The Bigger Picture
Published on May 15th 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Even though the 2012 US Presidential and Congressional elections are still 18 months away, Republicans actually began their 2012 political campaigns just after the 112th Congress was sworn into office on January 3rd of this year.
First, on the heels of their November mid-term election victories, the leader of Republicans in the US Senate, Senator Mitch McConnell said “that our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term in office.” Congressional Republicans then proceeded to propose and pass a series of bills to cut spending and enact their social conservative agenda instead of measures designed to reduce unemployment and spur the American economy.
Even though none of their spending bills had any hope of being passed by the US Senate, Republicans continued to reject attempts by President Obama to enact a federal budget for the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year that would eliminate a smaller amount of federal spending. The end result was a series of small spending cut measures that did nothing to reduce unemployment, but instead threatened to shut down the federal government and damage America’s fragile economic recovery in the process.
Although President Obama truly desired to work with Republicans in crafting bi-partisan solutions to America’s economic and budget deficit problems, he is also a realist when it comes to politics. So after Republicans spent the first three months of their term rejecting attempts at bi-partisan compromise, President Obama decided that since Republicans only cared about defeating him in 2012, he would announce he was seeking re-election 19 months before Election Day.
But despite his many attempts to strike a compromise with Republicans, many Americans nonetheless blame President Obama, at least in part, for the gridlock that currently envelops Washington DC, instead of just the Republicans who refuse to compromise with the President. This is a reflection of the fact that many Americans don’t really understand the constraints our Constitution places on their President’s power. The President can veto laws that he doesn’t support, but is also powerless to force Congress to pass the laws America needs to address its problems.
So if President Obama is to succeed in his quest to win re-election in 2012, one of the most important tasks for the President and his campaign team is to educate American voters about the difficulty of running a country when his opponents’ top priority is preventing him from doing so. Many Americans, including myself, have long believed that a divided government leads to more bi-partisan and effective laws and policies. But this belief is also based on our assumption that politicians on both sides will be willing to strike a compromise.
However one of the main disadvantages of a divided government is the inability of the government to function effectively if politicians on one side determine they have more to gain politically by not compromising with their political opponents. Since the Tea Party movement doesn’t believe in making compromises, Republicans, who were elected to Congress in 2010 thanks to their support, believe they have more to gain by opposing President Obama than they do by compromising with him for the sake of our country.
But in addition to painting his Republican opponents in Congress as obstructionists more interested in advancing their Tea Party supporters right wing political agenda, the President’s other task is to compare and contrast his more ‘compassionate’ vision of America with the Republican and Tea Party movement’s more selfish and self serving vision of America. The President wisely began painting this picture of his vision versus that of his Republican opponents soon after he announced he was running for re-election last month.
Since the winner of American Presidential elections is decided by the votes of moderate, independent or swing voters rather than the more liberal and conservative voters who form the core of the Democratic and Republican parties, it is important that the President spend as much time as he can between now and the 2012 election painting the Republican Party as one that is dominated by hard line conservatives. By doing this it is more likely than not that the swing voters President Obama will need to win re-election will view whoever the Republicans nominate to run against him as an extension of the party’s right wing base.
Because the President will not have any viable Democratic opponents to run against in the 2012 Democratic primaries, he will also be able to conserve his campaign funds for the General Election. On the other hand President Obama’s Republican opponent will not only have to spend a lot of money waging a campaign to win the Republican Party’s nomination, but will also have to go on the record in favour of political positions that appeal to the Tea Party movement, but are a turnoff to many of America’s more moderate independent voters.
If President Obama succeeds in portraying Republicans in Congress as obstructionists and their candidate for President as beholden to the right wing views of the Republican base, then it won’t matter who his Republican Presidential opponent is because President Obama will win the independent voters as well as the national popular vote.
But the more important electoral calculus is winning at least 270 electoral votes. If President Obama succeeds in winning the same 28 states he won in 2008, then he will finish with 359 electoral votes. 17 of these are solidly Democratic states that guarantee him 229 votes and President Obama won another 7 states with 53 electoral votes by large margins ranging from 6% to 14%. Since these states are unlikely to swing back to a Republican, even if his Republican opponent is able to win all the big swing states like Florida, Ohio, Indiana and North Carolina that Obama carried in 2008, President Obama still wins the electoral vote by a margin of 282 to 256.
So although a lot can change in 18 months, this is why I predict President Obama will win re-election in 2012.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Why won't these 'children' just compromise?
The Bigger Picture
Published on May 1st 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
In order to understand why the US Congress and President Obama are finding it so difficult to reach a bi-partisan consensus on how to address America’s budget deficit problems, one first needs to understand the political parties’ respective voter constituencies.
Because most Republicans in Congress represent districts and states that are in predominately suburban or rural areas of the United States, a majority of their constituents also tend to be older members of America’s white ethnic majority. Many of these citizens are also retired and rely on government funded entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, as well as supplemental income from private employer pensions and healthcare plans, to provide for their pension and healthcare needs. So for these voters, America’s current high level of unemployment isn’t the problem; maintaining their current lifestyles is.
Although unemployment also tends to be lower than the national average in these suburban or rural districts and states, this is not the case in all areas of the country. In a number of Midwestern states such as Michigan, Ohio and Indiana the loss of higher paying manufacturing jobs has led to higher levels of unemployment. These job losses have in turn had ripple effects on the retail, restaurant and service businesses that once catered to the needs of these workers, leading to even more job losses in these local economic sectors.
But most of the jobs that have been lost in the manufacturing and service sectors of the economies in these districts and states also did not require a college education. As a result, many of the unemployed people living there lack the education needed to acquire better paying jobs in America’s more service oriented economy. Many of them are also either unwilling to move to other areas of the country for a job or unable to do so because they can’t sell their homes in America’s still depressed housing market. So confronted with either going back to school to get a university degree or accepting a lower paying job in the service sector, these workers react by becoming angry and frustrated with America’s political leaders.
Although white Americans still make up a majority of American voters and hold a diminished but still privileged position in American society when they are compared as a group with other ethnic minorities, their grasp on electoral and economic power has been eroding for quite some time. But rather than accept this as an inevitable consequence of life in a vibrant multicultural society, many older and less educated whites are looking for someone and or something to blame. Seeking to take advantage of their discontent, Republicans in turn blame Democrats since younger, better educated whites and members of America’s minority ethnic groups also tend to vote for Democrats like President Obama.
But even though the balance of power in Congress, as well as the US Presidency, has been shifting between the Democratic and Republican political parties for years, members of both parties have historically compromised with their political opponents in order to pass important legislation. So why can’t the current Congress muster the bi-partisan support that has always been used in past to pass important legislation like our nation’s annual budgets?
The answer lies in the way most state’s Congressional districts have been gerrymandered every ten years by the Republican or Democratic parties that are in power in those states. When US Congressional districts are redesigned, the new districts are designed to favor the incumbent legislators of their party. Since the conservative Republicans or liberal Democrats elected from these districts no longer have to worry about swing voters, they are also less inclined to compromise and pass the bi-partisan legislation that America needs.
But the gridlock in Congress also makes President Obama look like an ineffective leader. So next week I will discuss how President Obama can overcome the legislative gridlock induced by Congressional Republicans and win re-election in 2012.
Published on May 1st 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
In order to understand why the US Congress and President Obama are finding it so difficult to reach a bi-partisan consensus on how to address America’s budget deficit problems, one first needs to understand the political parties’ respective voter constituencies.
Because most Republicans in Congress represent districts and states that are in predominately suburban or rural areas of the United States, a majority of their constituents also tend to be older members of America’s white ethnic majority. Many of these citizens are also retired and rely on government funded entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, as well as supplemental income from private employer pensions and healthcare plans, to provide for their pension and healthcare needs. So for these voters, America’s current high level of unemployment isn’t the problem; maintaining their current lifestyles is.
Although unemployment also tends to be lower than the national average in these suburban or rural districts and states, this is not the case in all areas of the country. In a number of Midwestern states such as Michigan, Ohio and Indiana the loss of higher paying manufacturing jobs has led to higher levels of unemployment. These job losses have in turn had ripple effects on the retail, restaurant and service businesses that once catered to the needs of these workers, leading to even more job losses in these local economic sectors.
But most of the jobs that have been lost in the manufacturing and service sectors of the economies in these districts and states also did not require a college education. As a result, many of the unemployed people living there lack the education needed to acquire better paying jobs in America’s more service oriented economy. Many of them are also either unwilling to move to other areas of the country for a job or unable to do so because they can’t sell their homes in America’s still depressed housing market. So confronted with either going back to school to get a university degree or accepting a lower paying job in the service sector, these workers react by becoming angry and frustrated with America’s political leaders.
Although white Americans still make up a majority of American voters and hold a diminished but still privileged position in American society when they are compared as a group with other ethnic minorities, their grasp on electoral and economic power has been eroding for quite some time. But rather than accept this as an inevitable consequence of life in a vibrant multicultural society, many older and less educated whites are looking for someone and or something to blame. Seeking to take advantage of their discontent, Republicans in turn blame Democrats since younger, better educated whites and members of America’s minority ethnic groups also tend to vote for Democrats like President Obama.
But even though the balance of power in Congress, as well as the US Presidency, has been shifting between the Democratic and Republican political parties for years, members of both parties have historically compromised with their political opponents in order to pass important legislation. So why can’t the current Congress muster the bi-partisan support that has always been used in past to pass important legislation like our nation’s annual budgets?
The answer lies in the way most state’s Congressional districts have been gerrymandered every ten years by the Republican or Democratic parties that are in power in those states. When US Congressional districts are redesigned, the new districts are designed to favor the incumbent legislators of their party. Since the conservative Republicans or liberal Democrats elected from these districts no longer have to worry about swing voters, they are also less inclined to compromise and pass the bi-partisan legislation that America needs.
But the gridlock in Congress also makes President Obama look like an ineffective leader. So next week I will discuss how President Obama can overcome the legislative gridlock induced by Congressional Republicans and win re-election in 2012.
Now is not the time to cut federal spending
The Bigger Picture
Published on April 15th 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
As I mentioned in previous columns, the Republican Party seems to be enamored of the German austerity diet as a cure for America’s budget obesity. So today I want to explore some more prudent methods than the German austerity diet or starting another world war that economists believe will trim America’s bloated budget deficit without hurting its economy.
