 State of the Dictatorship
President Obama is a big
proponent of recycling -- and he's proven it with his last several State
of the Union speeches. While America's problems keep piling up, the
White House keeps trotting out the same tired solutions. Early reports
of tomorrow's address suggest that the President is intent on regifting
the failed priorities of the past five years -- only this time, he isn't
asking Congress, he's telling them.
Legislating is tough
business -- too tough, apparently, for President Obama. This year, the
White House has a not-so-new strategy for muscling through its agenda:
unilateralism. Tomorrow night, as part of his push for climate change,
infrastructure spending, and education, the President plans on declaring
his independence -- from Congress. Taking what his staff calls a "pen and phone"
approach, the administration is gearing up for a season light on
consensus and heavy on executive orders. "We need to show the American
people that we can get something done, either with Congress or on our
own," said the White House's Dan Pfeiffer.
Unfortunately, this
we-can't-wait strategy is nothing new for Americans, who've watched the
President circumvent Congress so much that he could have built a
permanent bypass around Capitol Hill. But if legislators are angry about
being cut out of the process, you wouldn't know it by Democrats'
reactions. "People are mad at government," said Sen. Chuck Schumer
(D-N.Y.). "Why? Gridlock, things not getting done. So I think the public
would welcome things he could do on his own rather than doing nothing."
Like us, Sen. Rand Paul
(R-Ky.) doubts any American would "welcome" the idea of this President
single-handedly rewriting the separation of powers. "He says, 'Oh well,
it's hard to get Congress to do anything.' Well, yeah, welcome to the
real world. It's hard to convince people to get legislation through. It
takes consensus. But that's what he needs to be doing is building
consensus and not taking his pen and creating law." Good leaders don't
bully their way past the process; they work within it. While the
President tries to rebound from a year of failure with "a year of
action," Tuesday's viewers can expect a lot of talk about education,
income inequality, and immigration reform. According to Rep. Chris Van
Hollen (D-Md.), the administration will harp on the theme of "shared
prosperity" -- a twist on the wealth redistribution so close to the
President's heart.
The goal should be increasing prosperity for all. But the best way to
shrink the income gap isn't expanding the size and reach of
Washington-- it's promoting relationships that create income in the
first place: intact married families. And lower taxes, less regulation
and freer markets would help. Instead of sowing more big government
liberalism, it's time for the President to make the connection between
America's financial mess and its cultural one. While the Left looks for
the answer to poverty in welfare programs, our nation's greatest hope
continues to be in the home. What's necessary, social science tells us,
is a married mother and father -- an advantage only 45% of this
generation enjoy.
But don't take our word for it -- take Harvard University's.
In its latest analysis, experts insist that single parenthood is one of
the largest obstacles in moving up the income ladder. "The study found
the prevalence of single parents to be a much larger factor in
determining social mobility than income inequality -- something
President Obama and Democrats speak of ad nauseum." That also helps
explain why Americans have thrown $20 trillion at the war on poverty
with next to nothing to show for it. Why? Because money can't replace marriage as a lasting antidote to the poor's problems. In this instance, we do
need government -- a government that won't devalue family or stand in
the way of its formation. A government that is more committed to
affirming the family than infirming it.
Supreme Court Ruling Second to Nun In
the battle between the Obama administration and Little Sisters of the
Poor, bet on the nuns. The Supreme Court did -- granting an extremely
rare request to shield the group from the President's
contraception-abortifacient mandate until the case works its way through
the courts. The New Year's Eve injunction was "unusual enough," the Wall Street Journal commented.
"But the permanent stay pending appeal, issued late Friday by the full
Supreme Court with no recorded dissent, was rarer still -- and a rebuke
to the Obama administration's bullying conception of religious liberty."
Like so many faith-based groups, the Little Sisters were horrified at
the choice of paying for coverage they morally oppose, paying a mountain
of fines, or dropping insurance altogether.
Although the Supreme
Court's order doesn't resolve the matter, it does signal some very real
problems for the President's mandate -- which the justices will consider
in March as part of the Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood suits. For now,
the Court's decision is a small victory for conscience rights in the
middle of a much larger clash over religious liberty in general. Let's
hope the justices decide to give every American the same protection as
the Little Sisters -- and strike down the mandate once and for all!
Indiana and the Last Marriage Crusade While Virginia's new attorney general looks for ways to destroy
the state's marriage amendment, Indiana's lawmakers are doing their
best to pass one. As early as tonight, the Hoosier House will take the
first of two votes on whether the people should have a voice in defining
marriage in the state. With so much at stake, the FRC team is on the
ground in Indianapolis urging members to give the democratic process a
chance. Indiana's legislature has already passed the marriage amendment
once. It needs only to approve it again -- without change -- to send it
to the people. Our own Peter Sprigg and FRC Action Executive Director
Josh Duggar talked
about the unique opportunity Indiana has to change the debate on
marriage at a press conference in the State House this morning with our
friends Micah Clark of AFA and Curt Smith of Indiana Family Institute,
and roughly 15 members of the media. From there, Josh and Peter
canvassed the General Assembly, pushing for a dozen wobbly leaders to
vote "yes." Tonight, Josh guest hosted for me on "Washington Watch" from
Indianapolis and made a last-minute dash to bolster support for House
Joint Resolution 3. If the measure passes, the debate shifts to the
state senate, where the bill's sponsor is confident it will pass. If
you haven't weighed in, click over to FRC's action alert and make your voice heard!
** After last week's March for Life, Ken Blackwell and Bob Morrison take a long view on the debate in a new piece called, "Our Fierce Urgency of Now." Also, don't miss an insightful column by Ken about party dynamics, "The Fight for Principle within the GOP" in the Christian Post.
Tony Perkins' Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.
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