Tight Deadline for New Speaker to Deliver
"Relying on his decades of experience with the inner workings of the House, Mr. Boehner, of Ohio, now has less than two years to show that the Republican Party is the antidote to what ails Washington, with a discordant caucus, a stagnant economy, a hostile White House with veto power and the long shadow of 1994 all looming before him."
"His promises on behalf of the new House majority — reducing the size of government, creating jobs and fundamentally altering the way the Congress conducts its business — are mostly as lofty as they are unspecific, and his efforts to legislate them into reality must be done with ambitious upstarts within his own party and a fresh crop of Tea Partiers, some of whom seem to believe that it is they, not he, now running the show."
"One demand resonated loudly: the reduction of federal spending immediately, a daunting goal. Yet, among the first things that Mr. Boehner has said he will seek to accomplish are reversing cuts to the Medicare program and extending the expiring Bush-era tax cuts, steps that are hard to reconcile with a commitment to reining in the national debt."
So the election is done. What's going to happen now with a split congress? In some ways, I think it will be a catalyst for parties to work together now that they have to. In order to get anything done, congress is going to have to be bipartisan and cooperative. But of course this rests on both parties being willing to cooperate, and the track record of House and Senate Republicans is anything but cooperative. For the past two years, it's been the party of No - so how is anything going to progress with a divided house? I think it will be good to put the ball in the Republicans' court and see how they handle it. Now it's up to them to make some solutions - and take the fall if their solutions don't work.
But like this article points out, Boehner and the tea party loudmouths have set lofty goals with few practical details about achieving them (I don't mean to group Boehner with the tea party, because it looks like they'll probably be clashing in the upcoming months). There's been so much fuss about reducing government spending, reining in government, etc etc, but there have been such a lack of real plans that it's all coming out like hot air. Republicans want to cut spending - but one of their first items is to eliminate tax cuts. So where are the rest of the spending cuts going to come from? Education? Health care? Environmental protection? I hope that we start to hear some real ideas now that the Republicans have the house and will be forced to come up with something, or else face the same wrath of their electorate as the Democrats did.
Anyways, hopefully now that the elections are over I won't have to be so political anymore (yeah right). In other news, it's already November, and Thanksgiving is only 3 weeks away! Man, how did that happen?
Chloe
This is all happening in an era of the most polarized and divided legislature in history. The Republicans- the party of “no”- came out immediately after Obama was elected and vowed to do anything to “make him fail”. They were vicious in their attacks and never relented. They used words like “socialist” to describe the healthcare initiative, not to mention the public education system. Without digressing into the misuse of the word Socialism, I’ll simply say that the Republicans will stop at nothing to de-regulate, de-fund, and de-educate the population. And lest you forget, there were plenty of examples of de-regulation gone wrong during the Bush Administration. Does anyone remember Enron? Ever heard of Lehman Brothers?
ReplyDeleteWhile I certainly hope there will be some bi-partisan solutions forged in the new congress that will address the ills of the country- particularly joblessness, healthcare gaps, and a looming environmental crisis, Mr. Boehner’s agenda seems to simply be “repeal the Health Care Bill” My projection is two years of gridlock.