President Obama's DOMA Decision

On Wednesday this week, President Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder issued a letter to the House stating that the administration would no longer defend the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) because the act violates equal rights protection under the constitution.

In an editorial published in the Washington Post on Thursday, the author concedes that while the decision is a victory for homosexual citizens and gay rights activists, the administration's methods for getting the issue pushed are risky, and could possibly have unwanted effects for Obama in the future.
When claiming the argument that DOMA "relegates the nation's gay and lesbian citizens to second-class status" the article's author cites the very cases that have incited Obama and Holder to reject DOMA: Edith Winsdor in New York, and Gerald Passaro of Connecticut, who both brought complaints against DOMA because they had experienced marriage rights discrimination when they expected their legal marriages to be upheld.
While the author seems to be on Obama's side on this, and on the fact that DOMA violates the citizen's equal protections under the 5th amendment, he or she does not show thorough investigation of this claim. Rather he proclaims Obama's decision correct "as a matter of policy, and simple decency", simply praising the decision rather than providing his readership with evidence or logic to support that. That's not to say that I don't entirely agree with the position (because I do), merely it seems that the author isn't making a claim substantial enough for his own side.
Following this, however, the author makes the most important of his arguments. He perceives that the  Obama administration's chosen method for pushing the issue comes with certain "potential pit-falls", most notably the decision to order the Justice Department to continue defending DOMA legislation in its' decisions because it is still a duly-enacted law. Other writers who are condemning the administrations move have contended that Obama is actually over-stepping his power by officially arguing against DOMA in the first place, while this author seems to downplay the idea that DOMA is still enacted law and must be upheld.

The author's law argument seems to be the most salient, however. The author's values (his/her support of gay rights and objection to DOMA) may be getting in the way of his objectivity a few times in the article, but when it is suggested that the president would have been better off working with Congress to get the law taken out of the books in order to eliminate its' discriminatory effects, I couldn't agree more.

Dealing with the Federal Deficit Turns Political Brawl

The debate over the upcoming move to increase the federal government's debt ceiling is heating as the deadline for reform nears. The debt is expected to reach its current limit by the first week of April, and if a new limit hasn't been established by then, the government will have difficulty refinancing, keeping its' various programs running, and risks defaulting. While Democrats are fighting for a budget increase with no strings attached, some Republicans in the House are insisting on significant cuts in the budget. Some White House democrats are worried that conservatives and Tea Party activists in the GOP are going to use their Congressional dominance to push these cuts through without concession, or push the entire issue to next fiscal year through political brinkmanship. White House Officials, on the other hand, believe that the limit increase can be achieved "cleanly". They see the advantage with the Democrats because of recent evidence of political fraying within the GOP, and the unpopularity of domestic budget cuts with the American people.  While both parties face an almost impossible task in getting their budget plan passed without concession, they're also reluctant to reach any bipartisan compromise, except for a small group of senate Democrats and Republicans who plan to organize a bipartisan fiscal commission. But of course, it's equally likely to see support from the
House. If the issue does not reach resolution and results in a federal default, the consequences for the elderly, those on federal assistance, people seeking mortgages and the economy could be severe.

You can read the article here.