The year may have changed, but all of last year’s problems and controversies are still alive and well. Why on earth should we be bullish?
A New Governing Paradigm: after six years of disastrous progressive governance, the political pendulum has swung back to the center-right, and sanity.
The tidal wave of “Hope and Change” that washed over America in 2008, securing insurmountable Democratic majorities that approved intrusive, economy-hobbling policies against the wishes of the American majority, has been washed away. Like the Napoleonic army’s retreat from Moscow, today’s Democratic party is only a hollow, bickering shell of its former self. What remains is a mix of militant malcontents, addicted to failure, believing that Obama’s greatest sin was in not going even further with misguided progressive policies and spending.
Rationality is the vanishing quantity of a pin-pricked Democratic balloon.
And like Napoleon, it is Obama who bears the responsibility for the catastrophe that has befallen his Party. Always more about the “O” than about the “D”, Obama mapped a policy agenda that was arrogant, rigidly ideological and misaligned to American priorities, fueled by hubris and managed with incompetence.
In 2008, it was possible to believe that Obama represented the beginning of a political realignment in American politics that would last for a generation. Instead, Obama governance has fueled a massive expansion of the very ideas that his election was supposed to have put to rest; deep mistrust and lack of faith in government, a preference for smaller government and less spending, and expanded individual liberty.
Instead of building a coalition that would endure the test of time, Obama’s ego and contempt for public opinion, as well as the traditional checks and balances of government, have rendered a Democratic Party that is loud and distracting, but largely toothless.
Consider that Obama is the first president since Andrew Jackson to win re-election by a smaller margin that his first victory. A win, yes, but not an overwhelming vote of confidence.
In midterm elections in 2010 and 2014 – elections that were referendums on Obama governance – the Democrats were simply eviscerated at all levels across the country, not simply losing control of key offices, but taking with it the promising future candidates that would have made up the next generation of Democratic elected officials. Democrats suddenly have a demography problem.
In contrast, today, the Republicans not only run Congress, they run 31 of 50 governorships, and control 68 of 98 state legislative chambers. Republicans have unified control of the governors’ mansion and the legislature in 24 states, creating new laboratories of conservative governance, incubators for successful national policies to come. 60 percent of the American people today live in a state with a Republican governor. The shear breath of this achievement cannot be understated.
Looking back from today, the first draft of Obama’s legacy includes fundamental policy failure, intellectual exhaustion and institutional party collapse.
A Contained President: starting on Tuesday, when the Republican Congress is sworn in, POTUS will face a new and very different political paradigm. Throughout his presidency, no matter how badly he treated them, Democrats on the Hill had Obama’s back. Since 2010, Harry Reid has been instrumental in burying bills that might force a difficult choice for Obama, or interfere with a preferred White House narrative of workman-like centrism.
No more.
With Republicans running the show on Capitol Hill, Obama is going to have to choose, and in so doing, finally show his true colors. POTUS will no longer get to have it both ways. Keystone XL pipeline that is overwhelmingly supported by the American people? Abolishing the medical device tax in Obamacare, or exempting Veterans from the law’s individual mandate? Expanding shale oil and gas exploration that is creating good paying jobs, has made the US the #1 global energy producer and shattered OPEC? Curbing jobs-smothering regulations?
Republicans will not win all these battles. But the legislation will force Obama to choose, and if he goes with his gut, he goes against the American people. This not only exposes Obama, it begins to reset the narrative for what is at stake in 2016.
Managing the New Congressional Majority: yes, President Obama treated November and December as if the midterm elections never happened, taking Executive actions that are both unconstitutional and deeply divisive. Indeed, the President openly discusses the equivalent of political extortion; that he will rescind his Executive action on illegal immigration once the GOP Congress sends him a bill codifying his policy in a bill.
It is outrageous and deeply offensive.
The key for the new GOP majority is to not rise to the bait and act out of rashness or impulse. Upon closer inspection, the President’s actions are not those of a confident, politically secure leader, but rather of am anxious, diminished Chief Executive, scrambling for relevance.
The very audaciousness of Obama’s actions are no doubt designed to provoke a strong even reckless GOP response. The Administration wants the GOP to fly into a rage and waste time fighting unilateral immigration and climate change measures, as it saps energy from other, more constructive paths, and it provides Democrats with safe, voter-tested narratives regarding GOP obstruction, hostility to immigrants and the environmental recklessness.
