I've heard people on the right go on about Obama's "out-of-control spending". Some of this might be ignorance to the fact that spending bills are created by house and senate appropriations committees and not the president, and that while a president can have influence over the house and senate if they are controlled by his/her party it is still probably more accurate to criticize or applaud congress, but I digress a little...
Without getting too mired in what you think about this current government and just speaking in general terms that apply no matter who is in power (since I'm pretty clear by now how most of you generally feel about this government), at what point do you think the whole "we inherited this mess" argument should no longer be applicable to a president, house, and/or senate?
My reason for the above Obama out-of-control spending digression is that I'm pretty undecided on the whole owning of legislation thing when it comes to the house and senate. The president is a little easier to have strong opinions with being a single entity. I think my tentative opinions are that on average, one term is enough to at least put a foundation in place with legislative changes really heavily promoted by a president, the amount of time it takes before we can properly measure the effects of a major legislative change can vary greatly, but on average if I had to guess I'd say sometime in the second term we should be able to start measuring the impact of most new legislation.
In terms of the owning of legislation thing the house and senate seems far more complex though. What do you think?
Top