Posted on 07/01/2010 5:41:38 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
If legislation were dirt, Democrats would have piled up a mountain of it over the past 18 months, digging themselves in a deep political hole in the process.
The House that Nancy (Pelosi) built continues to ramrod new policies through the legislative process, hoping the bustle will salve America’s sour mood. Senate Democrats move a little more slowly due to different institutional rules, yet their hearts are in the same place: the more legislative production the better.
That’s what legislators do, after all. New laws are like seed corn, intended to grow public support.
But it’s not working. The congressional majority keeps passing initiatives they say respond to the public’s desire for “change.” Yet the combination of current liberal initiatives and uncertainty about future policies now seriously hampers economic growth and business risk-taking. It’s also taking a toll on congressional standing with voters.
Gallup reinforced this point last week, reporting Congress’s job approval rate hovering near an all time low of 20 percent.
Perceived liberalism in the lawmaking process may also impact Americans’ ideological self-identification. Gallup issued a separate study recently, demonstrating a significant rise in the number of Americans describing themselves as conservatives since the 2008 election.
Near record numbers now also say that the Democratic Party is “too liberal.”
Congressional Democrats must have heavy heads not to hear and see all this. Weighed down with tin ears and political blinders, they think Americans want what they’re selling.
True, some partisan Democrats and their media cheerleaders do. New York Times columnist Gail Collins swooned about Nancy Pelosi last week. Writing a love song fit for a Democratic National Committee rally, Collins gushed that the California Democrat was “the most powerful woman in the country, the most fearless person on Capitol Hill and on track to be one of the most productive speakers in history.”
But independents worry that “productive” translates to ideologically indulgent, like playing political roulette with other people’s money. In fact, Gallup tracking data on ideology shows a significant rise in conservatism among independents over the last two years. And some point to the Democratic agenda as a primary cause of this shift.
Michael Boland, a former senior House GOP leadership aide, who now runs Dome Advisors, a Washington-based research company for institutional investors, sent out an analysis to his clients last week that sums up how Democrats’ hyperactive legislating and spending impacts independent voters.
“What motivates Democrats to push an agenda that pushes the independents away?” Boland asks. “Democrats believe in their agenda. They believe it is why they were elected. They believe every one of their voters deserves his or her very own subsection in their city-size 2000-plus page ‘comprehensive’ bills on federal stimulus spending, health care, energy, environment and banking. Democrats believe their body of work will boost their electoral prospects.”
In other words, every problem deserves a federal government fix using your money. Democrats reshaped the health care system, the student loan business, spent hundreds of billions on a stimulus bill, and passed massive cap and trade legislation in the House.
Their agenda is not only pushing independents away. It’s also terrifying the folks creating jobs in this country – American businesses.
Ivan Seidenberg, Verizon CEO and chairman of the Business Roundtable, blistered the Democrats in a speech last week at the Economic Club of Washington.
“We have become somewhat troubled by a growing disconnect between Washington and the business community that is harming our ability to expand the economy and grow private-sector jobs in the U.S.,” said Seidenberg.
Writing about the Seidenberg speech, the Wall Street Journal's Kimberly Strassel said the business community now suffers from a serious case of “buyers remorse” when it comes to Democrats in Congress
Democrats argue we can get the economy humming again if more people get government employment. That’s an unsustainable and misguided goal.
CNBC’s Jim Cramer concurred Monday saying, “With no employment growth, and a fear that Washington’s anti-stock agenda will crimp the earnings of all kinds of companies across the board, the sense of doom and gloom, the Jimmy Carter-esque malaise, is almost palpable."
Stock market jitters and volatility this past week support that verdict.
Yet it’s more than just the legislative substance that bothers independents, business leaders, and others. It’s also the congressional style. House Democrats typically pass every major bill on near party line votes.
Strategies like this may thrill Democratic partisans, but it leaves a majority wondering why the process is so divisive and polarized.
Slowing down and building more consensus would improve the Democrats’ approval numbers. Yet that would mean modifying their agenda, a set of programs they want to enact before voters take away these politicians’ shovels in November.
I too am afraid for the republic.
It will not stop in November but will continue into January, until the shovels are ripped from their hands and they are thrown into the graves they have dutifully dug for themselves. Then we will see if the Republicans have the moral and political courage to bury the dead.
For many years, I have advocated that Congrwess needs to meet about once every two years and the rest of the time, STAY HOME!!! If the president needs them for something, he or she can call them into special session, just like the state legislatures. The fact is that the more these people are together, in session, the more mischief they get into and the more they waste our tax dollars creating nothing out of something in the belief that it justifies their jobs.