The right choice is to see the big picture and exercise patience over instant gratification. Here the GOP needs to rely on the larger American political system, which is slow, but is purposefully designed to reign in excesses.
To that end, there are already lawsuits in the works in GOP controlled states regarding the illegal immigration Executive Order and various federal climate change regulations, policy initiatives. These will be fast-tracked for the Supreme Court, where they will be ameliorated if not overturned outright.
The plain math shows that the GOP does not have the votes to overcome a presidential veto, and with the exception of right-wing talk radio hosts, nobody believes that shutting down the federal government does anything but get the GOP into deep political trouble. But the system provides the GOP nationally with the tools to reverse unconstitutional acts.
This doesn’t mean that the GOP should go mute on Obama excesses. The GOP can and should take actions to highlight the importance of POTUS’ illegal Executive actions, but not to the exclusion of a clear, ambitious, middle class focused legislative agenda. This includes two parts; cooperating with the Administration where the GOP can (trade agreements, tax reform, infrastructure) and second, presenting pro-growth governing alternatives to Administration policies that Obama will surely veto, but that expose Obama and the Democrats for the government statists that they are.
Perhaps most importantly, the GOP Congress needs to show it can actually conduct its essential business – passing 12 appropriations bills to keep the government-funded without an Omnibus or the threat of a shutdown. Since, 2010, the Republicans have earned a reputation a bomb-throwing anarchists, willing to destabilize government operations, and even the credit of the US to score points against the President. That must end now, and for good.
If the GOP majority is sober, serious and productive, it will not only help the American economy and American workers, but it will also force POTUS to show his true hand. Doing so is a key building block of a new Republican majority.
Obamacare Round II: well, if at first you don’t succeed… In March, the Supreme Court will hear a case which asks SCOTUS to affirm the plain language in Obamacare regarding the relationship between government subsidies and state-level health exchanges. This wasn’t a drafting error in the monstrous bill. Obamacare exposer Jonathan Gruber (he of the “stupid” American) stated clearly that Obamacare subsidies were designed for state exchanges only as a way to incentivize states to create those exchanges. The fact that it did not work out that way in practice is itself not a reason to reinterpret the law from something that clearly doesn’t exist. Indeed, if the Executive branch can simply re-write from whole cloth to fix what is politically inconvenient, then the very premise of our government is at risk.
Even Chief Justice Roberts should be able to figure this one out.
Without the subsidies, Obamacare collapses. The GOP needs to be ready with constructive, market based policies as an alternative.
Gas Prices: who says tax cuts don’t stimulate the economy? According to AAA, the astounding drop in gas prices saved Americans nearly $15 billion in disposable income in 2014. Should gas remain low, or go lower in 2015, the windfall for Americans would be on the order of $50-75 billion. For the owners of America’s 200 million cars, that’s a two-year savings of $450.00. It’s not tax relief on an order that would make a permanent difference for hard-pressed American families, but it is a surprising and welcome windfall, made possible, in large part, by the shale revolution in the US (vehemently opposed by the Democratic base) that has made the US energy the top energy producer on the way toward true energy independence.
The GOP 2016 Field: unlike 2012, the best and brightest are going to come out in 2016. Jeb Bush is all but in. Mike Huckabee, a star in social conservative circles is making moves. Rand Paul will bring a fresh, libertarian flavor to the nomination contest. And a gaggle of accomplished governors – Chris Christie, Mike Pence, Bobby Jindal, Scott Walker and John Kasich – may make a race of it. They will bring energy, debate and new ideas to the table. It will be a compelling contrast to the to planned coronation of the mechanical, inauthentic, “stands-for-whatever-will-get-me-elected” Hillary Clinton who will be 70 in 2016.
Conclusion:optimism does not deny reality. What is good as we start the year, does not diminish Russian militancy, Iranian nuclear ambitions, a feckless American response to ISIS or the possibility of additional global economic instability sparked by slow growth in China or the perennial favorite, Greece.
At home, Obama policies have distorted the labor market and artificially inflated the stock market, all at the expense of working class Americans. Life has gotten harder, not better, if you are not in the Top one percent. Changing that will take time and energy.
But the nation has decisively chosen a governing path that will restore legitimacy, candor and responsibility to governance that has largely been absent over the last six years. With an array of legislative and legal tools at their disposal, sober and pragmatic Republicans can not only counter bad policies, but offer common-sense alternatives, making life better for average Americans and setting up the necessary contrast for the 2016 showdown.
Let’s roll up our sleeves and get down to work.