Soon the three-fifths Democratic majorities will be gone and
Nancy Pelosi will surrender her gavel. The triumvirate of Obama,
Pelosi, and Reid will be compelled to share power with newly
elected Republicans. Before we bid Pelosi’s vanquished minions a
fond farewell, however, let us pause to reflect on their handiwork
even if we can’t admire it.
Theirs is a legacy of bigger government and deeper debt, an
inexorable march toward a health care system and an economy that
more closely resembles the social democracies of Europe than the
American constitutional republic, of deem and pass tactics despite
near-one-party rule.
But one need not share the Democrats’ principles to respect
their commitment to them. A significant portion of the country was
already in rebellion before the final price tag on the stimulus
package was set. Politically, the handwriting was on the wall when
Republicans won a special election in Massachusetts nearly eleven
months before the midterms: the health care bill was an electoral
disaster waiting to happen and the voters were standing athwart
Obama yelling, “Stop!”
Yet Obama and the Democrats, briefly stunned by the “Scott heard
‘round the world,” shook it off and pressed ahead. The result was
the biggest expansion of the federal government since the creation
of Medicare in 1965, a legislative victory for which the Democrats
risked their majorities.
When was the last time Republicans took similar risks in the
battle over the size and scope of the federal government? What do
conservatives have to show for a Republican president, House, and
Senate from 2005-07? Very little besides John Roberts and Sam
Alito, who without conservative outcry might have instead been
Alberto Gonzales and Harriet Miers.
Howard Dean said of having a majority in Congress, “If you don’t
use it, you lose it.” The Democrats lost theirs but leave Obamacare
behind. The Republicans didn’t use theirs and lost it anyway.
Oh, the Republicans have pledged to repeal Obamacare. But when
is the last time Republicans repealed any major liberal program?
FDR boasted that “no damn politician” would ever touch Social
Security. Given the way Republicans ran from a plan to reform the
retirement program with personal accounts while they had a 55-45
majority in the Senate, Tom DeLay bringing down the Hammer in the
House, and George W. Bush in the Oval Office, can FDR’s claim be
disputed?
Democrats believe that for all the GOP’s bluster about health
care repeal, in an election cycle or two “no damn politician” will
treat Obamacare differently than Social Security. Republicans can’t
even get rid of the National Endowment for the Arts or the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting. When one Republican Congress
sharply curtailed farm subsidies, another Republican Congress
restored them.
Although Bush held the line on taxes, the upward trajectory on
spending has been almost constant: No Child Left Behind, the
Medicare prescription drug benefit, the Wall Street bailout, the
stimulus program, and Obamacare.
Even after the health care juggernaut stalled plans for an
immigration amnesty or cap and trade, the Democrats came back from
their “shellacking” ready to pass more legislation in the lame-duck
congressional session. They repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,”
ratified New START, and added new deficit spending. Bur for a
handful of votes in the Senate they would have passed the DREAM Act
and a substantial minority of House Democrats was prepared to let
taxes rises across the board rather than keep the tax cuts in place
for the top 3 percent of income earners.
The Gingrich Congress tried to control Medicare spending. A
Republican Senate and bipartisan conservative majority in the House
passed the Reagan supply-side economic program. But not since the
“Do Nothing” Congress that served alongside Harry Truman has a
Republican majority been willing to risk failure at the ballot box
to achieve success at preserving limited government.
Will the new Republican majority in the House and the bigger,
more conservative Republican minority in the Senate be different?
Will the GOP heed the demands of the Tea Party movement, undo
liberalism’s gains of the past two years, and restore the country
to its constitutional foundations?
Republicans have been invited back to power. For once they
should learn from the Pelosi Congress and heed Howard Dean: If they
don’t use it, they’ll lose it.