Led by an incoming class of 87 new members, most of who campaigned on a promise to their Tea Party supporters that they would cut federal spending, House Republicans continue to claim that their proposed budget cuts will actually help the economy. They also argue that the Obama and Bush administrations’ economic stimulus measures and bank bailouts didn’t work because the US unemployment rate soared to almost ten percent, well above the eight percent mark these measures were supposed to cap unemployment at.
The problem with these Republican arguments is that virtually no economists agree with them. An independent analysis of the Republican spending cuts conducted by Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi, who was also an economic advisor to Republican Presidential candidate John McCain in the 2008 election campaign, predicts that they will reduce America’s economic growth by .5% this year and .2% next year. Another analysis by economists at Wall Street’s Goldman Sachs forecasts that the effect will be even worse, reducing US economic growth by 2% and producing 700,000 fewer jobs this year.
Furthermore, economists around the country almost universally agree that America’s economic recession would have been far worse and the unemployment rate much higher had it not been for the government’s bank bailouts and other economic stimulus measures.
But Republicans dismiss these reports as well as the analysis of the effects of their spending cuts on early education programs like Head Start and Pell Grants for students pursuing university degrees provided by economists at the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. Not surprisingly however, Republicans have also failed to come up with any independent economic analysis of their budget proposals that supports their claims that these spending cuts will help the economy and spur the creation of jobs in the private sector.
Republicans in Congress, as well as the slew of potential Republican presidential candidates currently trying to drum up support for their 2012 political campaigns, also bash Obama for the growth of jobs in the federal government and the public sector as a whole. They contend that 200,000 people have been added to the reducing federal payroll since Obama became President and that cutting these jobs will bring down unemployment by fostering the creation of more private sector jobs.
But these claims don’t jive with the facts. Since President Obama took office in January 2009, the federal government has actually only added 58, 000 jobs and most of these were jobs in Homeland Security and Defence, two departments that Republicans don’t want to cut back. Furthermore, during those same two years more than 400,000 public sector jobs have been cut by state and local governments, raising unemployment by .35%.
As an economic conservative I am acutely aware of the long term consequences of failing to rein in America’s ballooning federal budget deficit. A full economic recovery in America will not come close to accomplishing this task, which will still require a painful combination of both tax increases and spending cuts.
But given the still fragile state of America’s economic recovery, I believe the Republican Party’s proposals to cut federal spending immediately will be just as counterproductive as President Roosevelt’s austerity measures were back in 1937, and Germany and the UK’s austerity measures are today.
Though less emotionally satisfying, the more prudent economic course of action than an austerity diet is to wait until the economy is creating enough jobs to bring down unemployment before implementing the combination of tax increases and spending cuts required to bring our budget deficit under control. Now isn’t the time to cut spending.
Published on April 15th 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
As I mentioned in previous columns, the Republican Party seems to be enamored of the German austerity diet as a cure for America’s budget obesity. So today I want to explore some more prudent methods than the German austerity diet or starting another world war that economists believe will trim America’s bloated budget deficit without hurting its economy.
Led by an incoming class of 87 new members, most of who campaigned on a promise to their Tea Party supporters that they would cut federal spending, House Republicans continue to claim that their proposed budget cuts will actually help the economy. They also argue that the Obama and Bush administrations’ economic stimulus measures and bank bailouts didn’t work because the US unemployment rate soared to almost ten percent, well above the eight percent mark these measures were supposed to cap unemployment at.
The problem with these Republican arguments is that virtually no economists agree with them. An independent analysis of the Republican spending cuts conducted by Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi, who was also an economic advisor to Republican Presidential candidate John McCain in the 2008 election campaign, predicts that they will reduce America’s economic growth by .5% this year and .2% next year. Another analysis by economists at Wall Street’s Goldman Sachs forecasts that the effect will be even worse, reducing US economic growth by 2% and producing 700,000 fewer jobs this year.
Furthermore, economists around the country almost universally agree that America’s economic recession would have been far worse and the unemployment rate much higher had it not been for the government’s bank bailouts and other economic stimulus measures.
But Republicans dismiss these reports as well as the analysis of the effects of their spending cuts on early education programs like Head Start and Pell Grants for students pursuing university degrees provided by economists at the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. Not surprisingly however, Republicans have also failed to come up with any independent economic analysis of their budget proposals that supports their claims that these spending cuts will help the economy and spur the creation of jobs in the private sector.
Republicans in Congress, as well as the slew of potential Republican presidential candidates currently trying to drum up support for their 2012 political campaigns, also bash Obama for the growth of jobs in the federal government and the public sector as a whole. They contend that 200,000 people have been added to the reducing federal payroll since Obama became President and that cutting these jobs will bring down unemployment by fostering the creation of more private sector jobs.
But these claims don’t jive with the facts. Since President Obama took office in January 2009, the federal government has actually only added 58, 000 jobs and most of these were jobs in Homeland Security and Defence, two departments that Republicans don’t want to cut back. Furthermore, during those same two years more than 400,000 public sector jobs have been cut by state and local governments, raising unemployment by .35%.
As an economic conservative I am acutely aware of the long term consequences of failing to rein in America’s ballooning federal budget deficit. A full economic recovery in America will not come close to accomplishing this task, which will still require a painful combination of both tax increases and spending cuts.
But given the still fragile state of America’s economic recovery, I believe the Republican Party’s proposals to cut federal spending immediately will be just as counterproductive as President Roosevelt’s austerity measures were back in 1937, and Germany and the UK’s austerity measures are today.
Though less emotionally satisfying, the more prudent economic course of action than an austerity diet is to wait until the economy is creating enough jobs to bring down unemployment before implementing the combination of tax increases and spending cuts required to bring our budget deficit under control. Now isn’t the time to cut spending.
Is an austerity diet the answer?
The Bigger Picture
Published on April 1st 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
When Senate Republicans in last year’s Congress refused to allow a vote on President Obama’s 2011 federal government budget they essentially set the stage for the political theatrics currently on display in Washington DC. They were hoping that their party would gain control of the US House of Representatives in the mid-term elections and increase their leverage on President Obama. But despite their success in achieving this objective, at least three of those same Senate Republicans subsequently voted against the ridiculous spending bill their Republican colleagues in the House of Representatives sent them last month.
So given the fact that they can’t get the support of other Republicans in the Senate for their budget cutting proposals, what explains the irresponsible political behavior of House Republicans in continuing to push for spending cuts that have no hope of becoming law? I believe the political stew Republicans have been dining on the past two years is the culprit.
For starters, many Congressional Republicans have convinced themselves that the latest government budget fad diet called ‘German austerity’ is the answer for our national government’s ‘obesity’. Then to make it more palatable to Republicans who doubt the wisdom of this fad diet, Tea Party activists have liberally sprinkled it with their homegrown flavorings of fear that Republicans who don’t adhere to this diet will lose their seats in the next Congress. The final ingredient in this stew is the rather tasty prospect of even more power for Republicans in Congress if they succeed in beating Obama at the polls in 2012.
As a lifelong Republican and economic conservative, I can understand why so many Republicans think the German austerity diet sounds so appealing. But even though the idea of balancing our national government’s budget holds great emotional appeal for me, I believe the rationale for doing so must also be based on realistic economic principles; not emotions.
To that end, I will now discuss some of the fallacies that I believe underlie the myth that the German austerity diet is the best way to cure the economic ills which currently bedevil America as well as most of the world’s other more developed nations.
This myth had its roots in the economic recovery Germany experienced during the first half of last year. Commentators here in Europe and much of the rest of the world cited this as evidence that the more modest economic stimulus measures Germany had implemented in 2009 were the answer to the economic malaise that still gripped America and most other countries in Europe.
But ever since Germany’s growth slowed sharply in the second half of last year those same commentators have been noticeably silent. The cold hard economic facts are that once Germany’s modest economic stimulus measures had run their course, the German economy stagnated. As a result, Germany’s economic output is still well below the level it achieved before the 2008 financial meltdown and the onset of the 2009 global economic recession.
But the current economic situation in the UK, another country that adopted the German austerity diet, is even worse than that in Germany. The UK is actually now on the brink of experiencing the dreaded ‘double dip’ recession, thanks in large part to the Tory government’s tax increases that will soon be exacerbated by even larger spending cuts.
Furthermore, the history of post recession austerity measures underscores the fallacy of trying to move quickly to balance a government’s books. In his first presidential election Franklin Roosevelt repeatedly called for a balanced federal budget so, following his re-election, President Roosevelt moved to balance the government’s budget in 1937. This lead to another economic recession in an economy that was still weak from the Great Depression and what actually ended up saving the US economy was the industrial growth caused by World War II.
But in my next column I’ll discuss some more prudent economic alternatives than another world war.
Published on April 1st 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
When Senate Republicans in last year’s Congress refused to allow a vote on President Obama’s 2011 federal government budget they essentially set the stage for the political theatrics currently on display in Washington DC. They were hoping that their party would gain control of the US House of Representatives in the mid-term elections and increase their leverage on President Obama. But despite their success in achieving this objective, at least three of those same Senate Republicans subsequently voted against the ridiculous spending bill their Republican colleagues in the House of Representatives sent them last month.
So given the fact that they can’t get the support of other Republicans in the Senate for their budget cutting proposals, what explains the irresponsible political behavior of House Republicans in continuing to push for spending cuts that have no hope of becoming law? I believe the political stew Republicans have been dining on the past two years is the culprit.
For starters, many Congressional Republicans have convinced themselves that the latest government budget fad diet called ‘German austerity’ is the answer for our national government’s ‘obesity’. Then to make it more palatable to Republicans who doubt the wisdom of this fad diet, Tea Party activists have liberally sprinkled it with their homegrown flavorings of fear that Republicans who don’t adhere to this diet will lose their seats in the next Congress. The final ingredient in this stew is the rather tasty prospect of even more power for Republicans in Congress if they succeed in beating Obama at the polls in 2012.
As a lifelong Republican and economic conservative, I can understand why so many Republicans think the German austerity diet sounds so appealing. But even though the idea of balancing our national government’s budget holds great emotional appeal for me, I believe the rationale for doing so must also be based on realistic economic principles; not emotions.
To that end, I will now discuss some of the fallacies that I believe underlie the myth that the German austerity diet is the best way to cure the economic ills which currently bedevil America as well as most of the world’s other more developed nations.
