No Holiday Cheer For Dems In Congress

(Weekly Standard)  This column was written by Whitney Blake.

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The House and Senate squeezed through last-minute bills in a marathon session last week akin to the final exams period some members' college-aged children just muddled through. A bleary-eyed, sleep deprived House and Senate finally emerged with the passage of some key pieces of legislation on energy, the Iraq war, the alternative minimum tax, children's health insurance, and a massive omnibus spending bill. In the end, Republicans proved to be the more astute bunch, pushing through Bush's lame duck agenda despite their minority status.

With Democrats emerging victorious just a year ago in the 2006 midterm elections claiming a mandate to drive the country in a new direction, one would have hardly predicted headlines like "Bush, GOP prevail in host of Hill issues" in the Associated Press, "Dems cave on spending" in the Hill, and the Politico's "Liberals lose bigtime in budget battle."

Leading mainstream publications agreed that Democrats had surrendered to Republican demands, and the left's base was utterly furious at the outcomes. In reaction to the $70 billion Iraq and Afghanistan troop funding vote, comments such as, "You are kidding yourself if you think the Democratic Party stands for anything - clearly they do not - This is an outrage," were posted on Daily Kos. Huffington Post entries included, "Democrats lose evey [sic] time becuase [sic] they are a pack of spineless cowards".

Even Republicans were surprised with the outcome. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell remarked, "If we had been having this press conference last January and I had suggested that a Republican minority in Congress would be able to meet the president's top line, you all would have laughed at me."

"We couldn't have scripted this to work out better for Republicans they conceded almost every issue," said Rep. Paul Ryan, (R-WI).

Not only did Democrats eventually meet Bush's required $933 billion appropriations spending level, they also capitulated on unconditional funding for the troops, an energy plan without corporate taxes, a one-year patch to the alternative minimum tax without additional taxes (a $50 billion violation of Democrats' pay-as-you-go principles), and a straight extension of SCHIP without a large expansion.

At first, the record is baffling, but the explanation for Republican success is simple. Not only was superior "strategery" involved on the part of the minority, to borrow a word from Bush's lexicon, but equally important was Democrats' miscalculations.

Republicans decided early on to stick together on issues such as taxes and Iraq, said one senior Republican aide. Democrats were much more fractured. One Washington Post headline declared, "Democrats Blaming Each Other for Failures." The article cited House Democrats accusing their Senate counterparts of selling out and folding. In December 2006, Reid said in an interview, "legislation is the art of compromise and consensus building and I'm going to compromise." House Democrats didn't embrace this theme.

They either failed to realize or didn't want to realize that anything they proposed still had to meet approval in the Senate, where compromise and coalition building are unavoidable, with 60 votes required to move any legislation through. "It took some people 11 months to figure this out," said one senior Republican aide.

From the beginning, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi set up a structure that didn't emphasize debate and hearings, said Republican California Rep. Kevin McCarthy. The controversial spots were never worked out in the far-left appeasing bills that passed through the House.

Even after the Senate voted a resounding 88 to 5 in favor of an AMT patch without offsets in the beginning of December, the House passed another version, attached more taxes to make up for the lost revenue, and sent it back to the Senate. The Senate had to vote three times just to show the House Democrats that it did not have the required 60 votes to pass a patch with offsets.

Democrats were not only divided, they also misjudged the public's perception. The "general aversion to tax hikes" worked to the Republicans' advantage, and the overall success of the war in Iraq also played a key factor, said the senior Republican aide.

Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid commented right before the recess, "I share the frustration of the American people who want to see real change." But Republicans argue Reid's idea of change is not in line with that of most Americans.

They "got the wrong message from the election," which wasn't one of a "repudiation of conservative values," said Ryan. It was a call for "clean and transparent government."

They "overreached" after the honeymoon period and "frittered away" high expectations "by taking a sharp turn to the left," he added.

A CNN/USA Today poll taken back in May and June revealed that 57 percent of Americans favored making permanent the Bush tax cuts, while 37 percent wanted to repeal the temporary cuts. On the broader fiscal topics of taxes, government spending, and regulations for businesses, 41 percent of Americans consider themselves "conservative," 43 percent "moderate," and just 12 percent "liberal," according to a Rasmussen Reports study released about a month ago.

Some Republicans admit Democrats could have gotten more of what they wanted had they played their cards right. Democrats had a "missed opportunity," said McCarthy, who has experience in a closely divided legislature as a former Republican floor leader in the California State Assembly.

The majority could have still put forth very partisan bills at the outset, but "come back to where common ground was," said McCarthy. Democrats would have "enjoyed much more success" in the center, said Ryan.

Some Republicans were reportedly amenable to partial offsets to the AMT. Perhaps if Democrats had not held onto appropriations spending $23 billion above Bush's request for so long, there would have been more time left to avoid axing the entire difference. Or if taxes were not as high as $22 billion for energy companies in the Democrats' version of the energy bill, some taxes may have been part of the compromise.

But Democrats "were more interested in making a point than making law," said Don Stewart, communications director for Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. It didn't get them very far: They essentially handed Republicans their agenda on a platter at the eleventh hour to prevent a government shutdown.

