willing to sign.
Problem is, it doesn't seem to be working that way. Good essay on this (from back in February!) -
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So what went wrong?
The first problem with the Norquist quote was its substantial overstatement of the degree to which the congressional Republican Party was indeed a prolific font of policy-making. Congress in the Obama years was in fact quite unproductive in historical terms, and while Ryan in particular jealously guards his reputation as a self-described "policy guy," he prefers to lead by generating piles of "frameworks" and "summaries" rather than bringing specific legislative language up for votes on the House floor.
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Even if the current Republican Congress were a bit more policy-oriented, however, the Norquist argument would still be deeply flawed as a characterization of how policy change has historically been enacted in the Untied States. There are several good reasons why Congress seldom takes the lead in enacting major legislation without significant presidential involvement. For one thing, some degree of internal disagreement is inevitable even if both congressional chambers are controlled by the same party—and only the president has the standing and capacity to resolve these disputes.
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But Trump is also instinctively cagey, often demonstrating what seems to be a characteristic wariness of committing to specific policy objectives because of a fundamental fear that he's setting himself up for failure. What we've seen so far of the Trump administration also reveals it to be understaffed and inexperienced, with nobody apparently empowered to speak authoritatively for, or negotiate on behalf of, the president.
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For all of Trump's surface boldness and big talk, he has so far been a curiously risk-averse president when it comes to identifying specific policy objectives. But if Trump expects Congress to do the heavy lifting of policy-making and deliver him one bill after another on a platter, he is likely to wind up with few legislative achievements to show for his time in office. If he really does want to sign a lot of major legislation, a president needs a lot more than just the working digits to hold the pen.
http://www.honestgraft.com/2017/02/that-grover-norquist-quote-was-wrong.html
What was good about the above essay was his characterization of Eddie Munster's modus operandi - basically doing nothing but generating a bunch of "frameworks" and "summaries" (that lack any substance) and waving them around. And that's pretty much spot on.
And regarding Drumpf - his idea of a "policy" speech is holding a campaign rally that extols his election "win", trashes his former election opponent (or current staffers who he has had a falling out with), and calls for citizens to engage in illegal and/or unethical behavior, all sprinkled with a few sentences that relate to the actual policy topic.
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