4 ms·

On net, long term, Obama will turn out not to have been very effective at all, because everything he's done through executive order has/will be undone through e

On net, long term, Obama will turn out not to have been very effective at all, because everything he's done through executive order has/will be undone through executive orders in the few weeks. That's the curse of executive order, and why good, long term legislation won't arise from executive order.

mikeyouse 10y ago
That's all well and good, but there is absolutely no indicaition that congress would have produced anything resembling "good, long-term" legislation. In my completely made up system, if we started at 0 and add up the number of points in favor of averting Climate Change, Obama probably added 3 for a few years with the Paris Agreement, CAFE and some of the EPA rules were also pretty beneficial, maybe net 4 over his term. Call it +10 for Obama. Trump's going to reverse many of those decisions, probably make some of them much worse within the next few years. Let's say he wipes out all of Obama's work and does 50% more 'damage' in this system. So by 2020, we're at -5. If we had left it to the Republicans in Congress, we would have been at least at -5 every year since 2010.. So -5 net with Obama/Trump's dueling executive orders or -50 with Republicans in Congress. Yes the system is made up and the points don't matter, but there is absolutely no way we would be in a better position. It's the height of naivety to dismiss what they promised to do and to assume they would have suddenly changed their views 180º to support action on climate change for 'the limelight'.
anigbrowl 10y ago
Obama issued executive orders after asking and arguably begging Congress to act. It's not like he came into office and started kicking over the metaphorical furniture. When we're talking about the quality of the policy he attempted to promulgate, rehashing partisan mischaracterizations about his style of governance is unhelpful.

mikeyouse 10y ago

That's all well and good, but there is absolutely no indicaition that congress would have produced anything resembling "good, long-term" legislation. In my completely made up system, if we started at 0 and add up the number of points in favor of averting Climate Change, Obama probably added 3 for a few years with the Paris Agreement, CAFE and some of the EPA rules were also pretty beneficial, maybe net 4 over his term. Call it +10 for Obama. Trump's going to reverse many of those decisions, probably make some of them much worse within the next few years. Let's say he wipes out all of Obama's work and does 50% more 'damage' in this system. So by 2020, we're at -5. If we had left it to the Republicans in Congress, we would have been at least at -5 every year since 2010.. So -5 net with Obama/Trump's dueling executive orders or -50 with Republicans in Congress. Yes the system is made up and the points don't matter, but there is absolutely no way we would be in a better position. It's the height of naivety to dismiss what they promised to do and to assume they would have suddenly changed their views 180º to support action on climate change for 'the limelight'.

anigbrowl 10y ago

Obama issued executive orders after asking and arguably begging Congress to act. It's not like he came into office and started kicking over the metaphorical furniture. When we're talking about the quality of the policy he attempted to promulgate, rehashing partisan mischaracterizations about his style of governance is unhelpful.