So Now What? Republican Politics Or Getting Something Done?

[Andrew D]

At least one poster here has expressed the hope that in the wake of these midterm elections, the Democrats and Republicans in Congress and the Democrat in the White House will work together to accomplish things. That happened after the 1994 elections -- we can debate the merits of what got done another day; the point here is simply that, for better or for worse, things got done -- so maybe it can happen again.

The rub is that the Republicans don't want that to happen. The Republicans have no interest in cooperation for the sake of getting things done. Indeed, they want exactly the opposite: If nothing gets done, even if it is the fault of the Republicans that nothing gets done, that redounds to the Republicans' benefit, because they can falsely blame it on the Democrats. And if it also inures to the detriment of millions of ordinary Americans, that doesn't matter to the Republicans.

In a recent interview with the National Journal, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell let the cat out of the bag:

The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.

One might think that the most important thing that the Republicans want to achieve is an increase of jobs (a reduction of unemployment). One might think that the most important thing that the Republicans want to achieve is a reduction of the federal budget deficit, and even a reduction of the national debt. One might think that the most important thing that the Republicans want to achieve is "tax relief". Or a reduction of the regulations which are supposedly strangling small businesses. Or anything else substantive.

But no.

As the highest-ranking (soon to be second-highest-ranking) Republican holding public office has said publicly what everyone has long known: "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."

Pure politics.

The bottom line is simple and clear: The Republican leaders -- very much distinct from rank-and-file Republicans whom the Republican leaders simultaneously deride and exploit -- have no real interest in reducing unemployment or the budget deficit or the national debt, in "tax relief," in regulatory reform, or in anything else of any substance that might make ordinary Americans' lives a little better in this time of hardship.

So what do others here think? What should the Republican leaders do now? What should the Democratic leaders do now? Will any of them actually do it? If not, what should we voters do in 2012?

[dgs49]

First: Repeal the Davis Bacon Act and all of its regulatory progeny. Considering the racist origins of this odious law, an immediate repeal could not come too soon. there is no reason why the Federal government should award any contract on any basis other than the lowest, responsive, responsible bid.

Second: Abolish the minimum wage. The very idea that the Gub'mint can come between a willing employer and a willing employee and say the wage they have agreed upon is "illegal" is absurd on its face. Not to mention unconstitutional.

Third: Effective immediately, UC maxes out at 26 weeks.

Fourth: allow health insurers to compete across state lines.

De-fund DoE.

Total moratorium on new spending. Total freeze on federal hiring, cut "consultants" by 50% within six months, 80% within a year.

Defund "stimulus" funds that are not yet committed.

Roll back the Health Care bill and start over.

[Jarlaxle]

Looks to me like a good start, Dave...though I would add NO MORE BAILOUTS. To ANYONE.

[Scooter]

Sure, because going back to the barter system in 2008/2009 would have been eminently preferable.

[Andrew D]

Wow! A deluge of toe-the-line-no-matter-what right wingism. Quelle surprise.

Let's start with the most obviously ludicrous. (Yes, it's a tough choice, but when one is faced with a parade of right-wing lunacies, one has to pick where to start.)

Abolish the minimum wage. The very idea that the Gub'mint can come between a willing employer and a willing employee and say the wage they have agreed upon is "illegal" is absurd on its face. Not to mention unconstitutional.

If the issue were the government's coming between a person who has rights and a person who is "a willing employee," dgs49 might have a point. But that is not the issue, and dgs49 has no sound point at all.

When, as is so often the case, the "willing employer" is a corporation, there is no issue about the employer's rights vs. the employee's rights: The employer has no rights.

Corporations have no rights.

Let's say that again so that even the most obtuse right-wingers among us can grasp it: Corporations have no rights.

(There are, of course, judicial decisions to the contrary. They sit on the same shelf as Plessy v. Ferguson.)

[Gob]

It says something about Dave's view of the USA, inasmuch as he thinks it so backwards as to be unable to afford the basic civilities that most countries ensure their populace.

Minimum wage by country

[Econoline]

In a recent interview with the National Journal, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell let the cat out of the bag:

The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.

