President Executive Orders

[Daniel]

Can President Obama use his executive orders to demand funding for intercity and high-speed rail?

 

[Ispolkom]

Congress appropriates money, not the president.

 

[the_traveler]

He can request money to be spent, but Congress must approve it.

Not being political, but he campaigned in 2008 for health care. How long did it take for it to be approved (by Congress)? :blush:

 

[daveyb99]

Not being political, but he campaigned in 2008 for health care. How long did it take for it to be approved (by Congress)? :blush:

Not being political either, but one party claims it was rammed through overnight. I believe the entire hearings, debates, and even that Presidential round-table .. overall about 6 months.

And to the original question: No, the President does not use Executive Orders to "demand money from Congress". He would merely contact Members and make those requests. Remember, the President can veto a bill, so he has some clout before the bill gets through Congress from that perspective.

Any Executive Order related to AMTRAK would like be something directing spending ... for example, to direct the USPS to ship via AMTRAK and pay going rates, or maybe U S Marshalls to conduct some prisoner transports via AMTRAK ... but who knows.

 

[Notelvis]

Any Executive Order related to AMTRAK would like be something directing spending ... for example maybe U S Marshalls to conduct some prisoner transports via AMTRAK ... but who knows.

This could totally redefine the meaning of 'Bar Cars' I think.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Can President Obama use his executive orders to demand funding for intercity and high-speed rail?

Not only are executive orders incapable of creating new funding, many orders already in effect can still be reversed by future administrations. While it may be possible to force some government travel toward Amtrak that's not where Amtrak's primary problems are currently found. What needs to be fixed at Amtrak involves long term projects and commitments that need to come from Congress. Thanks to partisan gerrymandering you probably won't be seeing the House back off attacking Amtrak anytime soon, and that means Amtrak won't get getting any more funding for several years. The best you can hope for the president to do at this point is to veto any bill that compromises Amtrak to the point of causing substantial harm. At least that's my understanding of the current situation.

 

[cirdan]

Does the President have a pot of money for discretionary spending? Or does anything he wants to spend, however small the sum, have to do the full approval rounds?

How does/did the approvals mechanism for TIGER funds work? Wasn't that pretty discretionary?

 

[Cho Cho Charlie]

The President could order the Pentagon to exclusively use Amtrak for all military transportation within the USA, mothballing even his own twin 747's. Marine One could then shuttle him to Union Station rather than Andrews.

 

[Ryan]

The DoT had discretion in where the money went, but only available because Congress gave the pot of money to the DoT and said "spend it on beneficial projects".

There exists no such pot of money that the President can just allocate funds out of, nor would I expect a Republican-controlled Congress to give him such a pot.

 

[Daniel]

So could the President mandate that a certain share of the FDOT funding go towards rail?

 

[AlanB]

There exists no such pot of money that the President can just allocate funds out of, nor would I expect a Republican-controlled Congress to give him such a pot.

Congress isn't Republican controlled; only the House is. The Senate remains in the control of the Democrats, creating a split or divided Congress.

 

[jis]

However, due to odd traditions/rules followed by the Senate, the control of Senate is pretty tenuous at best.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

The President could order the Pentagon to exclusively use Amtrak for all military transportation within the USA, mothballing even his own twin 747's. Marine One could then shuttle him to Union Station rather than Andrews.

^ This. Departments can be ordered to use Amtrak as much as possible, but that would spend a lot of political capital without much benefit. It would be easy to criticize and hard to defend.

There exists no such pot of money that the President can just allocate funds out of, nor would I expect a Republican-controlled Congress to give him such a pot.

Congress isn't Republican controlled; only the House is. The Senate remains in the control of the Democrats, creating a split or divided Congress.

The House is indeed controlled by the GOP.

However, the Senate isn't really controlled by either party since getting anything past today's ever more casual use of the filibuster requires at least a few votes from both sides.

 

[Ryan]

So could the President mandate that a certain share of the FDOT funding go towards rail?

No, the President would have even less control over what a state DoT (I'm assuming by FDOT you're talking about the Florida DoT?) does.

There exists no such pot of money that the President can just allocate funds out of, nor would I expect a Republican-controlled Congress to give him such a pot.

Congress isn't Republican controlled; only the House is. The Senate remains in the control of the Democrats, creating a split or divided Congress.

You can't bring anything to a vote without 60 votes in the Senate - lacking those 60 votes, the Democrats are most assuridly not in control of the Senate.

 

[afigg]

So could the President mandate that a certain share of the FDOT funding go towards rail?

No, the President would have even less control over what a state DoT (I'm assuming by FDOT you're talking about the Florida DoT?) does.

