Slowing Down the Obama Agenda

Written by John Vecchione on Sunday February 28, 2010

The GOP is expected to score a big pickup of House seats in November's elections. But with President Obama still in the White House and the Democrats likely keeping the Senate, Republicans will need to focus on policies that can pull independent and Democratic support.

As I wrote before, President Obama and the Democrats may be creating a Republican majority by the combination of incompetence and left-wing ideology.  How should Republicans respond?  Well, they cannot take back the House until January of 2011, after the November elections.  I don’t expect the Senate will fully switch but it cannot be taken before 2011 either.  The Republican campaigning and governing agenda depends in part on what the Democrats do between now and then.  Two observers on the right, Andy McCarthy and William Kristol do not think that Obamacare is Elvis-dead yet.

So the Republican agenda until 2012 needs to take into account that Barack Obama will be President until then and the Democrats will likely hold the Senate.  How can we improve the country and continue to pull voters to us?  The Republican Party needs to knit together its base with those independents frightened by huge deficits.  Ross Perot is disliked by elites and showed himself to be unstable when he ran for President, but I do not think it’s a complete accident that America for the only time in my life approached a balanced budget just after he scared each party into competing for his voters.  The first item on the Republican agenda must be to stop Obamacare coming in through reconciliation.  I think Andrew McCarthy misjudges how much politicians like being elected, and how Machiavellian each House member is.  However, I have not done the math.

Before scoffing at him though remember two issues where either party was willing to lose because they felt it was so important. First, gun control.  This may have been  miscalculation rather than principle, but many Democrats were willing to sacrifice giant portions of their enduring House majorities in the mid 1990’s to pass the “assault weapons” ban.  It was an ideological vote.  The Republicans won by running against it and it is not the law today. Second, the Iraq War.  Many Republicans were willing to lose an election rather than abandon the fight against the jihadis and Iran there.  Iraq was less damaging than it might have been but the Republican Party determined to lose its majorities rather than lose the war.  If healthcare is a similar vote, and the Democrats are as keen on passing it, the first thing Republicans must do is struggle to stop it both in the House and the Senate.  One item on the agenda will be finding a way to make retiring Democrats heroes by voting against it, rather than for it.

Assuming Obamacare is dead, or at least dead in a command and control form that takes over 17% of the American economy, the Republicans must deal with the filibuster and the veto.  Policies must be crafted that overcome these political facts of life.  Fortunately they come to hand.  The budget can not be filibustered.  All tax and budget bills must begin in the House.  Republicans must promise to put in the budget a prohibition on spending unspent stimulus funds.  Further, they must also pledge and run on stopping the use of TARP funds for anything other than bank rescues that have already occurred.  Together depending on what is spent by then, these two items will cut spending by nearly half a trillion dollars.

After that, the agenda is more problematic but can be done from the House with some hope of Democratic support.  First, require the sale of GM and Chrysler interests of the U.S. government within two years.  Whether the U.S. is paid back on its loans is less important than disentangling these giant industrial concerns from the federal government.  The ownership of these companies by the federal government is intensely unpopular.  A budget item could be attached that prevented federal monies from being spent to purchase vehicles from any company accepting federal takeover.  This would not be subject to filibuster and if passed would give the unions and the companies incentive to get out from under Uncle Sam quickly.  I suspect Ford would also lobby for it.

Next, pass a bill removing carbon dioxide from the  regulatory control of the EPA.  This would pass a Republican House.  The debate on whether a gas exhaled by humans, and 95% of whose sources are natural and not manmade, ought to be regulated by the FDA would be a great way to demonstrate how overreaching the regulatory state has become.  It would also drive a wedge between Southern and Midwestern Democrats and the coastal liberals.  After this winter Democrats from upstate New York to Minnesota do not want to be told they can not burn coal to heat their homes.  If Republicans take five Senate seats, they might very well get enough Democratic support to pass such a bill.  Even if it failed because of veto or filibuster, fear of it would temper any economy killing regulation by the EPA.  Such a filibuster and veto would also signal to independents which party wants to run all of American life.

The key tax item must be to extend the Bush tax-cuts for four years.  While making them permanent would fit with supply-side orthodoxy, preventing a giant tax hike in a recession is likely to be both popular and more effective in allowing growth than federal spending.  Morever, this would make their expiration again in the non-Presidential year of 2014 an issue that would buoy Republicans at a time when they may have control of the entire government and its problems.  Should Obama and the Democrats stop this by veto or otherwise it would simply shrink their coalition further.

Obama’s Supreme Court nominees must be exposed and opposed.  I say this assuming he will appoint a known left judge who is on record as holding that same-sex marriage is constitutionally required, or that the document requires equal outcomes, or that international decisions can overcome the American electorates decisions.  President Obama comes from academia. His next appointments are also likely to come from there.  Elena KaganCass (celebrate tax day!) Sunstein and Harold Koh are all likely nominees for vacancies.  All are bright, respected lawyers and all must be opposed because they do not believe that the words and history of the Constitution govern constitutional outcomes.  It is nearly impossible to stop a President’s nominees from the minority but Republicans must sharpen this issue.  The expanded state owes much to non-originalist rulings and this is an issue that hurts Democrats.

Finally, hold House hearings on national security under the Obama administration.  Once the gavel passes from Democrats to Republicans in the House the ability to hold hearings on any subject of governance and issue subpoenas comes into Republican hands.  Republican pressure has already sent the White House reeling from ill-considered policies in terror trials and Guantanamo.  An investigation of what former lawyers for terrorists are doing in the Justice Department, how the decision was made to try KSM in New York, and a further investigation of “diversity” and other liberal hobby horses in our military would solidify Republican advantages and make the adoption of useful policies more likely.

This agenda is modest, doable, unites Republicans and independents and improves the economy.  Until 2012, the veto will stop reformation of Fannie and Freddie, broad deregulation, reemphasizing our traditional alliances and appointing originalist judges, but much that is good for the country and the party can be accomplished with President Obama in the White House.

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