Quick Note: Congress Guilty of "Under-Stepping" Its Job Description?

The House is suing the President for over-stepping his job description.  Their case focuses on the President's decision to defer the ACA requirement for small businesses--the same requirement that, just months earlier, Republicans were saying should be postponed because small business owners had asked for the postponement.  You can read more about that here.

Now we are involved in another "war" in the Middle East, and the GOP dominated House suddenly has little to say about the President making important decisions about who-fights-where-how-and-with-what decisions without any congressional input. After all, there is an election in just few short weeks and the GOP is just too busy elsewhere.  And when it comes to military action in the Middle East, as Representative Jack Kingston (R-Georgia) told the media recently, "Republicans don't want to change anything...We can denounce it if it goes bad, and praise it if it goes well and ask what took him so long."  

Nice plan, right?  Wait, there's more...

Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) said that the President "should seek a new congressional authorization."  But, when asked about the House's disinterest in authorizing military force in a foreign country--which really is part of their job-- House Speaker John Boehner's office said, "The Speaker...thinks it would be good for the country to have a new authorization for the use of military force covering our actions against ISIL, but traditionally such authorization is requested and written by the commander-in-chief--and President Obama has not done that."

As MSNBC's Steve Benen wrote: "According to leading Republicans on Capitol Hill, Congress isn't doing anything, and that's the president's fault. Why?  Because the executive branch hasn't written a bill for the legislative branch.  Sure lawmakers could write a bill on their own--it's literally what they're paid to do--but they're instead waiting for the president to serve as a check on his own power.  In effect, GOP leaders are arguing, 'Obama didn't ask us to do work, so we've decided not to bother.'"

So, the president will move ahead on his own and the GOP will wait.  And no matter what the outcome, they will be prepared to censure him.

If sending Americans to die in another country is not important enough for Republicans to return to Washington, you might ask, "What is?"  Well, apparently, there is at least one thing:  Lawmakers will be back in Washington next week to hold a hearing on the way the Secret Service handled the two recent White House fence jumpers.    

After all, that is something they can blame on President Obama and there is nothing more important than that!