I think he meant Federal DOT which is not a commonly used abbreviation, if at all. USDOT is used as shorthand for the US Department of Transportation. To answer the earlier question, no the President can not mandate a certain share of US DOT funding go towards rail. For one, the person actually issuing any such order would more likely be the Secretary of Transportation, currently LaHood. The DOT has some latitude in how funds are distributed, but is subject to the many laws, various authorization bills, the language in the appropriations bills in what he and the other senior people in the DOT agencies can do. Also subject to previous regulatory decisions. That is why federal agencies have lawyers and staff to figure out and interpret the laws and nuances of the bills passed by Congress.

As for the Senate, yes, it had been tied up in knots the past several years by the Republicans constant use and threat of filibusters. The Democrats did push through several modest rule changes at the (very delayed official) start of the new session to limit the use of the filibuster to delay the start of debate and bills going to conference. There are ways for some bills to get around the filibusters, but it can take a lot of time on the floor with so many hours of debate. The Dems and Senator Reid control the agenda in the Senate but getting bills passed without a 60 vote super-majority or at least less than 40 Republicans willing to block the bill can be tough. So, instead we get a lot of gridlock and last minute budget deals.

 

[Karl1459]

Any Executive Order related to AMTRAK would like be something directing spending ... for example maybe U S Marshalls to conduct some prisoner transports via AMTRAK ... but who knows.

This could totally redefine the meaning of 'Bar Cars' I think.

1957 Alfred Hitchcock Presents: "The Manacled"

 

[crescent2]

Conrail

 

[The Davy Crockett]

Conrail

:hi: :hi: :hi:

:lol:

3 Points!

 

[John Bredin]

The President could order the Pentagon to exclusively use Amtrak for all military transportation within the USA, mothballing even his own twin 747's. Marine One could then shuttle him to Union Station rather than Andrews.

MetroOne from Farragut North (nearest Red station) to Union Station. ;-)

 

[rrdude]

Would luv to get opinons on this. Speculate. The time is TODAY, but the USA doesn't have an Intersate Highway System in place. Let's say a prez like Dwight D. (republican, popular, just came off a big war-win) comes into office tomorrow. In today's environment, would he have a tough time / easy time pushing thru his idea for a "National Defense Highway"? I know, I know, I know, all things are different now (hindsight being 20/20 or better) but to me, it seems like today, even Dwight would have a tough road-to-hoe if he were to try and get a program of this magnitude approved and funded.

(From Wiki: "The cost of construction has been estimated at $425 billion (in 2006 dollars),[4] making it the "largest public works program since the Pyramids".[ )

 

[Ryan]

No way the interstate highway system gets built in today's environment.

Heck, I've spent my morning so far begging someone in the program office I support that it's worth spending $88/day for me to attend a meeting that I'm required to attend 2 hours down the road as 2-3 days a month. Even if the travel gets denied, we've already spend more money that we could have possibly saved trying to navigate this bloated overhead approval process!

We're firmly in "pants on head retarded" territory here, and sadly that's unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.

 

[The Davy Crockett]

Hindsight sure helps one know the results of going down one particular road.

IMHO hboy: :
Times were sure different then:

1) America did not worry about the debt like it does today. World War II created government debt spending that was beyond anything the country had experienced before, except possibly during the Civil War and definately the American Revolution. But that debt helped create unprecidented prosperity and in the 1950s debt was no longer considerd to be neccesarily a bad thing, especially if it helped spur economic development and it could pay for itself if it was spent for the right things.

2) We were in love with the open road, wide open spaces and they meant freedom. (Conversely, in this day, trains alledgedly equate with socialism in some circles in this country.)

3) The American Dream involved a house in the 'burbs that one DROVE to and from. This created congestion on the old US Highway system, and a new improved (free of at grade intersections with their traffic lights and back-ups) were the answer.

4) In the 1950s who had heard about things like OPEC, climate change, sprawl, environmental impact statements, etc, etc.

5) The railroads were not well liked in many circles, as they were still considered the tools of the robber barons by many. Besides, riding on the train was so -- well -- what the old folks did.

6) We lack a sense of purpose - 'manfest destiny' if you will - that was so strong in this country after WWII.

Not surprisingly, I think Ike's idea would go down in flames today.

 

[leemell]

There exists no such pot of money that the President can just allocate funds out of, nor would I expect a Republican-controlled Congress to give him such a pot.

Congress isn't Republican controlled; only the House is. The Senate remains in the control of the Democrats, creating a split or divided Congress.

Constitution Section 2; All money bills must start in the House of Representatives.

 

[AlanB]

Not surprisingly, I think Ike's idea would go down in flames today.

Actually, even back then Ike's idea went down in flames originally. In 1954 his idea was defeated in Congress. Two years later after regrouping and making it about the Military, that is that we needed this system to help move the military around the country, the 1956 Highway Act passed Congress and the Interstate Highway System was born.

 

[jis]

That is why the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, is also popularly known as the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act (Public Law 84-627).