"We have to pass it to find out what's in it" the Obamacare stool sample. Putting coal out of business. strangling the economy with tons of regulations written by unelected bureaucrats, cutting an unconstitutional deal with the likes of terrorist Iran that was never consented to by the Senate. establishing DOCA with a stroke of the pen that even he admitted was unconstitutional.
Nancy said, “We have to pass the bill,so that you can find out what is in it — away from the fog of the controversy.”
Conservatives — abetted by dozens of political journalists who should have known better — immediately seized on a truncated version of the quote. Pelosi was really expressing her confidence in the underlying merits of the bill, but it became instead a shorthand for the allegedly dodgy process through which Obamacare was passed.
But Pelosi never said the bill was enacted in secret or under cover of night, because it wasn’t. She said it was enacted in a fog of controversy. The controversy, naturally enough, focused on the most contentious aspects of the bill rather than on the most broadly popular. Much of it was about misunderstandings or misconceptions — claims that the bill contained death panels or did nothing to restrain health care costs — rather than on the Affordable Care Act’s concrete benefits.
Obama did nothing to hurt the Coal Industry. The Coal Industry is dying a natural death. More Coal Operations have shut down under the first 2 years of Donald Trump's Administration, than did under the entire 8 years of Obama's Administration- even after Donald Trump removed most Coal Regulations put in place by several generations of presidents.
Congressional responsibility in the Iran deal
Much of the responsibility for U.S. foreign policy falls under the authority of the executive branch. Congress does play a significant role, however, in foreign trade and commerce, immigration, foreign aid, the defense budget and any declarations of war. The Senate authorizes treaties and confirms the president’s cabinet nominees.
To avoid needing Senate approval for an agreement with a foreign power, the president can simply avoid calling the agreement a treaty. The Obama administration said the Iran deal was neither a treaty nor an executive agreement. Instead, the State Department said in a letter that the deal "reflects political commitments" between the seven nations involved.
When the president negotiates a deal that is not deemed a treaty, Congress -- if it wants a say on the deal -- must convince the president to give the legislative branch the power to approve or block the final deal.
That’s exactly what Congress did when it passed the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, a bill that had bipartisan support and allowed Congress the right to review any agreement reached in the negotiations. Obama initially threatened to veto the bill but did not.
The regulations Obama approved of were put in place to prevent the kinds of problems that led to the Financial crisis that Obama Inherited as he became president.
The DACA program would have shielded as many as five million undocumented immigrants from deportation and allowed them to legally work in the United States.
The 4-4 tie, which left in place an appeals court ruling blocking the plan, amplified the contentious election-year debate over the nation’s immigration policy and presidential power.
When the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case in January, it seemed poised to issue a major ruling on presidential power. That did not materialize, but the court’s action, which established no precedent and included no reasoning, was nonetheless perhaps its most important statement this term. The decision was just nine words long: “The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided court.”