One might think that the most important thing that the Republicans want to achieve is an increase of jobs (a reduction of unemployment). One might think that the most important thing that the Republicans want to achieve is a reduction of the federal budget deficit, and even a reduction of the national debt. One might think that the most important thing that the Republicans want to achieve is "tax relief". Or a reduction of the regulations which are supposedly strangling small businesses. Or anything else substantive.

But no.

As the highest-ranking (soon to be second-highest-ranking) Republican holding public office has said publicly what everyone has long known: "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."

Pure politics.

I'm not very optimistic at this point. (In fact, I don't think I've been so bummed out by the results of an election since 1972.) I seem to recall some pundit saying that every time this century when a president lost his congressional majority in a mid-term election, that president went on to win re-election. This batch of Republican "leaders" seems determined not to let that history repeat: specifically, they're determined not to repeat the "mistake" they made in 1994, when cooperation between the legislative and executive branches wound up making the president look good enough to be re-elected.

DSG & Jarl - Yeah, yeah, I'm sure we'd all be MUCH better off now if the banking system had collapsed completely, and if the automotive industry had collapsed completely, and if there were another 2 or 3 million unemployed workers from those industries, and if there were no unemployment insurance, and no health insurance, and no minimum wage. What a wonderful world you have there in your imagination.

[Scooter]

The Republican Voter:

[dgs49]

Andrew, it is clear that a majority of Californians were having a brain fart on Tuesday, but I thought it might have passed you by. Apparently not.

What the hell does your nonsense point about Corporations having no rights (talk about absurd on its face!) have to do with the minimum wage? It has to do with freedom of contract, eh?

Bob's Motorcycle Shop, Inc., would like to have its sidewalks swept every day, but it's only worth $5 to them (a one-hour job). A kid who passes by on his way home from school is willing and wants to do it at that rate. If he can't take the job, he gets no money and the sidewalk remains cluttered.

What right does the Government have to come in and say that contract is illegal? (How does it affect "interstate commerce"?)

BTW, Bob's Garage Doors, Inc., owns the building. No,wait. That can't possibly be. They do not have the right to own property! What a conundrum!

[oldr_n_wsr]

Bob's Motorcycle Shop, Inc., would like to have its sidewalks swept every day, but it's only worth $5 to them (a one-hour job). A kid who passes by on his way home from school is willing and wants to do it at that rate. If he can't take the job, he gets no money and the sidewalk remains cluttered.

Years ago, even when there was a minimum wage, this is how kids made their money (at least in my neighborhood). Sweeping, mowing lawns, trimming hedges, shoveling driveways, raking leaves, etc. Cash money, working for neighbors, nothing worng with that. Heck, the paperboy made tax free money. Not anymore. Gov wants their hand in kids pockets too. ETA: Only shady contractors are allowed to get away with not paying payroll taxes now.
Now you can blame it on the "lazy ass kids" of today, but in my town, I blame it on the over-abundance of illegal aliens. My son tried to sign up some home owners where he would do their basic yardwork for around $5/hour (or a whole job price) but the people went with the landscaper who hired illegals.

I had a roofing business that also got buried under by the cut rate contractors who picked their workers up every morning at the 7-11. Of course I went through all the legal channels (license, insurance covering everyone on my staff, bonding, etc) but after all that, I couldn't afford to pay minimum wage to any legal worker. And I wasn't about to hire illegal aliens. After 10 roofing jobs we closed up shop. But I do have to chuckle at the potential customers who called me after they went with the cheaper contractors and their roofs leaked. (not one of my customers has called me saying their roof leaked) I gave them a 10yr guarantee on workmanship and the usual 25-30 warranty that the shingle company gave. Been out of business for 10 years but I would still go and fix their roofs if something went wrong. If it was a shingle problem, I would get free shingles, but charge to re-install, if it was my problem I would make it right (most likely for free).

[dgs49]

The minimum wage has been around for a long, long time. It was once below $1.00. I remember getting a raise when it went from $1.40 to $1.60.

There were many employers who took advantage of the fact that the MW didn't apply to in-state businesses, until the USSC read the "interstate commerce" clause to mean "any commerce."

Homeowner in my neighborhood are willing to pay $35 or $40 a pop to have their lawns cut, but THE KIDS WON'T DO IT. Too fukkin busy playing video games, I guess. My son was the same way. He preferred working at the video store making MW.