This myth had its roots in the economic recovery Germany experienced during the first half of last year. Commentators here in Europe and much of the rest of the world cited this as evidence that the more modest economic stimulus measures Germany had implemented in 2009 were the answer to the economic malaise that still gripped America and most other countries in Europe.
But ever since Germany’s growth slowed sharply in the second half of last year those same commentators have been noticeably silent. The cold hard economic facts are that once Germany’s modest economic stimulus measures had run their course, the German economy stagnated. As a result, Germany’s economic output is still well below the level it achieved before the 2008 financial meltdown and the onset of the 2009 global economic recession.
But the current economic situation in the UK, another country that adopted the German austerity diet, is even worse than that in Germany. The UK is actually now on the brink of experiencing the dreaded ‘double dip’ recession, thanks in large part to the Tory government’s tax increases that will soon be exacerbated by even larger spending cuts.
Furthermore, the history of post recession austerity measures underscores the fallacy of trying to move quickly to balance a government’s books. In his first presidential election Franklin Roosevelt repeatedly called for a balanced federal budget so, following his re-election, President Roosevelt moved to balance the government’s budget in 1937. This lead to another economic recession in an economy that was still weak from the Great Depression and what actually ended up saving the US economy was the industrial growth caused by World War II.
But in my next column I’ll discuss some more prudent economic alternatives than another world war.
The perils of divided government
The Bigger Picture
Published on March 15th 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Two weeks ago, America’s divided national government averted a federal government shutdown when Congressional Republicans and Democrats reached agreement on some relatively minor spending cuts to the President’s 2011 budget. But the reality of this compromise was that politicians in both parties simply agreed to kick the can down the road for two weeks, thus setting the stage for another confrontation at the end of this week.
Now if you think the notion of funding your national government two weeks at a time sounds rather ridiculous, you would be correct. It is ridiculous! However, given the decidedly poisonous political atmosphere that currently pervades our nation’s capitol, it wouldn’t really come as much of a surprise to see this bi-monthly political brinksmanship continue until the end of this spring. That’s because some Republicans in Congress, despite all of their tough talk about reining in government spending, are afraid of how voters might react if the government shuts down because the President refuses to go along with their spending cuts.
The Speaker of the House, John Boehner, is a veteran Republican lawmaker who remembers what happened the last time a newly elected Republican majority in Congress tried to cram its budget cuts down the throat of a Democratic President. In 1995, and at the behest of putative 2012 Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, Republicans refused to compromise with President Bill Clinton on the federal budget. This led to non-essential government workers being furloughed and the suspension of non-essential services from November 14 through November 19, 1995 and December 16, 1995 to January 6, 1996.
Like their present day Republican counterparts, the Gingrich Republicans had wrested control of Congress from the Democrats in the 1994 mid-term elections and were determined to force President Clinton to accept their cuts in government spending. The Gingrich led Congressional Republicans also initially avoided a government shutdown by agreeing to a series of continuing resolutions to fund the US Government’s spending, essentially kicking the can down the road just like present day Republicans are.
However, in order to continue operating the federal government when it is running a budget deficit, Congress also needs to periodically increase the cap or ceiling on the total amount of US Government debt that the US Treasury is authorized to issue. Gingrich believed that if he and his Republican colleagues refused to raise the US debt ceiling, President Clinton would then be forced to cave in to their demands for spending cuts.
But President Clinton proved himself to be an adept poker player by calling the Gingrich Republicans’ bluff of refusing to raise the debt ceiling, thus causing the federal government shut down. Republicans tried to blame President Clinton for the consequences, which included over 200,000 passport applications that were not processed, the closure of 368 national parks and a halt to the cleanup of toxic waste disposal sites around the country.
But despite 2012 Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s continuing claims to have won this standoff, most Republicans grudgingly acknowledge that President Clinton won this poker game because Republicans eventually ended the budget and debt ceiling stand off on Clinton’s terms rather than on their terms. As a consequence, voters also blamed Gingrich and Congressional Republicans for a pointless cessation of government services and re-elected President Clinton by a resounding margin in the subsequent 1996 national elections.
But the current Republican majority in Congress includes 87 newly elected members who have no memory of what happened to Republicans sixteen years ago and who have also promised their Tea Party supporters that they will not compromise with President Obama. So although the Tea Party types are currently willing to go along with their wiser Republican counterparts in kicking the can down the road to avoid a government shutdown, they are also girding for a confrontation in June when the federal debt ceiling will have to be raised. I’ll discuss their fallacious reasoning next week.
Published on March 15th 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Two weeks ago, America’s divided national government averted a federal government shutdown when Congressional Republicans and Democrats reached agreement on some relatively minor spending cuts to the President’s 2011 budget. But the reality of this compromise was that politicians in both parties simply agreed to kick the can down the road for two weeks, thus setting the stage for another confrontation at the end of this week.
Now if you think the notion of funding your national government two weeks at a time sounds rather ridiculous, you would be correct. It is ridiculous! However, given the decidedly poisonous political atmosphere that currently pervades our nation’s capitol, it wouldn’t really come as much of a surprise to see this bi-monthly political brinksmanship continue until the end of this spring. That’s because some Republicans in Congress, despite all of their tough talk about reining in government spending, are afraid of how voters might react if the government shuts down because the President refuses to go along with their spending cuts.
The Speaker of the House, John Boehner, is a veteran Republican lawmaker who remembers what happened the last time a newly elected Republican majority in Congress tried to cram its budget cuts down the throat of a Democratic President. In 1995, and at the behest of putative 2012 Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, Republicans refused to compromise with President Bill Clinton on the federal budget. This led to non-essential government workers being furloughed and the suspension of non-essential services from November 14 through November 19, 1995 and December 16, 1995 to January 6, 1996.
Like their present day Republican counterparts, the Gingrich Republicans had wrested control of Congress from the Democrats in the 1994 mid-term elections and were determined to force President Clinton to accept their cuts in government spending. The Gingrich led Congressional Republicans also initially avoided a government shutdown by agreeing to a series of continuing resolutions to fund the US Government’s spending, essentially kicking the can down the road just like present day Republicans are.
However, in order to continue operating the federal government when it is running a budget deficit, Congress also needs to periodically increase the cap or ceiling on the total amount of US Government debt that the US Treasury is authorized to issue. Gingrich believed that if he and his Republican colleagues refused to raise the US debt ceiling, President Clinton would then be forced to cave in to their demands for spending cuts.
But President Clinton proved himself to be an adept poker player by calling the Gingrich Republicans’ bluff of refusing to raise the debt ceiling, thus causing the federal government shut down. Republicans tried to blame President Clinton for the consequences, which included over 200,000 passport applications that were not processed, the closure of 368 national parks and a halt to the cleanup of toxic waste disposal sites around the country.
But despite 2012 Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s continuing claims to have won this standoff, most Republicans grudgingly acknowledge that President Clinton won this poker game because Republicans eventually ended the budget and debt ceiling stand off on Clinton’s terms rather than on their terms. As a consequence, voters also blamed Gingrich and Congressional Republicans for a pointless cessation of government services and re-elected President Clinton by a resounding margin in the subsequent 1996 national elections.
But the current Republican majority in Congress includes 87 newly elected members who have no memory of what happened to Republicans sixteen years ago and who have also promised their Tea Party supporters that they will not compromise with President Obama. So although the Tea Party types are currently willing to go along with their wiser Republican counterparts in kicking the can down the road to avoid a government shutdown, they are also girding for a confrontation in June when the federal debt ceiling will have to be raised. I’ll discuss their fallacious reasoning next week.
The 2011 State of the Union Address
The Bigger Picture
Published on March 1st 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Last week I closed my column by stating that even though President Obama offered Republicans in Congress another olive branch in his State of the Union address, I believe America is facing 2 years of political gridlock instead of the political compromises Obama acknowledges are required to address America’s budget deficit and unemployment problems.
During his State of the Union Address President Obama offered an olive branch saying, “Now is the time for both sides and both houses of Congress -- Democrats and Republicans -- to forge a principled compromise that gets the job done. If we make the hard choices now to rein in our deficits, we can make the investments we need to win the future.”
Unfortunately for America, the Republican majority that controls the US House of Representatives has demonstrated by their actions that they have no intention of striking any compromises. In the aftermath of the President’s request to “forge a principled compromise” Republicans responded with a clenched fist by voting to repeal the healthcare reform law. Since the repeal law had no chance of being approved by the Senate this was simply a slap in the President’s face as well as a brazen example of political grandstanding by Republicans.
Mind you, there are still some Republicans in Congress who are willing to try and work with the President to address our nation’s problems. Republicans in the Senate like Richard Lugar of Indiana, Olympia Snow of Maine and Orin Hatch of Utah. There are also some in the House of Representatives, but they dare not show their faces for fear of being challenged and defeated in their 2012 bids for re-election by Tea Party activists who will brook no compromise. Therein lies the problem; politicians who are afraid to compromise.
But as I have noted in previous columns, politics is all about the art of forging compromises. So what does it say about the state of politics in America if the legislative political leaders of one of the two main political parties are either unwilling or are too afraid to strike a compromise with their political opponents? This is a recipe for disaster known as ‘political gridlock’ and there are only two things that can loosen its grip on the US Congress; a national crisis like a foreign nation attacking America or another national election.
Since I don’t foresee such a national crisis happening anytime in the near future, it will therefore be up to America’s citizens to break up this political logjam with the votes they cast in the 2012 elections for the US Congress and for President. In other words, let the 2012 US national election campaign begin!
If you think twenty one months prior to Election Day is a tad early to begin a national election campaign, then you would be correct in this assessment. But this has become the reality of politics in America’s increasingly polarized political landscape. Truth be known, the Republicans’ battle plans for the next twenty one months were actually drawn up in the days immediately following the mid-term national elections.
Based on their November 2010 electoral successes, the Republican Congressional leaders’ political strategy was to compromise with the Democratic majority, in order to pass a few important pieces of legislation during in the lame duck session of Congress, and then revert back to being the ‘Party of No’ in January once they took the reins as the majority party in the US House of Representatives. Since most of the newly elected members of the Republican Congressional majority were members of the Tea Party movement, Republican leaders in Congress also knew compromise wasn’t in the cards for these legislators.
