The Republican Party won important seats in the November elections. It’s clear that voters are impatient with the slow pace of economic growth, and they are not sure what the United States is supposed to be doing in Iraq and Afghanistan any longer. Nancy Pelosi, for reasons that escape me, attracted Republican ire more than anyone else, and so the House of Representatives is now controlled by a Republican majority.
The question is whether those new representatives came to govern or only to conquer. Some of the noise coming from the victors is not promising. It’s utter nonsense to say that they plan to repeal “Obamacare,” the health care reform law (or set of laws) passed just last year. Not only can they muster nothing like a veto-busting majority in either house of Congress, but just about no one thinks it would be a good idea to repeal the law now that it’s been put into motion. Calling for immediate tax cuts in the middle of an economic crisis (though we may not be in the middle any more) is also not a smart idea. Republicans also dissed the president by saying they could not find the time to meet with him when he asked for a sit-down. That’s just petty.
But the new Speaker of the House, John Boenher, has said some more hopeful things. He is no Blue Dog, but at least he has acknowledged that the new Republicans need to find common ground with the president and the Democratic-controlled Senate. Even with the Tea Party types howling at the moon, it may happen that the Republicans can help clean up some of the flaws in the financial and health care reforms and then push us forward.
It’s also up to the Democrats, and the president in particular, to stop feeling sorry for themselves and fight back. They need not only to seek consensus but to push some weight around – weight they certainly have, if only in the White House.
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