In the end, Democrats were "driven by the clock and not by the product of what's created," McCarthy added. Serious negotiations could have occurred much earlier in the year, instead of holding out stubbornly until the end of the session when all eyes were on several major unresolved bills. Sensible bipartisan compromises in piecemeal over the year look much more authoritative, organized, and productive than the harried disarray that unfolded in the past month.

Incidentally, according to McConnell, the only truly bipartisan piece of legislation where genuine compromise was part of the equation was ethics reform, signed into law in September. But even Democrats, who heralded the landmark reforms, took advantage of the loopholes in the bill to insert about 300 air dropped earmarks which had not been taken up by either the House or Senate on the floor or as part of a vote.

Now, with the Democrats' base up in arms, the Democrats' infighting publicly aired, and the minority declaring victory, backed up by the mainstream media no less, the bills don't even appear bipartisan. Democrats came out with the short end of the stick, even though the odds were clearly in their favor after the midterm elections.

While Hillary is busy wrapping up universal health care, and "bring troops home" presents for potential voters, Democrats won't be able to deliver these or any other promised initiatives this Christmas season.
By Whitney Blake
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[quatrops]

Sorry for the typo. Should read "consistently strong economy".

While I''m here, let me add the fact that most of us can''t afford the healthcare, particularly the Rxs, that we need. And Bush twice vetoed the plan for kids that even non-toe-the-line Republicans supported.

Some "economy", Alan.

[quatrops]

Gasoloine prices are headed out of sight. The housing market has totally tanked.

The middle class is shrinking, the rich are getting richer and the poor, poorer.

This is alanrobisch''s (9:21 12/27) "consistently strong econmomy

[knyghtwolf]

I wonder how pappy bush feels every time he turns on his computer to read the news or watches tv, no, I wonder how the WHOLE bush clan feels knowing how the United States, the W*O*R*L*D it self feels about a family member such as dubya & his politics. That kind of publicity has gotta hurt like H*E*L*L. Like the holocost survivors of Nazi Germany, hopefully this will chronologically be kept in order for it to NEVER be repeated again as a lesson in historical significance.

[KYJurisDoctor]

Thanks to the ABLE leadership of Kentucky''s Senator, Mitch McConnell.

http://OsiSpeaks.com or http://OsiSpeaks.org

[quatrops]

Some synonyms for "cretin", commonsence1, are "ninny", "nitwit", and "softhead" . . . certainly apt adjectives for someone predicting a major Republican victory in 11/08.

[jon2012-2009]

commonsence1, I''m not crying over spilled milk but decrying the culture of underhandedness that chacracterizes the Republican party. It''s just spilled milk to you but it''s still evidence of the dirty deeds.

[jon2012-2009]

Maybe you forgot 9/11 kind of put the dampers on. As far as the economy we have had since his tax breaks we have had a consistently strong economy.
Posted by alanrobisch2 at 09:21 PM : Dec 27, 2007

I guess you haven''t kept up with the times and still buy into voodoo economics. Fifty million households, 36% of American households, received no benefits from the tax cut in 2003. If you''re one of those who got a $27,000 check, good for you. (I got $300 as did most people I know.) For that paltry sum, now I''m concerned that my Social Security benefits will not be there when I need them. However, the greatest immediate impact of the tax cut was to widen the gap between rich and poor in America, not exactly good news for an industrialized democracy.

[jon2012-2009]

notblue, you''re making too much out of Bush''s reelection in 2004. Let''s recap. He was "elected" in 2000 with less popular vote than Gore, with the help of Republican shenanigans in Florida and an obviously partisan right-leaning Supreme Court. Put an asterisk on that one.

In 2004, the country was still reeling from the shock of 9/11, the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan playing into the hands of a president who was able to exploit the gullibility of Americans with lies and false appeals to patriotism. Did I forget to add Swift Boat Veterans for Truth was instrumental in scratching out that election victory? People like you would hail that a feat with a straight face.

[mango7777-2009]

The real problem is that the stalinist democraps cant figure out how far to the left to go, they are pretty much out of sight already, setting the stage for a sweep next elections.

[quatrops]

Beginning with the now-typical anal fixation of right side posters (notblue) and ending with commonsence''s prediction of a Republican sweep in 11/08, it''s clearly evident there was something toxic in the holiday eggnog in right-side households. "Brain dead" hardly begins to describe the affliction evident in most of their postings for this article.

Given the parliamentary peculiarities of congress and a stubborn president unwilling to compromise, I would like one of you cretins to explain how the Democrats could do much more than slow down the "ship of state" (which is now more like a garbage scow) since 2006.

The main mistake of the Democratic leadership was to assume that in hoping to salvage what was left of conservative principles, Bush and the Republicans in congress would be willing to recognize the will of the electorate. They weren''t.

The neo-con hijacking of the much-needed conservative Republican party has set the stage for a Democratic landslide in November, which may not be the best thing for our country, but we can thank Cheney and his proto-fascist cabal for that. Hopefully, things will level out by 2012.