As a result, the 2011-2012 Congressional majority version of the ‘Party of No’ is only slightly different from its 2009-2010 minority predecessor. The minority version could vote against any and all of President Obama’s legislative proposals to address America’s economic and social woes secure in the knowledge that an economic disaster would still be averted because these proposals would eventually pass. The new Republican majority version will instead be content to pass bills like the one to repeal Obama’s healthcare reforms, but also secure in the knowledge the Senate will reject them.
Even though no reputable economists on either side of the political spectrum support this notion, Republicans in Congress continue to complain loudly that President Obama’s actions to rescue the American economy haven’t helped and have in fact made things worse. They disingenuously blame Obama’s economic rescue legislation for America’s high level of unemployment and ballooning budget deficit rather than the ruinous fiscal and regulatory policies of previous Republican presidential administrations and Congressional majorities.
So the Republican strategy while they control the House of Representatives for the next two years has now become crystal clear. It is to do precisely what President Obama asked them not to do in his State of the Union address when he pleaded; “Instead of re-fighting the battles of the last two years, let’s fix what needs fixing and move forward.”
The first Republican salvo in re-fighting past battles, was their bill to repeal Obama’ healthcare reform law. But even though America still remains evenly divided on this legislation, a healthy majority of those who are or were opposed to it also do not want to see it repealed, just amended. But Republicans aren’t interested in amending the healthcare law because they are afraid of the Tea Party movement that has taken over their party.
Historically, Americans have taken a liking to divided government because they believe it forces politicians on both sides to move to compromise. Obama also alluded to this in his speech when he said, “We will move forward together, or not at all, because the challenges we face are bigger than party, and bigger than politics.” Unfortunately, Republicans believe the way to win the 2012 elections is by putting their party and politics ahead of moving forward to address America’s problems. But they do so at our nation’s peril.
Published on March 1st 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Last week I closed my column by stating that even though President Obama offered Republicans in Congress another olive branch in his State of the Union address, I believe America is facing 2 years of political gridlock instead of the political compromises Obama acknowledges are required to address America’s budget deficit and unemployment problems.
During his State of the Union Address President Obama offered an olive branch saying, “Now is the time for both sides and both houses of Congress -- Democrats and Republicans -- to forge a principled compromise that gets the job done. If we make the hard choices now to rein in our deficits, we can make the investments we need to win the future.”
Unfortunately for America, the Republican majority that controls the US House of Representatives has demonstrated by their actions that they have no intention of striking any compromises. In the aftermath of the President’s request to “forge a principled compromise” Republicans responded with a clenched fist by voting to repeal the healthcare reform law. Since the repeal law had no chance of being approved by the Senate this was simply a slap in the President’s face as well as a brazen example of political grandstanding by Republicans.
Mind you, there are still some Republicans in Congress who are willing to try and work with the President to address our nation’s problems. Republicans in the Senate like Richard Lugar of Indiana, Olympia Snow of Maine and Orin Hatch of Utah. There are also some in the House of Representatives, but they dare not show their faces for fear of being challenged and defeated in their 2012 bids for re-election by Tea Party activists who will brook no compromise. Therein lies the problem; politicians who are afraid to compromise.
But as I have noted in previous columns, politics is all about the art of forging compromises. So what does it say about the state of politics in America if the legislative political leaders of one of the two main political parties are either unwilling or are too afraid to strike a compromise with their political opponents? This is a recipe for disaster known as ‘political gridlock’ and there are only two things that can loosen its grip on the US Congress; a national crisis like a foreign nation attacking America or another national election.
Since I don’t foresee such a national crisis happening anytime in the near future, it will therefore be up to America’s citizens to break up this political logjam with the votes they cast in the 2012 elections for the US Congress and for President. In other words, let the 2012 US national election campaign begin!
If you think twenty one months prior to Election Day is a tad early to begin a national election campaign, then you would be correct in this assessment. But this has become the reality of politics in America’s increasingly polarized political landscape. Truth be known, the Republicans’ battle plans for the next twenty one months were actually drawn up in the days immediately following the mid-term national elections.
Based on their November 2010 electoral successes, the Republican Congressional leaders’ political strategy was to compromise with the Democratic majority, in order to pass a few important pieces of legislation during in the lame duck session of Congress, and then revert back to being the ‘Party of No’ in January once they took the reins as the majority party in the US House of Representatives. Since most of the newly elected members of the Republican Congressional majority were members of the Tea Party movement, Republican leaders in Congress also knew compromise wasn’t in the cards for these legislators.
As a result, the 2011-2012 Congressional majority version of the ‘Party of No’ is only slightly different from its 2009-2010 minority predecessor. The minority version could vote against any and all of President Obama’s legislative proposals to address America’s economic and social woes secure in the knowledge that an economic disaster would still be averted because these proposals would eventually pass. The new Republican majority version will instead be content to pass bills like the one to repeal Obama’s healthcare reforms, but also secure in the knowledge the Senate will reject them.
Even though no reputable economists on either side of the political spectrum support this notion, Republicans in Congress continue to complain loudly that President Obama’s actions to rescue the American economy haven’t helped and have in fact made things worse. They disingenuously blame Obama’s economic rescue legislation for America’s high level of unemployment and ballooning budget deficit rather than the ruinous fiscal and regulatory policies of previous Republican presidential administrations and Congressional majorities.
So the Republican strategy while they control the House of Representatives for the next two years has now become crystal clear. It is to do precisely what President Obama asked them not to do in his State of the Union address when he pleaded; “Instead of re-fighting the battles of the last two years, let’s fix what needs fixing and move forward.”
The first Republican salvo in re-fighting past battles, was their bill to repeal Obama’ healthcare reform law. But even though America still remains evenly divided on this legislation, a healthy majority of those who are or were opposed to it also do not want to see it repealed, just amended. But Republicans aren’t interested in amending the healthcare law because they are afraid of the Tea Party movement that has taken over their party.
Historically, Americans have taken a liking to divided government because they believe it forces politicians on both sides to move to compromise. Obama also alluded to this in his speech when he said, “We will move forward together, or not at all, because the challenges we face are bigger than party, and bigger than politics.” Unfortunately, Republicans believe the way to win the 2012 elections is by putting their party and politics ahead of moving forward to address America’s problems. But they do so at our nation’s peril.
Reflections on President Obama's 1st 2 years
The Bigger Picture
Published on February 15th 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Before I discuss my impressions regarding President Obama’s most recent 2011 State of the Union address, I think it would be instructive to reflect on the President’s performance during his first 2 years in office. I hope that by doing so my opinions, about both the tone and content of the President’s speech to Congress and America’s citizens; will be placed in their proper context.
It is important to note that when President Obama initially took office on January 20th 2009, America was in the throes of its worst economic crisis since the 1930’s Great Depression. Home prices were plunging and mortgage foreclosures rising in conjunction with deep cuts in consumer and business spending and ballooning unemployment rolls. Furthermore, President Obama had also inherited two foreign wars which the previous President and his Republican colleagues in Congress had chosen to finance with ever increasing amounts of deficit spending.
America was also grappling healthcare costs that were increasing rapidly, leaving some small businesses and middle class Americans unable to continue to fund their private healthcare insurance plans at a time when many Americans were also losing their jobs. Those ever increasing US medical bills were also driving up the costs of providing medical care for retired Americans, but instead of addressing this issue, the supposedly fiscally responsible Republicans simply added more fuel to the exploding federal budget deficit by providing a politically popular Medicare prescription drug benefit to retirees that was financed by still more deficit spending.
So Obama began his Presidency confronting a deepening economic recession with the added burden of a ballooning federal budget deficit that was exacerbated by years of Republican economic mismanagement. But most Congressional Republicans, still smarting from the shellacking they had taken in the 2008 General Election, were in no mood to try to work with President Obama to address America’s economic malaise, preferring instead to oppose whatever legislation President Obama and the Democratic Congress proposed to address the problem.
Fortunately for America and the nation’s economy, a few Congressional Republicans decided to put the needs of their country ahead of their political party’s agenda and decided to support the President’s bank bailout and economic stimulus measures, including an extension of unemployment benefits for the millions of Americans who had lost their jobs early on in the recession. Ironically for me as a lifelong Republican, the majority of the Republicans who opposed these economic measures justified their opposition by claiming President Obama’s economic stimulus would worsen America’s gaping federal budget deficit. As such, their opposition was also a very glaring example of ‘the kettle calling the pot black.’
While we will never know if the contentions of these Republicans that Obama’s economic stimulus measures did more harm than good to America’s economy, the vast majority of economists, regardless of their political party affiliations, shudder to think what would have happened in America and in the global economy had Republicans succeeded in blocking President Obama and Congressional Democrats economic stimulus measures. Suffice to say that most economists believe that if they had, America would still be mired in an economic recession.
Aside from his success in avoiding a more serious economic downturn than the one America has already experienced, President Obama’s other most notable accomplishment during his first two years in office was the landmark healthcare legislation he and Congressional Democrats succeeded in passing. While this was the right thing to do for the millions of lower and middle income Americans who couldn’t afford private healthcare insurance, it also probably wasn’t the most politically savvy issue for President Obama to take up while America was still in the throes of a serious economic recession. Many Americans were obviously more concerned about fixing the economy than providing healthcare to those who couldn’t afford it.
On the other hand, throughout its’ political history, the United States Congress has only passed landmark social legislation, such as Social Security, Medicare and the Civil Rights Law, when one political party has a substantial representation advantage over its political opponents. Given the fact that the Democrats in Congress only had this type of political advantage during President Obama’s initial two years as President, it might have taken another generation to muster the political support required to address this problem. I could be wrong, but I believe the President was correct in dealing with the healthcare problem while the window to do so existed.
But the President and some of his Democratic allies in Congress subsequently paid a heavy political price in the 2010 midterm elections for doing the right thing for their country. Democrats not only lost control of the US House of Representatives, but they also lost the numerical advantage they needed in the US Senate to thwart Republican opposition to President Obama’s legislative agenda in the next two years of his first term as President. Be that as it may, the President and his Democratic allies in Congress were still able to use their remaining days in power to pass additional legislation prior to the Republican takeover of the US House in 2011.
