Last Binge Of A Condemned Congress
Unchecked Power: Having nothing to lose as they tumble toward November's electoral cliff, Democrats have gone into legislative overdrive. With the hangman ready, the condemned are ordering the whole menu.
The way things look right now, 2010 could go down in history as one of the biggest reversals of political power ever - with even "safe" seats in big trouble.
Take Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., chairman of the powerful pork-wielding House Appropriations Committee, who has held his seat since before man walked on the moon. He looks like a dead duck against a Republican challenge from a current county district attorney and MTV "Real World" alumnus named Sean Duffy - who wasn't even born when Obey took office.
"It's not a lifetime appointment," Duffy told the New York Times for a story on the numerous vulnerable Democrats who were once unbeatable.
But like Thelma and Louise when they knew the jig was up, the Democratic Congress has decided it might as well put the pedal to the metal and go over the precipice with a crash and a bang. Unfortunately, they've got an already pummeled economy in the back seat with them.
No one should misinterpret the rearranging of the cap-and-trade and immigration deck chairs on the Democrats' Titanic. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid want both - bullying industry in the name of saving the planet and buying Hispanic votes with amnesty for illegal aliens.
As Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said over the weekend in reaction to moderate Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., angrily withdrawing his support on cap-and-trade:
"We all believe that this year is our best and perhaps last chance for Congress to pass a comprehensive approach."
In talking up an immigration bill, Democrats are scrambling for more votes from their base, but all it will do is fan the flames of anti-Washington sentiment. We've been assured before that this problem is fixed - that we'll have one last, big amnesty - only to find still more millions of people here in violation of the law.
The big question is whether Republicans are smart enough to exploit the issue for what it is: an illustration of the divide between Americans who believe in the rule of law and politicians looking to import millions of new votes for their big-government agenda.
Then there's the massive financial industry bill being pushed by Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn. It further institutionalizes the too-big-to-fail policy and claims to "end bailouts" by making financial firms give $50 billion to the Treasury. As on health reform, you won't see any outstretched hands across the aisle as Democrats try to steamroll GOP opposition into yet another monster spending and regulatory law.
As the Manhattan Institute's Nicole Gelinas noted on these pages last week, a $50 billion preemptive bailout fund is a joke.
"How much would an 'orderly liquidation fund' have needed to stem investor panic starting in 2008?" Gelinas asked. "Try $20 trillion." (Don't give Pelosi, Reid and the president ideas.)
On top of that is new front-burner status for a bill by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to undo the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling that scrapped the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. The Schumer bill would try to stop political advertising by banks receiving federal bailout money, make CEOs and big donors attach their names to campaign ads, force TV and radio stations to lower ad rates for candidates opposed by corporate-funded advertising and ban firms from discussing ad plans mentioning candidates.
What will Democrats call something so obviously in violation of the First Amendment? "The American Business Gag Act"?
Finally, there are the volcanic rumblings heard, even from the president himself, about a value-added tax. An original supply-sider, Bruce Bartlett, who now believes "supply-side economics should declare victory and then go out of existence," has warmed to an American VAT - but only because the battle on spending is, he believes, permanently lost.
Bartlett has come to "think it's impossible to cut spending enough to forestall a fiscal crisis, that taxes will eventually be raised a lot, that it would be economically debilitating to raise income tax rates as high as would be necessary to get the necessary revenue, and that a broad-based consumption tax such as a VAT would be much less damaging to the economy than very large budget deficits."
In this year of the Tea Party, we disagree with Bartlett that massive spending cuts are only possible in "a libertarian fantasy world." Our representatives can - and must - be stopped from sending the economy to the election gallows before the voters send them there.
