Will the New Congress Be Different?
by Jeff Davis
The Republican Congress is coming into office in a few days. One significant change is the Tea Party. There are a number of House Representatives and Senators who are effectively wild cards, who may actually do things and ask questions, which polite mainstream Republicans would never dare.
USA Today reports: “An incoming House committee chairman said today that the new Republican majority will probably move this month to repeal President Obama’s health care bill, setting up a major political battle over the president’s major domestic initiative. Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., incoming chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, agreed that the Senate is unlikely to follow suit, and Obama would doubtless veto any repeal effort. But he said Republicans would then seek to block various aspects of the law, including the requirement that all Americans buy health insurance.”
Obama can veto any attempt to repeal his health care bill so this seems like a waste of time except as a political stunt. This is going to be the story of the next two years; gridlock, which is fine, so long as it prevents Obama from destroying any more of what remains of America. But will it? A president with nothing to lose can still do some damage.
The article notes “‘We’re going to go after this bill piece by piece,’ Upton said on Fox News Sunday, later adding: ‘We will look at these individual pieces to see if we can’t have the thing crumble.’ Upton said a general repeal vote by the House will probably take place before the president’s State of the Union address, which is expected to be in late January. The health care law is also under challenge in federal court.”
Well, if the Republicans do have the moral courage to go after Obamacare, more power to them. I’ll believe it when I see it. The Republicans even more so than the Democrats have a tendency to have memories six minutes long when it comes to campaign promises. Politicians think promises are for the “rubes” on election day, not something one keeps.
What you have to remember is that through some kind of weird unwritten code or something, Congress and the federal government never repeal any of this liberal crap once it’s passed. Social security, medicare, the Civil Rights Act, Roe vs. Wade, now openly Gay soldiers in the military, all of these things are now effectively engraved in stone. No conservative opposition ever has or most likely ever will succeed in repealing any of this –at least not with the two-party system in its current configuration.
Will the Republican class of 2011 be any different with all those Tea Party types in there? It’s true they don’t have the numbers yet, but they do seem to have the will of the White majority behind them. Anyone who gets in front of the Tea Party steamroller is likely to get flattened in his next election just ask Senator Bob Bennet or Senator Arlen Specter.
Of course, the usual corrupting influences will try to seduce the Tea Party politicians into becoming venal sleazebags just like John McCain. Let’s hope the Tea Party folks aren’t so quick to sell their souls.