However many Democrats in Congress were upset with President Obama over his willingness to compromise with Republicans and agree to a 2 year extension of all of the Bush era tax cuts, including those that applied to the wealthiest Americans. Rather than confronting Republicans over a tax increase for wealthy Americans, President Obama wisely decided to postpone the battle over the tax increase until after the 2012 elections. But by doing so President Obama was able to provide additional stimulus to the American economy and also win enough Republican support to get Senate approval of the nuclear arms reduction START treaty, a 13 month extension of unemployment benefits and the repeal of America’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ ban of out of the closet homosexuals serving in the US armed forces.
Hoping to achieve additional compromises in 2011, Obama offered Republicans another olive branch in his State of the Union address. I’ll discuss their response next week.
Published on February 15th 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Before I discuss my impressions regarding President Obama’s most recent 2011 State of the Union address, I think it would be instructive to reflect on the President’s performance during his first 2 years in office. I hope that by doing so my opinions, about both the tone and content of the President’s speech to Congress and America’s citizens; will be placed in their proper context.
It is important to note that when President Obama initially took office on January 20th 2009, America was in the throes of its worst economic crisis since the 1930’s Great Depression. Home prices were plunging and mortgage foreclosures rising in conjunction with deep cuts in consumer and business spending and ballooning unemployment rolls. Furthermore, President Obama had also inherited two foreign wars which the previous President and his Republican colleagues in Congress had chosen to finance with ever increasing amounts of deficit spending.
America was also grappling healthcare costs that were increasing rapidly, leaving some small businesses and middle class Americans unable to continue to fund their private healthcare insurance plans at a time when many Americans were also losing their jobs. Those ever increasing US medical bills were also driving up the costs of providing medical care for retired Americans, but instead of addressing this issue, the supposedly fiscally responsible Republicans simply added more fuel to the exploding federal budget deficit by providing a politically popular Medicare prescription drug benefit to retirees that was financed by still more deficit spending.
So Obama began his Presidency confronting a deepening economic recession with the added burden of a ballooning federal budget deficit that was exacerbated by years of Republican economic mismanagement. But most Congressional Republicans, still smarting from the shellacking they had taken in the 2008 General Election, were in no mood to try to work with President Obama to address America’s economic malaise, preferring instead to oppose whatever legislation President Obama and the Democratic Congress proposed to address the problem.
Fortunately for America and the nation’s economy, a few Congressional Republicans decided to put the needs of their country ahead of their political party’s agenda and decided to support the President’s bank bailout and economic stimulus measures, including an extension of unemployment benefits for the millions of Americans who had lost their jobs early on in the recession. Ironically for me as a lifelong Republican, the majority of the Republicans who opposed these economic measures justified their opposition by claiming President Obama’s economic stimulus would worsen America’s gaping federal budget deficit. As such, their opposition was also a very glaring example of ‘the kettle calling the pot black.’
While we will never know if the contentions of these Republicans that Obama’s economic stimulus measures did more harm than good to America’s economy, the vast majority of economists, regardless of their political party affiliations, shudder to think what would have happened in America and in the global economy had Republicans succeeded in blocking President Obama and Congressional Democrats economic stimulus measures. Suffice to say that most economists believe that if they had, America would still be mired in an economic recession.
Aside from his success in avoiding a more serious economic downturn than the one America has already experienced, President Obama’s other most notable accomplishment during his first two years in office was the landmark healthcare legislation he and Congressional Democrats succeeded in passing. While this was the right thing to do for the millions of lower and middle income Americans who couldn’t afford private healthcare insurance, it also probably wasn’t the most politically savvy issue for President Obama to take up while America was still in the throes of a serious economic recession. Many Americans were obviously more concerned about fixing the economy than providing healthcare to those who couldn’t afford it.
On the other hand, throughout its’ political history, the United States Congress has only passed landmark social legislation, such as Social Security, Medicare and the Civil Rights Law, when one political party has a substantial representation advantage over its political opponents. Given the fact that the Democrats in Congress only had this type of political advantage during President Obama’s initial two years as President, it might have taken another generation to muster the political support required to address this problem. I could be wrong, but I believe the President was correct in dealing with the healthcare problem while the window to do so existed.
But the President and some of his Democratic allies in Congress subsequently paid a heavy political price in the 2010 midterm elections for doing the right thing for their country. Democrats not only lost control of the US House of Representatives, but they also lost the numerical advantage they needed in the US Senate to thwart Republican opposition to President Obama’s legislative agenda in the next two years of his first term as President. Be that as it may, the President and his Democratic allies in Congress were still able to use their remaining days in power to pass additional legislation prior to the Republican takeover of the US House in 2011.
However many Democrats in Congress were upset with President Obama over his willingness to compromise with Republicans and agree to a 2 year extension of all of the Bush era tax cuts, including those that applied to the wealthiest Americans. Rather than confronting Republicans over a tax increase for wealthy Americans, President Obama wisely decided to postpone the battle over the tax increase until after the 2012 elections. But by doing so President Obama was able to provide additional stimulus to the American economy and also win enough Republican support to get Senate approval of the nuclear arms reduction START treaty, a 13 month extension of unemployment benefits and the repeal of America’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ ban of out of the closet homosexuals serving in the US armed forces.
Hoping to achieve additional compromises in 2011, Obama offered Republicans another olive branch in his State of the Union address. I’ll discuss their response next week.
Say hello to political gridlock
The Bigger Picture
Published on February 1st 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Last week the 112th session of the United States Congress began with more than 60 new Republican members and a new Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, wielding the gavel at the proceedings. What will be even more interesting to me though, is watching how animated the new Speaker’s responses are while he listens to President Obama’s nationally televised 2011 State of the Union address to Congress next week.
Will Boehner be wearing his usual sour face while the President is talking? Will we see him squirming in his seat when the President says something he disagrees with? Will he applaud the President or sit on his hands during the president’s speech? I honestly don’t know how Boehner will react, but what I do know is Boehner will be to the President’s left and behind him for the first time in his political career, a deliciously ironic metaphor and visual juxtaposition.
I could be wrong, and for the sake of my country I truly hope I am, but I really don’t expect the 112th session of Congress will accomplish anything of note. That is of course unless one considers legislative gridlock to be an accomplishment. On the other hand gridlock is precisely the outcome the demagogues of radio and TV, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are hoping for because it will give them and their Tea Party minions more to complain about.
The Republican Party and its leaders in the US House of Representatives, Speaker John Boehner, Eric Cantor and my own Representative, Jeb Hensarling, could conceivably use their legislative majority to address the federal budget deficit. They could start by taking a stand for free trade and eliminating the $20 billion in agricultural subsidies the federal government provides large ‘corporate’ farms each year. Fellow Republican Paul Ryan of Wisconsin has also suggested raising the retirement age and reforming Medicare as the most prudent way to reign in America’s soaring entitlement costs, which are the largest contributors to the budget deficit.
House Republicans could also work on simplifying America’s tax code, by lowering tax rates and eliminating a heretofore ‘sacred cow’, the home mortgage interest deduction. They could also help business owners and their investors by replacing the corporate income tax with a more appropriate and easier to enforce business consumption tax. Furthermore, President Obama and a number of Democrats in Congress have already expressed a willingness to work with Republicans to implement a number of the proposed reforms I have just mentioned.
However, unfortunately for our country, Republican leaders don’t appear to share the President and Congressional Democrats willingness to negotiate on these or any other issues. A case in point is the Bush era income tax cuts which were scheduled to expire this year. Despite the fact that politicians on both sides of the aisle agree that the tax cuts for middle class tax payers should be made permanent, Republicans insisted that the tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 % of Americans be made permanent too even though this increases the budget deficit.
Given Republicans; intransigence, President Obama instead agreed to a 2 year extension of all the Bush tax cuts in return for 13 months of unemployment benefits. But President Obama also questioned Republican’s commitment to reducing the budget deficit noting; “At a time when we are going to ask folks across the board to make such difficult sacrifices, I don't see how we can afford to borrow an additional $700 billion from other countries to make all the Bush tax cuts permanent, even for the wealthiest 2% of Americans.”
But Republican leader Eric Cantor’s response to President Obama reveals that the Republican perspective on compromise is a one way street saying; “I really want to see that we can come together and agree upon the notion that Washington doesn't need more revenues right now. And to sit here and say we're just going to go about halfway, or we're going to send a signal that it's going to be uncertain for job creators and investors to put capital to work, that's exactly what we don't need right now.” In other words, Cantor’s position on the tax cut compromise was that Democrats and President Obama had to agree to all of the Republicans’ demands. Hmm..That sounds like quite a compromise!
Mind you, I understand that in an ideal world political leaders wouldn’t need to negotiate or compromise with their political opponents. Indeed military dictators and the autocrats in control of single party states have the luxury of being able to do just that. But political leaders in a democracy can only get away with this if they enjoy an overwhelming majority in their nation’s legislature or parliament. Republicans are in control of the House of Representatives, but their opponents control the Senate and the Presidency, far from an overwhelming majority.
Sadly for America, the Republicans’ opposition to compromise on extending the tax cuts to include America’s wealthiest citizens is a harbinger of what their positions will most likely be on other issues of national importance like reducing the budget deficit. It also lends support to the contentions of many Democrats, independents and even some Republicans such as yours truly, that tackling America’s problems is not the top priority of Congressional Republicans or many other Republican leaders around the country.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has already noted what Republican’s priority is when, in the wake of his party’s midterm election victories, he told members of the news media that Republicans' top priority going forward should be ensuring that President Obama is not reelected in 2012.
I still expect President Obama to proffer an olive branch to Congressional Republicans during the course of his State of the Union Address. But given the ‘it’s our way or no way’ attitude expressed by Republican politicians, I expect the President’s open palm to be met with a clinched fist. So say hello to political gridlock and goodbye to solutions for America’s problems for the next two years.
Published on February 1st 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Last week the 112th session of the United States Congress began with more than 60 new Republican members and a new Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, wielding the gavel at the proceedings. What will be even more interesting to me though, is watching how animated the new Speaker’s responses are while he listens to President Obama’s nationally televised 2011 State of the Union address to Congress next week.
Will Boehner be wearing his usual sour face while the President is talking? Will we see him squirming in his seat when the President says something he disagrees with? Will he applaud the President or sit on his hands during the president’s speech? I honestly don’t know how Boehner will react, but what I do know is Boehner will be to the President’s left and behind him for the first time in his political career, a deliciously ironic metaphor and visual juxtaposition.
