So What's New? Part 2

I felt pretty good about Wednesday's post, but some people have raised specific policy concerns, so I thought, well, it's a cold day, so I'll just jot down a few thoughts about these things.

Let me begin by saying that I watched both McConnell's and Obama's news conferences in their seemingly interminable entirety on Wednesday.  It you watched too, you might have been encouraged by a seeming willingness to get things done.  If you were, you were wrong.  On specific issues, every opening was countered by a "but if..." phrase.

Yesterday's meeting with POTUS and the Congressional leadership was equally uninspiring.

Affordable Care Act: The House of Representatives voted to repeal the ACA like 54 times in the past two years.  The right wing of the Republican Party will be stronger now than it was so we can expect that it will try to repeal the ACA another 50 or so times in the next two years.  The Senate has used the Democratic majority to block those attempts.  That's gone now, so the Senate will hop on the bandwagon, but in a less clear cut way.  McConnell said that he would work to remove the individual mandate, that part of the law specifically upheld by SCOTUS.  POTUS is no fool, he gets that ending the individual mandate would gut the law.  So we can expect to see the veto pen fly into action every time Congress sends a bill trying to weaken and, thereby, kill the ACA.

Immigration Reform: POTUS said that if Congress sends him the bill approved by a large bipartisan majority in the Senate, he will sign it.  He made it very clear that he prefers that approach.     However, he will not wait for that to happen.  He will use his executive authority to take whatever actions he can until the Congress does send him such a bill.  This was a tack that Mitch McConnell likened to waving a red flag in front of a bull.  The House will never support the Senate bill, in fact Boehner refused even to bring it to a vote.   In the next term, even the Senate may not support its own bill because of the changes in personnel in that chamber.  So no immigration reform.

This would be a good time to point out that last winter five red state Democratic Senators asked the White House to delay taking executive action until after the election in order to protect them from the opposition to immigration reform in their states.  The White House complied.  Four of the five lost on Tuesday anyhow, and the fifth is in a runoff that she will probably lose.  In the meantime, Hispanic voters were outraged, and this futile little maneuver cost Democrats Hispanic votes.  To gain any credibility, POTUS will have to take the steps he said he would take last winter.  The GOP will go ballistic and accuse Obama of being a dictator and stepping outside the bounds of his office. There may even be an impeachment attempt or two.  Let's not get too worked up about this.  Obama has used executive orders no more frequently than Bush 43, Clinton and Reagan.  Having said that, you may assume that the Republicans will try to make this a major issue, after all 2016 is coming.

Tax code reform and infrastructure repair and improvement: This is one area where something may happen.  For years Republicans have said that they want to reform the corporate tax code and close loopholes.  Since 2009, the Democrats have tried to get jobs bills that focus on infrastructure repair and improvement.  The stimulus bill in 2009 was too small, but it did create jobs and complete infrastructure work.  The current hope for compromise is centered on the idea that corporate tax changes will be linked to an infrastructure jobs program.  One interesting side note is that during the 2012 campaign, Romney and Ryan talked about closing loopholes but refused to enumerate which loopholes would be closed and now that list will have to be specific.  Will this get done? I think it's possible but a long shot.

Climate Change: Forget it.  These issues are off the table.  James Inhofe, R-OK, is now chair of the  Senate committee that oversees climate change legislation and he is an extreme denier even having written a book that explicitly calls climate change a hoax.  The House has long been a lost cause.  POTUS will continue to use executive orders to do what he can, but nothing major can be done without Congressional approval and that's just not going to happen.  Some folks have expressed astonishment at the Republican denial of climate science.  They just haven't been paying attention. The Republican Party has been bought and paid for on climate issues.  Mitch McConnell is from one of the largest coal producing states, so it doesn't matter what he really thinks, his reelection depends on support of the coal industry.  That's all that has to be said about the subject.

Minimum Wage: Not going to happen.  While the public overwhelmingly supports increasing the Federal minimum wage, and all 5 states with state minimum wage increases on the ballot passed them with very comfortable margins, Congressional Republicans are vehemently opposed.  Joni Ernst, the new Republican Senator from Iowa, has said that she opposes having any minimum wage.  Admittedly while she's far out there, her opposition to increasing the current minimum wage is Republican mainstream thinking.  I'd love to see Congress reduce its pay to the minimum wage for a month and then see how it looks.

Equal Pay for Equal Work:  You must be high!  The Republican attitude here is that women just aren't worth it.  Some go further, like right to the edge of women as possessions of their husbands. There is a plethora of pseudo economic bullshit they and their apologists use to justify what is plainly and simply put bigotry.  But it's just bullshit.

Reproductive Rights:  Gone!  Welcome back to the 1950's!  Apologists for the anti-choice argument say that opposition to a woman's right to choose is based on a deep concern for the lives of the fetuses.  To which I say, CRAP!  The ultimate freedom is control of one's own body.  That's it pure and simple.  

Voting Rights Act: You don't actually think that the same people who have been pushing restrictions on ballot access in those red states are going to do anything at the Federal level that might allow the poor, elderly, and minorities to vote do you?  Get past it.  

I think that hits the high points.  POTUS is on his own, and the Democrats put him there because they tried to out Republican the Republicans.  Obama is too cool by half, and the Democrats are chicken shit.  This is an Administration that has accomplished lots in spite of getting no assistance from the Republicans.  Yet instead of promoting those successes aggressively, POTUS and the Democrats, a terrible name for a rock band, apologized for or ignored them.  They were a party that stood for nothing, just like the Republicans except that the Republicans had something they were very much against and they ran on that anger and opposition.  Additionally, the Republicans learned from the success of the Democrats in running a strong ground game.  They spent relatively little on TV time, leaving that to the outside groups who were happy to spend money on TV, and invested in making sure they got out the vote.  Meanwhile the Democratic ground game was weak.

While I'm disgusted and disappointed by the results, I remember that the Republican Party was ruled dead after the 2008 and 2012 elections, and they came back strong.  So things will turn, they always do.  In 2016, a strong Presidential campaign will lay the foundation for a Democratic renaissance, although the House is probably lost at least until 2020.

I think everyone, friend and foe alike, has been wondering whatever happened to the Barack Obama of the campaigns of 2008 and 2012?  That guy has to step forward again because the Democrats in Congress need someone to lead them.  Left to their own devices they will curl up in the fetal position and whimper quietly under their desks.