part 1—The Son of Sequester.”

Sequestration sounds like a really bad version of the flu bug, but instead it’s a really bad case of Congress and the president holding Damocles’ sword over their heads and arguing about who is to blame when the sword falls.

In its raw form, “sequester” refers to automatic spending cuts set to take effect in March, courtesy of the New Year’s Fiscal Cliff negotiations that merely postponed the across-the-board cuts.

In studying the chief executives of governments, the power of the “bully pulpit” is often mentioned as a critical tool for any political leader.

Akin to the presidential versions, State of the State addresses should not be judged for specific details (there’s plenty of time and energy to expended on that through the legislative process); rather, how effective these addresses are in conveying a sense of the chief executive’s priorities and agenda.

When the constitution’s framers developed the American system to handle governing power, they divided power in two distinct ways: the first is horizontally, by giving pieces of different powers (law-making, law-executing, law-adjudicating) to different branches of government. Hence, our “checks and balances” approach to government.

The second distinct way is by dividing power vertically, through a system we now call federalism on the levels of national, state, and local.

If the ‘once-every-four-years’ inaugural addresses are the high and visionary type of speeches that presidents give, then the State of the Union addresses are the means by which presidents fill in that vision with specificity.

This year’s combination of inaugural and State of the Union addresses by President Obama certainly did that in tandem, but didn’t bring anything new to the table beyond items that would rate high in public opinion, but no real chance to becoming formal policy.