I could be wrong, and for the sake of my country I truly hope I am, but I really don’t expect the 112th session of Congress will accomplish anything of note. That is of course unless one considers legislative gridlock to be an accomplishment. On the other hand gridlock is precisely the outcome the demagogues of radio and TV, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are hoping for because it will give them and their Tea Party minions more to complain about.
The Republican Party and its leaders in the US House of Representatives, Speaker John Boehner, Eric Cantor and my own Representative, Jeb Hensarling, could conceivably use their legislative majority to address the federal budget deficit. They could start by taking a stand for free trade and eliminating the $20 billion in agricultural subsidies the federal government provides large ‘corporate’ farms each year. Fellow Republican Paul Ryan of Wisconsin has also suggested raising the retirement age and reforming Medicare as the most prudent way to reign in America’s soaring entitlement costs, which are the largest contributors to the budget deficit.
House Republicans could also work on simplifying America’s tax code, by lowering tax rates and eliminating a heretofore ‘sacred cow’, the home mortgage interest deduction. They could also help business owners and their investors by replacing the corporate income tax with a more appropriate and easier to enforce business consumption tax. Furthermore, President Obama and a number of Democrats in Congress have already expressed a willingness to work with Republicans to implement a number of the proposed reforms I have just mentioned.
However, unfortunately for our country, Republican leaders don’t appear to share the President and Congressional Democrats willingness to negotiate on these or any other issues. A case in point is the Bush era income tax cuts which were scheduled to expire this year. Despite the fact that politicians on both sides of the aisle agree that the tax cuts for middle class tax payers should be made permanent, Republicans insisted that the tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 % of Americans be made permanent too even though this increases the budget deficit.
Given Republicans; intransigence, President Obama instead agreed to a 2 year extension of all the Bush tax cuts in return for 13 months of unemployment benefits. But President Obama also questioned Republican’s commitment to reducing the budget deficit noting; “At a time when we are going to ask folks across the board to make such difficult sacrifices, I don't see how we can afford to borrow an additional $700 billion from other countries to make all the Bush tax cuts permanent, even for the wealthiest 2% of Americans.”
But Republican leader Eric Cantor’s response to President Obama reveals that the Republican perspective on compromise is a one way street saying; “I really want to see that we can come together and agree upon the notion that Washington doesn't need more revenues right now. And to sit here and say we're just going to go about halfway, or we're going to send a signal that it's going to be uncertain for job creators and investors to put capital to work, that's exactly what we don't need right now.” In other words, Cantor’s position on the tax cut compromise was that Democrats and President Obama had to agree to all of the Republicans’ demands. Hmm..That sounds like quite a compromise!
Mind you, I understand that in an ideal world political leaders wouldn’t need to negotiate or compromise with their political opponents. Indeed military dictators and the autocrats in control of single party states have the luxury of being able to do just that. But political leaders in a democracy can only get away with this if they enjoy an overwhelming majority in their nation’s legislature or parliament. Republicans are in control of the House of Representatives, but their opponents control the Senate and the Presidency, far from an overwhelming majority.
Sadly for America, the Republicans’ opposition to compromise on extending the tax cuts to include America’s wealthiest citizens is a harbinger of what their positions will most likely be on other issues of national importance like reducing the budget deficit. It also lends support to the contentions of many Democrats, independents and even some Republicans such as yours truly, that tackling America’s problems is not the top priority of Congressional Republicans or many other Republican leaders around the country.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has already noted what Republican’s priority is when, in the wake of his party’s midterm election victories, he told members of the news media that Republicans' top priority going forward should be ensuring that President Obama is not reelected in 2012.
I still expect President Obama to proffer an olive branch to Congressional Republicans during the course of his State of the Union Address. But given the ‘it’s our way or no way’ attitude expressed by Republican politicians, I expect the President’s open palm to be met with a clinched fist. So say hello to political gridlock and goodbye to solutions for America’s problems for the next two years.
Flaws in Tea Party members' thinking
The Bigger Picture
Published on January 15th 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
The New Year is supposed to usher in hope that the worst of the economic troubles that have battered America, Ireland and many other countries in Europe are behind us. But in my discussions with friends who are ‘independent’ voters, they repeatedly expressed the hope that President Obama would really try to work with the Republicans in Congress to address unemployment and the budget deficit during this New Year.
So what I believe American citizens need more than anything else as we enter the second decade of the 21st century; is political ‘leadership’. In America, the Democratic Party has a political leader, President Obama, but the Republican Party doesn’t. What the Republican Party does have is a lot of ‘pretenders’ and ‘contenders’ for the Republican nomination for President in the 2012 elections.
The list is as long as my arm and includes; old hands like Haley Barbour, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney; some less familiar ones like Mitch Daniels, Bobby Jindal, Tom Pawlenty and John Thune; and some new ones like Scott Brown, Chris Christie and the newest Tea Party favourites; Marco Rubio and Rand Paul. Finally there is also the ‘Ghost of Elections Past’ aka former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, whose apparition floats above the party like an angry dark storm cloud. But at some point in the next year and a half, one of these people is likely to emerge as the new political leader of the Republican Party carrying the 2012 Presidential sobriquet.
In the meantime, by embracing the Tea Party movement, Republican politicians in Washington have elected to continue to follow another leaderless group, which in turn embraces the rhetoric of demagogues like Beck, Limbaugh and Palin. These demagogues talk a lot about politics and what is wrong with Obama, the Democrats in Congress and the federal government but what they do not discuss are any real ideas for how to address these problems. They rarely make any references to George Bush, preferring to wax nostalgically about how great a President Ronald Reagan was. What they don’t talk about however, is the fact that although President Reagan used populist rhetoric to get elected, he governed with the ideas of intellectuals like Milton Friedman and George Gilder.
Instead of discussing how Republicans can use their political power to apply conservative ideas to our problems, the demagogic leaders of the Tea party movement use their populist rhetoric to inflame their followers’ emotions and play on their fears in an attempt to neutralize political power instead of using it for the greater public good.
The problem with democracy is that it is very messy. You have to muddle around and make compromises with others who share different and in some cases polar opposite beliefs. Dictators don't have to worry about the beliefs of other citizens much less making compromises with those who don't agree with them. But effective democratic politics is all about the art of making compromises with one's opponents. At the present time though, the Republicans who hew to the Tea Party line cannot or will not make compromises. Compromise is against their 'principles'. Therefore, one cannot help but assume that Tea Partiers would actually prefer a dictatorship to democracy, provided the dictator is someone who shares their beliefs.
Members of the Tea Party worship at the altar of the US Constitution and deify America’s founding fathers such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. But when historical documents become sacred scriptures and the authors of those documents are then worshipped like Gods, Truth becomes the victim.
The Tea Party’s followers revel in reading the US Constitution at their meetings, reverently treating the words as the received knowledge. They would have others believe that they not only understand what the words mean, but that they also understand what the authors intentions were. But their interpretation is actually a false mythology that they have created precisely because they don’t understand why the authors developed the US Constitution.
They believe the founding fathers wrote the US Constitution to protect the rights of states from the 'tyranny of a strong national government'. But the historical record paints an entirely different picture. I happen to agree with the Tea Partiers that America’s founding fathers were ahead of their time as political intellectuals. But they were also the wealthy ‘American elites’ of their day and the Constitution of 1787 was designed to strengthen the federal government and weaken the powers accorded to states by the 1777 Articles of Confederation. If their motivation was to protect the rights of states as the Tea Partiers apparently believe, then they never would have written a new constitution and instead just left the Articles of Confederation in place.
But the founding fathers were motivated to develop this new Constitution in part by their fears of the 'tyranny of the democratic majority' that would trample the rights of democratic minorities. They were also worried that without a new Constitution to restrict their powers, some states might actually allow women and slaves the right to vote and even to own property.
So despite what they and their demagogues like Glenn Beck say, Tea Partiers aren’t fighting to take back their government, because they have no real ideas about how they might go about making it better. They are simply a libertarian mob that only wants their political leaders to protect their God given right to do whatever they please. But the authors of the Constitution were ahead of their time as political intellectuals, in that they saw the Tea Party movement coming more than 200 years ago and took steps to prevent it and similar movements from dictating how American citizens would be governed.
Ironically, the Tea Party movement celebrates the work of America's 18th century intellectual elites while they simultaneously condemn America's 21st century intellectual elites. What members of the Tea Party movement don’t realize is they’re actually celebrating a constitution designed to prevent them from ever gaining control over America's government.
Published on January 15th 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
The New Year is supposed to usher in hope that the worst of the economic troubles that have battered America, Ireland and many other countries in Europe are behind us. But in my discussions with friends who are ‘independent’ voters, they repeatedly expressed the hope that President Obama would really try to work with the Republicans in Congress to address unemployment and the budget deficit during this New Year.
So what I believe American citizens need more than anything else as we enter the second decade of the 21st century; is political ‘leadership’. In America, the Democratic Party has a political leader, President Obama, but the Republican Party doesn’t. What the Republican Party does have is a lot of ‘pretenders’ and ‘contenders’ for the Republican nomination for President in the 2012 elections.
The list is as long as my arm and includes; old hands like Haley Barbour, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney; some less familiar ones like Mitch Daniels, Bobby Jindal, Tom Pawlenty and John Thune; and some new ones like Scott Brown, Chris Christie and the newest Tea Party favourites; Marco Rubio and Rand Paul. Finally there is also the ‘Ghost of Elections Past’ aka former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, whose apparition floats above the party like an angry dark storm cloud. But at some point in the next year and a half, one of these people is likely to emerge as the new political leader of the Republican Party carrying the 2012 Presidential sobriquet.
In the meantime, by embracing the Tea Party movement, Republican politicians in Washington have elected to continue to follow another leaderless group, which in turn embraces the rhetoric of demagogues like Beck, Limbaugh and Palin. These demagogues talk a lot about politics and what is wrong with Obama, the Democrats in Congress and the federal government but what they do not discuss are any real ideas for how to address these problems. They rarely make any references to George Bush, preferring to wax nostalgically about how great a President Ronald Reagan was. What they don’t talk about however, is the fact that although President Reagan used populist rhetoric to get elected, he governed with the ideas of intellectuals like Milton Friedman and George Gilder.
