Obama makes 15 recess appointments
President Barack Obama departs the White House in Washington for a weekend at Camp David, Maryland March 26, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque
WASHINGTON |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Saturday announced he would make 15 recess appointments held up by Republicans, including two top Treasury Department positions and two on the National Labor Relations Board that have been vacant for more than a year.
The move intensifies an already bitter partisan atmosphere in Washington and Republicans swiftly condemned the action for sidestepping Congress, which goes into recess for its spring vacation on Monday.
Recess appointments, which have been used by both parties, evade potentially difficult Senate confirmations required for senior federal posts by making the appointments on an interim basis when lawmakers are out of town.
Obama's Democrats lost their 60-seat super majority in the Senate in January, denying them the votes needed to overcome procedural delays by Republicans.
Obama accused Republicans of playing politics by obstructing his nominations, and calculated the appointments had already been held up for an average of 214 days.
"I simply cannot allow partisan politics to stand in the way of the basic functioning of government," said Obama, who days ago signed historic healthcare reform despite bitter Republican opposition.
The two top Treasury posts are for Jeffrey Goldstein, an executive at a New York private equity firm and a former managing director at the World Bank, for under secretary for domestic finance; and Michael Mundaca, a senior policy advisor at Treasury, for assistant secretary for tax policy.
"At a time of economic emergency, two top appointees to the Department of Treasury have been held up for nearly six months," Obama said in a statement.
The appointments on the NLRB, a five-seat body that has been functioning with only two members for the last two years, are labor lawyers Craig Becker and Mark Pearce.
The NLRB decides cases involving workers' rights to form and join unions and the nominations are part of a bigger fight between Democrats and their labor allies and the Republicans and their business allies.
Republican Senator John McCain, who in February helped block Becker's confirmation, said he was disappointed by Obama's decision. Becker has served as associate general counsel for the AFL-CIO as well as for the Service Employees International Union.
"The U.S. Senate rejected this highly controversial and partisan nominee, and once again the administration showed that it had little respect for the time honored constitutional roles and procedures of Congress," McCain said in a statement.
The White House said Obama has a total of 217 nominees pending before the Senate, including 34 nominees pending for more than six months.
Comparing Obama's track record with his predecessor, Republican George W. Bush, the White House said Bush had made 15 recess appointments at this stage in his presidency, but argued he faced far less obstruction from Congress.
(Additional reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky, editing by Doina Chiacu and Vicki Allen)
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We are no longer one nation or one people. Rather, there are now two Americas: one conservative, the other liberal. Increasingly, we no longer just disagree but we despise each other.
Our disagreements encompass everything – politics, morality, culture and history. We no longer share a unifying essence or common values.
Our Founding Fathers warned us against: increasing balkanization and sectionalism. A constitutional republic – unlike an empire – is only as strong as its national cohesion. It is based not on imperial coercion but civic consent. Mr. Obama is recklessly pulling at the strings of unity, further polarizing us.
In confronting Obamacare, state sovereignty, states’ rights and state nullification of federal laws are being asserted. This is what happened in the 1830s and 1840s. They are the signs of growing political anarchy and social frustration – people can only be pushed so far. Mr. Obama’s drive for a socialist super-state threatens America’s very existence.
The time to move forward has finally come – the cronies have been cleared out and the rich, overfed oligarchists must sit and watch while a REAL world leader takes control.
If the individuals selected were good, non partisan politics people, then BOTH sides would have a very difficult time disapproving them. But that’s really not how it works, is it?
BOTH sides play the politics game and BOTH sides hide behind the time honored excuse of, “But THEY do it,” and the equally justifiable, “That’s the way it always been done.”
During the campaign I heard the man who became the president say he was going to do away with those old ways and close the gap that exists between the parties. People voted him in because they believed he could and WOULD do that. However, his own divisive words and ACTIONS prove he can’t or won’t do that.
It takes a leader to do something that good for AMERICA. What we have are leaders for their PARTIES and I’m afraid, my fellow citizens, that our political PARTIES are running this country off the friggin’ cliff.
And time, and time, and time again, we buy into their promises made with moving tele-prompted speeches written by other people because we’re so focused on making as much money as we can so we can “check out of the game.”
If anyone hasn’t noticed, this “game” has gone on long enough and it’s time we ended it.
As my father used to say when I’d try to justify the things I did using other people as my excuse: “If your friends ate sh&%, would you eat sh&% too?”
I would have hoped…..no….EXPECTED our silver tongued president could be able to JUSTIFY the qualifications of his nominees to EVERYONE instead of using this political maneuver to put “his people” into positions that should work for US.
….oh….I forgot….George Bush did it too!!!!
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