I propose that Congress should be in session in Washington, D.C., for only about a month when they are in session. With today’s telecommunications technologies, they can stay home and work from their districts where it is easier for their constituents to have access to them and they have to live in the mess they make.
As long as they are able to live in Washington in their exclusive communities with all kinds of security, protected and isolated from the people who employ and pay them, they can and do whatever they want. It’s way past time to end the taxpayer funded frat party called Congress. Let’s bring them all back so they can be “home schooled” and find out about life in the REAL world - NOT the bizarro world of Washington.
Perhaps we should go back to the days just after the Revolution when it took days to travel to Washington, New York, or Philadelphia, depending on where they were meeting. If Congresscritters had to go to their session via horseback, covered wagon, or carriage, instead of private super jet (like Pelosi), they might have time to look around at the country and ponder what they are doing to us. They could even talk to people along the way. All their staffs should be cut in half, for starters. No limos. No servents for their houses. No groundskeepers. Let them live like normal people for a change.
sionnsar to Prophet: They won't.
Don't hold your breath, although I agree with the sentiment. However, you remind me of something that occurred in Texas in the 80s that sorta ties in with the elitist ideas of our political class.
In the mid-60s, Texas enacted a set of "blue laws" establishing a hodge-podge of ignorance that stipulated what could and could not be sold on Sundays. The list was just dumb - for example, you could buy baby formula, but not diapers. You could buy a hammer, but not nails - stupid stuff. Texans hated it from the git-go and began a battle with the state legislature to have the blue laws repealed (the legislature wouldn't budge). In the 80s (I think, maybe the late 70s), a newly elected governor proposed an Initiative and Referendum bill so that the citizens could bring issues to the ballot box if they could get enough legitimate signatures on their petitions. The legislature voted it down. Afterward, one legislator (from the Houston area) stated that the reason the legislature voted against the bill was because they "didn't want that kind of power in the hands of the people".
Astonishingly, NO ONE picked up on what he said! In a government of, by and for the people, the representatives of that government "didn't want that kind of power in the hands of the people". That attitude is still prevalent in our elected officials. They don't know who they work for.
I lived in TX in the 70s and early 80s, and I don’t remember that. But it would have infuriated me had I noticed that comment. We have such a pitiful referendum process in WI that it is non-existent for all practical purposes. My husband is always thumping on our State reps to put in a true referendum from the people, but I fear it is impossible.
I think that our current referendum has to be suggested by the Legislature, passed twice by the people, and then passed again by the legislature and then signed by the Governor. I could be wrong on a step there, but it ensures that nothing coming from the people will ever be passed and signed into law. We’ve passed photo voter ID 3 times and it has been vetowed every time. Same with Concealed Carry. Same with Death Penalty for Capital crimes.
Of course in CA, which has the best people’s referendum, the legislature, or the courts, just over-ride the people’s vote, so...???
BTW, I do remember the Killer Bees scandal of that period where part of the legislature ran away and hid to avoid voting on something they didn’t want.
And I do remember the Blue Laws which were in place when I first moved there in 1972. They would put a chain, or a row of grocery carts, across the aisles of the grocery store wher you could not shop on Sunday. During those years you could not buy mixed drinks in many restaurants, including the Astrodome, unless you were a “member”. As I remember, membership cost $1 and was issued for the evening. Other places allowed you to buy “set ups” and you brought your own liquor in a brown paper bag. I don’t remember when all that went away, but I pretty sure that those laws were all gone by the time I moved away in 1982.
Stupidity, IMHO.
Same with the “dry” counties. They sure didn’t stop anyone from getting all the alcohol they wanted. 2 of my kids went to college in “dry” counties — Waco and Lubbock — and it didn’t stop the drinking and partying. My neighbor’s kid got kicked out of the dorm for rolling a keg of beer down the hall at Texas Tech. He just got an apartment. And the owner of the newspaper where I worked put herself through college (many, many years ago) by doing liquor runs to the next county and bringing back booze for her friends at TTech.
The Baylor kids just moved their parties to Dallas and rented hotels where they could drink and dance all they wanted.
Ah, yes, the Killer Bees . . . . . . the Texas Legislature at its best!! IIRC, the Killer Bees were hoping to prevent a vote on a new re-districting plan that was not favorable to adding more Dems to the Texas Legislature.
Since then, the Texas Legislature has become a Republican majority body versus a Democrat majority and things have improved. That’s one of the main reasons why Texas has a strong economy and jobs out the wazzoo.
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