Instead of discussing how Republicans can use their political power to apply conservative ideas to our problems, the demagogic leaders of the Tea party movement use their populist rhetoric to inflame their followers’ emotions and play on their fears in an attempt to neutralize political power instead of using it for the greater public good.
The problem with democracy is that it is very messy. You have to muddle around and make compromises with others who share different and in some cases polar opposite beliefs. Dictators don't have to worry about the beliefs of other citizens much less making compromises with those who don't agree with them. But effective democratic politics is all about the art of making compromises with one's opponents. At the present time though, the Republicans who hew to the Tea Party line cannot or will not make compromises. Compromise is against their 'principles'. Therefore, one cannot help but assume that Tea Partiers would actually prefer a dictatorship to democracy, provided the dictator is someone who shares their beliefs.
Members of the Tea Party worship at the altar of the US Constitution and deify America’s founding fathers such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. But when historical documents become sacred scriptures and the authors of those documents are then worshipped like Gods, Truth becomes the victim.
The Tea Party’s followers revel in reading the US Constitution at their meetings, reverently treating the words as the received knowledge. They would have others believe that they not only understand what the words mean, but that they also understand what the authors intentions were. But their interpretation is actually a false mythology that they have created precisely because they don’t understand why the authors developed the US Constitution.
They believe the founding fathers wrote the US Constitution to protect the rights of states from the 'tyranny of a strong national government'. But the historical record paints an entirely different picture. I happen to agree with the Tea Partiers that America’s founding fathers were ahead of their time as political intellectuals. But they were also the wealthy ‘American elites’ of their day and the Constitution of 1787 was designed to strengthen the federal government and weaken the powers accorded to states by the 1777 Articles of Confederation. If their motivation was to protect the rights of states as the Tea Partiers apparently believe, then they never would have written a new constitution and instead just left the Articles of Confederation in place.
But the founding fathers were motivated to develop this new Constitution in part by their fears of the 'tyranny of the democratic majority' that would trample the rights of democratic minorities. They were also worried that without a new Constitution to restrict their powers, some states might actually allow women and slaves the right to vote and even to own property.
So despite what they and their demagogues like Glenn Beck say, Tea Partiers aren’t fighting to take back their government, because they have no real ideas about how they might go about making it better. They are simply a libertarian mob that only wants their political leaders to protect their God given right to do whatever they please. But the authors of the Constitution were ahead of their time as political intellectuals, in that they saw the Tea Party movement coming more than 200 years ago and took steps to prevent it and similar movements from dictating how American citizens would be governed.
Ironically, the Tea Party movement celebrates the work of America's 18th century intellectual elites while they simultaneously condemn America's 21st century intellectual elites. What members of the Tea Party movement don’t realize is they’re actually celebrating a constitution designed to prevent them from ever gaining control over America's government.
No more Republican compromises?
The Bigger Picture
Published on December 15th 2010 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
The lesson Republicans need to take away from their resounding midterm election victory over Congressional Democrats is that the independent voters, who swung the election in their favour, expect them to work with the President and Democrats to address America’s fiscal and economic problems. But Republican political leaders also tightly embraced the Tea Party movement in the process of winning those midterm elections; thus leaving themselves with very little room to maneuver in striking compromises with the President and Democrats in Congress.
In other words, what the Tea Party has given; the Tea Party can also take away! So I believe over the course of the next two years, Republicans in Congress are going to find it extremely difficult if not impossible to work with President Obama and the Democratic majority in the Senate, precisely because ‘compromise’ is a dirty 10 letter word for members of the Tea Party movement. Members of the Tea Party movement believe that compromise is a sign of weakness and the demagogues who lead them have so thoroughly vilified President Obama and the Democrats, that compromise will be viewed as tantamount to ‘making a deal with the devil.’
But the reality of politics in a true democracy is that it is all about the art of compromise. Dictators and governments in single party states don’t have to concern themselves with making compromises because those who oppose them not only don’t have a voice in the decisions they make, they also don’t have the legal right to challenge or reverse government policies. Democracies on the other hand are somewhat messier when it comes to policy making. Because their legislatures are designed to represent the conflicting views of many different segments of their societies, the ruling party usually lacks the votes to pass their proposals intact.
This is especially true in the United States where laws can be approved by a simple majority vote in the US House of Representatives, but then must also be approved by a larger 3/5ths majority vote in the US Senate. If the proposed new laws can surmount these hurdles then they must also win the approval of the US President before they can be implemented. But if the US President decides to veto a new law, it must then go back to the House of Represenatitives and be approved by at least a 2/3rds majority vote instead of a simple majority vote before it can become the ‘law of the land.’ The requirements for a ‘super majority’ of votes in the Senate to get a bill to the President for his approval, and an even larger ‘super majority’ of votes in the House if the President doesn’t like a law, is one of the unique features of American democracy.
While there have been times during America’s history when either the Democratic or Republican Party controlled both the House and the Senate as well as the Presidency, this kind of political dominance by a single political party has become increasingly rare during the last fifty years. But another complication is that unlike most other democracies, elected politicians in America are more attuned to the interests of their local voters and the special interest groups that fund their political campaigns, than they are to the dictates of their respective political parties.
Herein lies the another unique feature of American democratic politics; voters in each state and Congressional district decide who will stand for election as their Republican or Democratic Party candidate, not the national, state and local party leaders. Furthermore, in many states Democratic and or Republican primaries are not even restricted to party members, but are open to all voters, be they Republicans, Democrats or Independents. Therefore, believe it or not, in some states Republicans can actually vote for the Democratic Party candidate and vice versa
So given the fact that political candidates must also fund their campaigns to win their party’s nomination without any money from the party itself, and if they succeed then provide the majority of the funds they need to win the general election, is it any wonder that they are more loyal to their local constituencies than they are to their national political party? Truth be known, the only real leverage the Republican and Democratic parties have on their candidates is deciding how much or little additional funding to give them for the general election, and if they get elected, the only remaining leverage they have is deciding the congressional committees to put them on.
The inevitable consequence of weak party loyalty in America is difficulty keeping your elected party members in line when crucial votes are needed to pass legislation. As a result, the art of compromise usually begins with negotiations between members of the same political party. After this process has played out, the party leaders then try to negotiate with members of the opposing party that they believe can be persuaded to join them in passing this legislation. While members of the Tea Party movement disapprove of the ‘back room deals’ that are made during these negotiations, they are an integral and important part of democratic political governance.
Lacking any true national leader following John McCain’s defeat in the 2008 Presidential elections, the Republican Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, and Republican House minority leader, John Boehner, became the Republican Party’s de facto leaders in Washington DC. Given the continuing economic malaise in America, party leaders correctly calculated that the remaining Republican Party members in Congress had more to gain by locking arms and opposing everything President Obama and the Democrats proposed to address America’s domestic problems.
They succeeded in preventing Democrats from passing additional legislation designed to stimulate the economy and reduce joblessness, but also avoided being blamed for their role in slowing America’s economic recovery. So given the short term success of this strategy and the Tea Party movement’s opposition to compromise, I just don’t see any compelling reason for Republicans to compromise with Obama between now and the 2012 Presidential election.
Published on December 15th 2010 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
The lesson Republicans need to take away from their resounding midterm election victory over Congressional Democrats is that the independent voters, who swung the election in their favour, expect them to work with the President and Democrats to address America’s fiscal and economic problems. But Republican political leaders also tightly embraced the Tea Party movement in the process of winning those midterm elections; thus leaving themselves with very little room to maneuver in striking compromises with the President and Democrats in Congress.
In other words, what the Tea Party has given; the Tea Party can also take away! So I believe over the course of the next two years, Republicans in Congress are going to find it extremely difficult if not impossible to work with President Obama and the Democratic majority in the Senate, precisely because ‘compromise’ is a dirty 10 letter word for members of the Tea Party movement. Members of the Tea Party movement believe that compromise is a sign of weakness and the demagogues who lead them have so thoroughly vilified President Obama and the Democrats, that compromise will be viewed as tantamount to ‘making a deal with the devil.’
But the reality of politics in a true democracy is that it is all about the art of compromise. Dictators and governments in single party states don’t have to concern themselves with making compromises because those who oppose them not only don’t have a voice in the decisions they make, they also don’t have the legal right to challenge or reverse government policies. Democracies on the other hand are somewhat messier when it comes to policy making. Because their legislatures are designed to represent the conflicting views of many different segments of their societies, the ruling party usually lacks the votes to pass their proposals intact.
This is especially true in the United States where laws can be approved by a simple majority vote in the US House of Representatives, but then must also be approved by a larger 3/5ths majority vote in the US Senate. If the proposed new laws can surmount these hurdles then they must also win the approval of the US President before they can be implemented. But if the US President decides to veto a new law, it must then go back to the House of Represenatitives and be approved by at least a 2/3rds majority vote instead of a simple majority vote before it can become the ‘law of the land.’ The requirements for a ‘super majority’ of votes in the Senate to get a bill to the President for his approval, and an even larger ‘super majority’ of votes in the House if the President doesn’t like a law, is one of the unique features of American democracy.
While there have been times during America’s history when either the Democratic or Republican Party controlled both the House and the Senate as well as the Presidency, this kind of political dominance by a single political party has become increasingly rare during the last fifty years. But another complication is that unlike most other democracies, elected politicians in America are more attuned to the interests of their local voters and the special interest groups that fund their political campaigns, than they are to the dictates of their respective political parties.
Herein lies the another unique feature of American democratic politics; voters in each state and Congressional district decide who will stand for election as their Republican or Democratic Party candidate, not the national, state and local party leaders. Furthermore, in many states Democratic and or Republican primaries are not even restricted to party members, but are open to all voters, be they Republicans, Democrats or Independents. Therefore, believe it or not, in some states Republicans can actually vote for the Democratic Party candidate and vice versa
So given the fact that political candidates must also fund their campaigns to win their party’s nomination without any money from the party itself, and if they succeed then provide the majority of the funds they need to win the general election, is it any wonder that they are more loyal to their local constituencies than they are to their national political party? Truth be known, the only real leverage the Republican and Democratic parties have on their candidates is deciding how much or little additional funding to give them for the general election, and if they get elected, the only remaining leverage they have is deciding the congressional committees to put them on.
