In thinking about the aftermath of the election last night put John Boehner in the Speaker’s chair, wherein I predict a completely dysfunctional Federal Government and a second recession, we need to make sure Democrats recognize one of the reasons for their loss and move TODAY to partially neutralize that threat, lest they become the permanent minority party that Karl Rove predicted.
The lame duck Congress MUST pass the DISCLOSE ACT before the end of the year so that President Obama can sign this into law.
Last night’s victory by the TEA/GOP was not so much a victory for them as it was for their corporate backers that gave over $100 million to the Chamber of Commerce and Rove’s Crossroads group. The Washington Post has a nifty map to show how much was spent by what groups to influence the elections.
This spending will only go up in 2 years with the President and Congress up for election.
While waiting for the 2012, the Republicorp Party will completely decimate our social safety net and will shut the government down. It happened in 1995, and I predict a similar shut down in 2011. The GOP has already proven that they are unwilling to cooperate with Democrats and President Obama and they are even farther over the edge now than in 1994.
This is their Grover Norquist "Drown it in the bathtub moment". The house must originate every spending bill, and it is unlikely that they will be willing to work with the Democratic (or should I say Democrat and use their vernacular) controlled Senate. They have sold their souls to the TEA party and cannot work with Democrats lest they get teabagged like Senator Bennett (R-UT) and the rest. Rest assured, they do not care how bad things get for the average person.
They will start by passing bills to repeal the Healthcare Reform bill, and when that doesn’t pass, they will eliminate the budget for the Department of Health and Human Services.
They will defund the Department of Education and force the layoffs of hundreds of thousands of teachers.
They will defund the Federal Government portion of Medicaid, forcing states to enter near bankrupt conditions.
They will defund the EPA, so that there is no money to enforce environmental laws and policies to keep the water and air clean.
They will defund the Dept of Labor and stop enforcement actions that might hurt their big business backers.
Their devastation will know no bounds because they want things to get worse. At the same time, their corporate backers will keep their cash on the sidelines and keep unemployment high. Until the 2012 elections roll around.
In 2012, they corporate cash under great oxymoronic names like American Crossroads will continue to flow because of the Citizen’s United decision of their partisan Supreme Court. They will then be attempting to buy the rest of the US Government. They will invest unprecedented cash to get a Republicorp President and Senate. This will be done, unless they are stopped now.
I call on the Lame Duck Democrats to band together now to pass the DISCLOSE ACT. They must do it now before they are out of power. They need to make sure that Senator Scott Brown knows that he will be target #1 in 2012. They need to let Senator Snowe know that she will be Target #2 in 2012, if they don’t support the cloture vote. Cut the deals to leave DSCC cash on the sidelines if necessary, but get the Cloture vote done.
Pass the DISCLOSE ACT or become the permanent minority party.