Almost all political pundits were amazed with the extent of the Republic Party victory in the midterm elections when sixty-three congressmen and six senators were replaced, making this election perhaps the biggest one-party swing in the House of Representatives since 1932. Certainly the republicans had not earned it. Their departure from constitutional limited government, the free market, and fiscal responsibility during the George W. Bush administration amplified in the Barack Obama administration, resulted in the Tea Party movement. Moreover, their endorsement of slow socialism, as opposed to fast socialism as espoused by most democrats, certainly did not endear the GOP to the majority of Americans who mostly wanted big government to just leave them alone.
The Tea Party movement was responsible. It moved the Republican Party closer to America’s core values (now those of the Tea Party), even causing them to pull the badly neglected Constitution out of their pockets (some few actually carried it with them to use as some kind of prop when needed) and open the previously unturned pages. That said, they actually read it in The House of Representatives and should be applauded for having done so. Those of the opposing party probably had to go online, or to a bookstore, to find a copy. We still await Senator Harry Reid to follow suit with a similar reading in the U. S. Senate. The democrats probably will not do so as many no longer even pretend to follow it. I hope that I have shamed both political parties with their measure of neglect of this document.
So what about the December political tsunami? The election gave the clearest rejection of the political direction that has been given in several decades. What should a congress do, realizing that they have proceeded down a path that so alarmed a majority of their fellow citizens? Let them slow down and walk away with some dignity! Instead, in total contempt of the American people, the 111 Congress accelerated their disregard for limited constitutional government, fiscal responsibility, and the free market. They were so “hell-bent” in the opposing direction it was as though there had been no election. With their “the sky is falling” type of legislation, the rejected party bulldozed forward. Americans were hit with at least seven major pieces of legislation that had to be approved within a month and before the new congress was seated, each of which should have had at least two months of hearings and serious debate before a vote. One party government still prevailed for another month, and “Yes We Can” was still their war cry.
Among them was a revision of food legislation, the new Food Safety Bill, in place since 1932, gave expanded power on domestic production to the Federal Government and cost an estimated 1.4 billion to implement. A new Nuclear Arms Treaty with Russia (START) in which Russia threatened lawmakers not to alter the treaty’s terms as they wouldn’t renegotiate if anything were changed. Why did we not wait for the new congress rather than let those removed from power in three weeks have final say? We cowered under Russia’s intimidation strategy, and both the President and Vice President went to the phones pushing for quick acceptance. Debate was limited. Yet another major change allowed gays to serve openly in the military.
Everything was placed on fast tract. Another major piece of legislation was The Dream Act, designed to assist young illegal immigrants in becoming citizens if they attended college or joined the military. It alone, of all the measures, failed. Then came the compromise extending both unemployment compensation for the nth time, at an estimated cost of $858 billion, and the Bush Tax Cuts. Finally, there was the bill funding the government, due early last fall but not legislated prior to the elections as the party in power did not want their fiscal irresponsibility “flash-lighted”—a mere 1.3 trillion dollar bill—laced with gobs of self-serving pork. The bill passed as is until March. Funding the government and the extension of the Bush Tax Cuts were the only two issues that needed fast track status. The new congress could do everything else.
This collection of sweeping laws, the most in a single month in my lifetime, is dubbed December’s Political Tsunami. The vast majority of which was at odds with the message of the mid-term voters: slow down, the sky is not falling, and more debt must cease to be the solution to every problem. So many changes in a mere 3 ½ weeks were head spinning.
