The president will be delivering his fifth State of the Union address to Congress tomorrow, his people have given some hints that, to be honest, I found boring except for one. Floated by Jay Carney, of all people, is the idea that the presidency is getting ready to bypass congress and use executive orders to further his economic goals like income inequality and minimum wage. It's interesting because maybe it is telling us how the president plans to finish his last term in public office.
Now, the Obama second term has been shambolic as of now, always off track on the president's legacy pieces. There was the moment after the Sandy Hook shootings that it looked, the president himself confirmed it, like gun controls laws would become a priority. After burning through the momentum of the shootings with nothing to show for it, the administration quickly acted as if they had never made those gigantic promises. Another messy situation became the roll out of the Affordable Care Act, the crown jewel of the Obama presidency and probably his biggest legacy piece, if you had internet, television or radio in the past months, there is no need for me to cite the incredible incompetence and un-coordination that was the roll out. If Obamacare succeeds, the president would have sealed his legacy and name in the fabric of the American government and healthcare system,yet his administration managed to botch that incredibly important roll-out. There was also the shutdown fiasco, which to be fair wasn't really his fault and he came out of that relatively unscathed. Another failure was the botched Syria intervention, a situation in which the self doubt of the administration facilitated Putin in outsmarting them. As evidenced by this whole paragraph, this has not been a particularly successful second term and second terms are when presidents make their legacies. Which bring us to executive orders.
The president previously used them as the 2012 presidential was beginning, to grant children who were brought in the United States under 16 work permits and some form of legal residencies for two years. That was a move of course, to secure the Latino vote, which was crucial in securing him a second term. This round seems to be based around the platform for the legislative campaign of 2014 as they align well with the Democratic talking points of income inequality and minimum wage. If these work well enough, they would be instrumental in helping retain the Senate and increase democratic number in the House for Democrats. Winning the House is fairly impossible and the Senate looks vulnerable, I still predict that the Senate will remain in Democratic hands, but this does not hurt. Bypasing Congress will help matters, I agree completely with the president that the minimum wage need to be raised, and really the income inequality seems to have reached Gilded Age levels, so executive action is a good start. However, excecutive orders don't address the core of the very real issues that the president has promised he will deal with in his two presidential campaigns, immigration, a fair and secure financial system.
Yes, the executive orders will do a lot of good, if the administration has the balls to go through them, but they are not the solution in salvaging the rest of the president's last term. What he needs, I think, is to have a long term legislative agenda and always be doing things to bring forth results. This administration, in my eyes, has seemed incapable with dealing with two things at the same time, especially in a crisis, this is the reason why actions on immigration reform have continuously lagged and stalled. It needs to be addressed. Also a change in the people who advise the president on legislative matters is paramount, as the current team seems a failure. President's Obama's second term can still be great, but it will not be executive orders that will secure greatness. It will be a neat and coherent legislative agenda that will bring the change he so often spoke of at the beginning of his presidential journey.
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