The inevitable consequence of weak party loyalty in America is difficulty keeping your elected party members in line when crucial votes are needed to pass legislation. As a result, the art of compromise usually begins with negotiations between members of the same political party. After this process has played out, the party leaders then try to negotiate with members of the opposing party that they believe can be persuaded to join them in passing this legislation. While members of the Tea Party movement disapprove of the ‘back room deals’ that are made during these negotiations, they are an integral and important part of democratic political governance.
Lacking any true national leader following John McCain’s defeat in the 2008 Presidential elections, the Republican Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, and Republican House minority leader, John Boehner, became the Republican Party’s de facto leaders in Washington DC. Given the continuing economic malaise in America, party leaders correctly calculated that the remaining Republican Party members in Congress had more to gain by locking arms and opposing everything President Obama and the Democrats proposed to address America’s domestic problems.
They succeeded in preventing Democrats from passing additional legislation designed to stimulate the economy and reduce joblessness, but also avoided being blamed for their role in slowing America’s economic recovery. So given the short term success of this strategy and the Tea Party movement’s opposition to compromise, I just don’t see any compelling reason for Republicans to compromise with Obama between now and the 2012 Presidential election.
Money still doesn't guarantee electoral success
The Bigger Picture
Published on December 1st 2010 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
In my last column I discussed the lessons President Obama and the Democratic Party need to take away from their disastrous showing in the 2010 midterm elections. But the Republican Party appears to be in even more danger of misreading the results of the most recent national elections than President Obama and his fellow Democrats.
Thanks to a 2009 US Supreme Court decision that invalidated a law designed to control political campaign spending by anonymous individuals and corporations, conservative groups outspent their liberal counterparts by better than a 2 to 1 margin in the 2010 midterm elections. The ultra conservative billionaire Koch brothers led the conservative assault through their Americans for Prosperity political group, pushing the spending by non-candidate conservative groups up from a record $19.6 million in the 2006 midterm elections to an astounding $187 million in 2010. So is it any wonder Republican candidates were big winners this year? Hardly!
But Republicans and their far right allies like the Koch brothers masquerading as Americans for Prosperity, need to remain cognizant of the fact that, despite the enormous advantage money provides political candidates, it won’t necessarily win an election for them. For example; the former US Ambassador to Ireland Thomas Foley, who was made Ambassador as a reward for his political donations to George W. Bush’s Presidential campaigns, poured more than $10 million of his junk bond fortune into his campaign for Governor of Connecticut and outspent his Democratic opponent by more than a two to one margin. Well guess what? He lost!
So if outspending your opponent by a two to one margin won’t get you elected in a midterm election environment that favours your out-of-power Republican Party, then surely you will get elected if you outspend them by an overwhelming six to one margin, right? If you think so then you may want to ask Meg Whitman how she feels after contributing over $141 million of her eBay riches to her effort to become Governor of California, only to lose by a million votes to a Democrat who spent a grand total of only $25 million. Or ask Carly Fiorina how she feels after giving over $6.5 million of the golden parachute she received from Hewlett-Packard to her Republican Senate campaign, and still coming up on the short end by over 700,000 votes.
The lesson here for Republicans is that while wealthy Republicans may look very attractive as potential political candidates, the substance of what they propose to do if they get elected matters more than their ability to blanket a state with radio and TV advertisements. Republicans also shouldn’t assume that the huge fundraising advantage they enjoyed in the midterm elections will carry over into the 2012 elections when the US Presidency will also be at stake. Liberal advocacy groups are likely to come much closer to matching the outlays of their conservative counterparts because of the greater risk that they could lose control of both the Senate and the Presidency in 2012. Furthermore, President Obama has already shown that he is more than capable of raising as much or more money than his opponent. Just ask John McCain.
But the biggest risk for Republicans going forward is misreading the results of the 2010 midterm elections and interpreting them as an endorsement of the Republican Party and the obstructionist legislative tactics it has been using in Congress for the past two years. Republicans have made this mistake before such as in 1994 following their takeover of the US House of Representatives thanks to their sweeping midterm election wins during Clinton’s first term.
However, it would appear that the Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, has already determined that this is exactly what America’s voters meant. At his first post-election news conference he told the press; “We're determined to stop the agenda Americans have rejected and to turn the ship around.” Incoming Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner likewise claimed, “It's a mandate for Washington to reduce the size of government and continue our fight for a smaller, less costly and more accountable government.”
I have no doubt that voters were sending a message to President Obama and the Democratic Party to slow down and focus on rebuilding the economy rather than on healthcare reforms and new environmental legislation. But that’s not the same thing as endorsing a continuation of Republican Congressional opposition to compromising with their Democratic counterparts on legislation designed to address America’s numerous problems.
In fact, a series of exit polls showed that the independent voters, who swung this year’s midterm elections to Republicans, actually don’t have a very high opinion of Republicans. 57 percent of independent voters said they viewed Republicans unfavorably and 58 percent said they viewed Democrats unfavorably. That doesn’t sound like much of an endorsement to me.
Maybe I’m totally wrong about this, but now that the Republicans are in control of the House of Representatives, I think voters are going to expect them to work with President Obama and the Democrats in Congress on a number of pieces of important legislation that are currently stalled in Congress. Chief among these is Obama’s promise to renew the Bush era tax cuts for middle class workers, but not for those bring home more than $250,000 a year. But Republicans have balked at this and want all of the tax cuts, including those that benefitted the wealthiest Americans renewed. If Republicans continue to refuse to compromise on tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, then I would expect President Obama will let the cuts expire and tell voters they can blame Republicans for their higher tax bills.
Even though independent voters expect them to work with Democrats, by embracing the Tea Party movement, Republicans in Congress have also left themselves with very little room to maneuver when it comes to striking compromises with the President and Democrats in Congress. Since independent voters are the key to winning elections, I will discuss the implications of the Tea Party embrace in my next column.
Published on December 1st 2010 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
In my last column I discussed the lessons President Obama and the Democratic Party need to take away from their disastrous showing in the 2010 midterm elections. But the Republican Party appears to be in even more danger of misreading the results of the most recent national elections than President Obama and his fellow Democrats.
Thanks to a 2009 US Supreme Court decision that invalidated a law designed to control political campaign spending by anonymous individuals and corporations, conservative groups outspent their liberal counterparts by better than a 2 to 1 margin in the 2010 midterm elections. The ultra conservative billionaire Koch brothers led the conservative assault through their Americans for Prosperity political group, pushing the spending by non-candidate conservative groups up from a record $19.6 million in the 2006 midterm elections to an astounding $187 million in 2010. So is it any wonder Republican candidates were big winners this year? Hardly!
But Republicans and their far right allies like the Koch brothers masquerading as Americans for Prosperity, need to remain cognizant of the fact that, despite the enormous advantage money provides political candidates, it won’t necessarily win an election for them. For example; the former US Ambassador to Ireland Thomas Foley, who was made Ambassador as a reward for his political donations to George W. Bush’s Presidential campaigns, poured more than $10 million of his junk bond fortune into his campaign for Governor of Connecticut and outspent his Democratic opponent by more than a two to one margin. Well guess what? He lost!
So if outspending your opponent by a two to one margin won’t get you elected in a midterm election environment that favours your out-of-power Republican Party, then surely you will get elected if you outspend them by an overwhelming six to one margin, right? If you think so then you may want to ask Meg Whitman how she feels after contributing over $141 million of her eBay riches to her effort to become Governor of California, only to lose by a million votes to a Democrat who spent a grand total of only $25 million. Or ask Carly Fiorina how she feels after giving over $6.5 million of the golden parachute she received from Hewlett-Packard to her Republican Senate campaign, and still coming up on the short end by over 700,000 votes.
The lesson here for Republicans is that while wealthy Republicans may look very attractive as potential political candidates, the substance of what they propose to do if they get elected matters more than their ability to blanket a state with radio and TV advertisements. Republicans also shouldn’t assume that the huge fundraising advantage they enjoyed in the midterm elections will carry over into the 2012 elections when the US Presidency will also be at stake. Liberal advocacy groups are likely to come much closer to matching the outlays of their conservative counterparts because of the greater risk that they could lose control of both the Senate and the Presidency in 2012. Furthermore, President Obama has already shown that he is more than capable of raising as much or more money than his opponent. Just ask John McCain.
But the biggest risk for Republicans going forward is misreading the results of the 2010 midterm elections and interpreting them as an endorsement of the Republican Party and the obstructionist legislative tactics it has been using in Congress for the past two years. Republicans have made this mistake before such as in 1994 following their takeover of the US House of Representatives thanks to their sweeping midterm election wins during Clinton’s first term.
However, it would appear that the Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, has already determined that this is exactly what America’s voters meant. At his first post-election news conference he told the press; “We're determined to stop the agenda Americans have rejected and to turn the ship around.” Incoming Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner likewise claimed, “It's a mandate for Washington to reduce the size of government and continue our fight for a smaller, less costly and more accountable government.”
I have no doubt that voters were sending a message to President Obama and the Democratic Party to slow down and focus on rebuilding the economy rather than on healthcare reforms and new environmental legislation. But that’s not the same thing as endorsing a continuation of Republican Congressional opposition to compromising with their Democratic counterparts on legislation designed to address America’s numerous problems.
In fact, a series of exit polls showed that the independent voters, who swung this year’s midterm elections to Republicans, actually don’t have a very high opinion of Republicans. 57 percent of independent voters said they viewed Republicans unfavorably and 58 percent said they viewed Democrats unfavorably. That doesn’t sound like much of an endorsement to me.
Maybe I’m totally wrong about this, but now that the Republicans are in control of the House of Representatives, I think voters are going to expect them to work with President Obama and the Democrats in Congress on a number of pieces of important legislation that are currently stalled in Congress. Chief among these is Obama’s promise to renew the Bush era tax cuts for middle class workers, but not for those bring home more than $250,000 a year. But Republicans have balked at this and want all of the tax cuts, including those that benefitted the wealthiest Americans renewed. If Republicans continue to refuse to compromise on tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, then I would expect President Obama will let the cuts expire and tell voters they can blame Republicans for their higher tax bills.
Even though independent voters expect them to work with Democrats, by embracing the Tea Party movement, Republicans in Congress have also left themselves with very little room to maneuver when it comes to striking compromises with the President and Democrats in Congress. Since independent voters are the key to winning elections, I will discuss the implications of the Tea Party embrace in my next column.
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