Barack Obama's considerable political capital, earned on Election Day 2008, is spent. Well spent, mind you, on the enactment of a highly ideological agenda of Obamacare, financial reform and a near-trillion-dollar stimulus that will significantly transform the country. But spent nonetheless. There's nothing left with which to complete his social-democratic ambitions. This would have to await the renewed mandate that would come with a second inaugural.Shame will not be enough to stop this from happening. At the most basic level liberals are children. The are genetically incapable of losing gracefully and bowing to the wishes of the voters. Their emotional maturity was stunted somewhere along the way and so I fully expect them to lash out at America and the Republicans by attempting to slam through every crazy idea they can in the lame duck session.
That's why, as I suggested last week, nothing of major legislative consequence is likely to occur for the next 2 1/2 years. Except, as columnist Irwin Stelzer points out, for one constitutional loophole: a lame-duck Congress called back into session between the elections this November and the swearing-in of the 112th Congress next January.
Leading Democrats are already considering this as a way to achieve even more liberal measures that many of their members dare not even talk about, let alone enact, on the eve of an election in which they face a widespread popular backlash to the already enacted elements of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda.
That backlash will express itself on Election Day and result, as most Democrats and Republicans currently expect, in major Democratic losses. It is still possible for the gaffe-happy Republicans to blow it. When the ranking GOP member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee publicly apologizes to the corporation that unleashed the worst oil spill in American history, you know the Republicans are capable of just about anything.
But assuming the elections go as currently projected, Obama's follow-on reforms are dead. Except for the fact that a lame-duck session, freezing in place the lopsided Democratic majorities of November 2008, would be populated by dozens of Democratic members who had lost reelection (in addition to those retiring). They could then vote for anything -- including measures they today shun as the midterms approach and their seats are threatened -- because they would have nothing to lose. They would be unemployed. And playing along with Obama might even brighten the prospects for, say, an ambassadorship to a sunny Caribbean isle.
As John Fund reports in the Wall Street Journal, Sens. Jay Rockefeller, Kent Conrad and Tom Harkin are already looking forward to what they might get passed in a lame-duck session. Among the major items being considered are card check, budget-balancing through major tax hikes, and climate-change legislation involving heavy carbon taxes and regulation.
Card check, which effectively abolishes the secret ballot in the workplace, is the fondest wish of a union movement to which Obama is highly beholden. Major tax hikes, possibly including a value-added tax, will undoubtedly be included in the recommendations of the president's debt commission, which conveniently reports by Dec. 1. And carbon taxes would be the newest version of the cap-and-trade legislation that has repeatedly failed to pass the current Congress -- but enough dead men walking in a lame-duck session might switch and vote to put it over the top.
It's a target-rich environment. The only thing holding the Democrats back would be shame, a Washington commodity in chronically short supply. To pass in a lame-duck session major legislation so unpopular that Democrats had no chance of passing it in regular session -- after major Democratic losses signifying a withdrawal of the mandate implicitly granted in 2008 -- would be an egregious violation of elementary democratic norms.
If Republicans can hold the GOP caucus in the Senate together they can stop this, but let's not forget that there's at least on GOP senator, Bob Bennett from Utah, who was also ousted by his party this year and he's always leaned a bit to the left. You also have retiring Sen. George Voinovich who has also been a bit of a squish on conservative issues and these guys might be more willing to go along with liberal craziness when there's no personal risk on the line.
It will be a perilous time.
Posts
1 comment:
Oh, this can really get interesting. These lame duck members of congress will have to walk the same streets as John Q does and you can never tell how John Q might respond when he sees them walking the same street that he does.
Post a Comment