President Obama is planning to unleash a new wave of executive actions that the new Republican congressional majority will be powerless to stop.
Politico reported,
The Obama administration is preparing another active year of executive action in 2015, pumping out new rules and enforcing others for the first time — setting tougher standards on everything from air pollution to overtime pay to net neutrality, food safety, commercial drones, a college ratings plan and a crackdown on for-profit colleges that don’t prepare their students for well-paying jobs. There’s even going to be the first draft of a rule for organic pet food.
And, of course, there will be more executive actions to move forward on other initiatives as well — like the new measures President Barack Obama is set to announce on Friday to help more people go to college.
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The rules and regulations will set up more confrontation with a newly unified Republican Congress, which will use all of the tools at its disposal to try to stop individual policies and blast the Obama administration for being too rule-happy in general. The new rules will get merged, generally, with the GOP’s complaints about Obama’s executive actions on immigration — their view that he’s a go-it-alone president who’s ready to fire off executive actions on whatever he wants without listening to Congress.
The White House has come up with a winning formula. President Obama will continue to use his executive powers to take actions that are popular with the American people, while at the same time, he and congressional Democrats will fence in the far right ambitions of Republicans by working together to prevent the passage of unpopular legislation.
Obama’s approval ratings are on an upward climb. His executive actions on immigration and Cuba have been popular. Republicans thought that they would be able to bend the president to their will if they captured the Senate, but the opposite has already occurred. Obama and congressional Democrats have fenced Boehner and McConnell in. The Republican controlled Senate can’t pass any legislation without Democratic help. It will difficult for McConnell to override presidential vetoes.
There is little to nothing that Republicans can do about President Obama’s executive actions. Look for Boehner and McConnell to stomp their feet and throw plenty of tantrums, but they won’t be able to stop the president. Obama is now free to be the president that he has always wanted to be. This is horrible news for the Republican Party, but great news for people who want to see a strong and empowered president address the issues that they care about in 2015.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