[Scooter]

Homeowner in my neighborhood are willing to pay $35 or $40 a pop to have their lawns cut, but THE KIDS WON'T DO IT.

And yet according to you the same kids would be willing to take $5 to sweep up a store front, if only there were no minimum wage

[oldr_n_wsr]

Homeowner in my neighborhood are willing to pay $35 or $40 a pop to have their lawns cut, but THE KIDS WON'T DO IT.

I know a few kids who would jump on that, and about a thousand illegal aliens who would undercut those kids and do it for $20.

where do yo live by the way?

[Long Run]

The McConnell quote, like most soundbites by that are played again and again to show what an ogre the speaker is, was taken out of context. However, knowing that that would be the case, McConnell should have been smarter about having a line like that. Obviously, as he described in full subsequently, he was saying that beating Obama is necessary to carry out the R agenda to reverse Obama's agenda, which he believes is what the voters want. Given Obama's ability to veto (and near certainty to do so) it will be impossible to implement the rollback agenda while Obama is president. Hence, the priority to defeat Obama. In the meantime, he has made clear they intend to work with him on topics they agree on. It is all spin at this point, and we won't know until we see what happens.

As for Dgs agenda, that kind of overreaching will ensure the Rs are sent back to the desert to wander another 40 years. Whatever one thinks about many of the items, the only items where there is any political support are rolling back some or all of the healthcare reform (and even that has many popular provisions), allowing health insurers to compete across state lines, defunding unspent stimulus, and perhaps a slowdown of spending and federal hiring. The Left has won the debate on the minimum wage and extending unemployment compensation; the public likes those policies no matter how many economists note their negative effect. Ditto, Davis Bacon. Ditto DoE.

[Andrew D]

The McConnell quote, like most soundbites by that are played again and again to show what an ogre the speaker is, was taken out of context. However, knowing that that would be the case, McConnell should have been smarter about having a line like that. Obviously, as he described in full subsequently, he was saying that beating Obama is necessary to carry out the R agenda to reverse Obama's agenda, which he believes is what the voters want. Given Obama's ability to veto (and near certainty to do so) it will be impossible to implement the rollback agenda while Obama is president.

(Emphases added.)

That is the crux of the problem. The Republicans have made quite clear that they want to reverse what the Democrats have managed, over a torrential flood of Republican obstructionism, to accomplish.

Okay. The Republicans hate what the Democrats have done, and they intend to do their damnedest to undo those things. That's sensible enough: If you think that your political opponents have done things which ought not to have been done, then you want to undo those things.

But then what?

Consider, for example, health-care-insurance reform. Under the new laws, some thirty million people who have not had access to (non-emergency) health care will now have access to it. (That does not appear to be seriously disputed.) The Republicans want to undo those new laws.

So what happens to those thirty million people? Do the Republicans have some plan for ensuring that those people have access to (non-emergency) health care? Are they content with those people's not having access to (non-emergency) health care? What?

And then there is the matter of pre-existing conditions. The material issue has been falsely portrayed as being simply whether an insurance company must agree to cover you for the "risk" that you will someday have some medical problem which, in fact, you already have (and have already been diagnosed as having).

But that's not it at all.

The real issue is exemplified by this: You have health insurance through your employer. After you (and your employer) had paid premiums for a decade or so, you are diagnosed with liver cancer. That is not a "pre-existing condition"; you had been covered under the insurance policy for years before you were ever diagnosed with liver cancer. Then your employer decides to switch insurance companies, a decision over which you have no control. The new insurance company decides that your liver cancer is a "pre-existing condition" -- after all, you had already been diagnosed with liver cancer before the new policy kicked in ("incepted") -- so you are no longer covered. All of those premiums that you paid for a decade or so before being diagnosed with liver cancer just go up in smoke. The insurance company gets the profits, and you get the shaft.

So what do the Republicans plan to do about that? In that example, will they require the new insurer to cover all the people who were previously covered under the original policy, excluding someone for a "pre-existing condition" only if that person had already been diagnosed with that condition before the original policy incepted? Will they allow the new insurer to deny coverage to a person who contracted a condition during the life of the original policy but before the inception of the new policy? What?

And we can ask the same about many other things. The Republicans want to undo what the Democrats have done. But what do the Republicans want to do?

Maybe it's a good thing that the Republicans have taken over the House. They'll finally have to come up with real policy proposals. No more nothing but "no, no, no"; now it's time for the Republicans, at least in the House, to put up or shut up.

But if history is a reliable guide, they will do neither.

[rubato]

The republicans want to fuck the bottom 80% of the population to advantage the top 5%.

Hey thanks! but no thanks. They will fuck the whole country in doing so just like Bush did for 8 years.

<<edited for politeness' sake.>>

yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

Ok, sorry, I was a little pissed off and discouraged about the next 2 years of governmental failure. Having to wait out 8 years of truly bad decisions does that to you.

But how is it that anyone would expect to elect the people who made the poverty rate go up for 10 years and get anything different next time? It is stupidity. Brute, animal, stupidity.

yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

As the dust begins to settle and the smoke begins to clear, it is apparent that, (unfortunately) there are two major differences between what happened last Tuesday and what happened in '94....

The first is the GOP's failure to take over the Senate. If one looks at the post election statements from Speaker Presumptive Beohner, and contrasts them with the statements from Senate Minority Leader McConnell, there's a clear difference....

Boehner, as a Constitutional Officer running a branch of government has a clear interest in showing some success in the next two years....

McConnell, as the leader of a minority party with no governing responsibility, doesn't have the same interest.

The other unfortunate difference is President Obama's attitude....

At his press conference after the '94 midterms, Clinton famously announced, "I get it"...and then went on to prove that he did....

Obama made clear at his post election press conference that he manifestly does not "get it", and that he seems to think he can just go along as though nothing happened....

By which I mean he seems to believe that he can continue to pay lip service to "bipartisanship" while absolutely refusing to bargain in good faith with the Congressional GOP.....

Which is what he did the first two years....

Given these two factors, the outlook, sadly, is pretty good for two years of gridlock....

[rubato]

If Republicans said "look we think more poverty is good and that's why we vote Republican" that would at least make sense based on the facts:





yrs,
rubato

[Andrew D]

Obama made clear at his post election press conference that he manifestly does not "get it", and that he seems to think he can just go along as though nothing happened....

By which I mean he seems to believe that he can continue to pay lip service to "bipartisanship" while absolutely refusing to bargain in good faith with the Congressional GOP.....

Which is what he did the first two years....

Total horseshit. Pure, unadulterated horseshit.

Obama compromised with the Republicans on financial regulatory reform. He compromised with them on the stimulus package. He compromised with them on health-care-insurance reform. Etc., etc., etc.

The refusal to compromise has come from the Republicans. We all know about McConnell: The only thing he cares about is "for President Obama to be one-term president," and he doesn't give a shit how many ordinary Americans' lives he has to wreck to make that happen.

But Boehner is no better. Oh, he doesn't say things as mind-bogglingly stupid as the things that come out of McConnell's mouth. But he has made no bones about it: "We will not compromise."

Here's what he said about Obama's legislative agenda: "We're going to do everything — and I mean everything we can do — to kill it, stop it, slow it down, whatever we can.”

Does that sound like compromise to anyone? Anyone? Anyone at all?

So when Boehner now yammers about "compromise," you have to take his statements in light of what "compromise" means to him: “To the extent the president wants to work with us, in terms of our goals, we'd welcome his involvement.”

There's compromise for you: If Obama does what the Republicans want, then they'll go along with it.

(And then there's the stuff one hears from other Republicans in the House, such as Mike Pence: “There will be no compromise on stopping runaway spending, deficits and debt. There will be no compromise on repealing Obamacare.” And Tea-Bagger Ken Buck: “When it comes to spending, I'm not compromising. I don't care who, what, when or where, I'm not compromising.”)

Given these two factors, the outlook, sadly, is pretty good for two years of gridlock....

It's good to see Lord Jim opining that two years of gridlock is a sad outcome.

But it's not at all sad for the people running the show in the Republican party. Two years of gridlock is exactly what they want: The Republicans will make sure that nothing much gets done, and in 2012, the Republicans will blame the Democrats for the consequences of the Republicans' obstructionism.

The Republican base will swallow it all, hook, line, and sinker. And the Republican leaders will do what they always do: Suck up to their most loyal voters in public and laugh at them in private.