Worried about Obama? Meet the real threat(s)

[kevin1]

Obama's Real Opposition
Presidents come and go; Congressional barons are forever.



[/align]Now that Barack Obama has vanquished John McCain, he faces a much greater foe: Democrats on Capitol Hill. They've humbled the last two Democratic Presidents -- and with their enhanced majorities next year, they'll be out to do it again.Mr. Obama may appreciate the threat, because yesterday he offered Clinton White House veteran Rahm Emanuel a job as his chief of staff. But even that savvy, relatively sane liberal will have difficulties grappling with the fearsome committee chairmen and liberal interest groups that did so much to sabotage Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. Meet the President-elect's real opposition:

David Obey. The Appropriations Chairman wants to slash defense spending as a money grab for more social programs and entitlements. Fellow spender Barney Frank recently added that a military budget cut of 25% was about right. A military crash diet wouldn't leave the funds for the surge in Afghanistan that Mr. Obama advocates, and it's a sure way to hand the national security issue back to the GOP.

Chuck Schumer. The Senate Democrat and his friends are already threatening banks if they don't lend more money instantly under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Other political masters want to use Tarp to nationalize large swaths of U.S. industry such as the Detroit auto makers or to bail out states like New York that are in debt. If Mr. Obama doesn't want to have to pass a Tarp II, he'll have to say no.

George Miller. Some Democrats are starting to target the tax subsidies for 401(k)s and other private retirement options. Mr. Miller, who heads the House Education and Labor Committee, calls them "a big failure" and recently held a hearing to ponder alternatives, including nationalizing pensions and replacing them with special bonds administered by Social Security. The proposal has also caught the eye of Jim McDermott, who chairs the relevant Ways and Means subcommittee. Mr. Obama won big with his promise of tax cuts for the middle class, which doesn't square with attacks on middle-class nest eggs.

John Conyers. The man running House Judiciary is cheerleading the Europeans who want to indict Bush officials for war crimes. Other Democrats are thinking about hearings and other show trials. This is far from the postpartisan reconciliation that Mr. Obama preaches.

Henry Waxman. With President Bush soon to be out of office, the Californian's team of Inspector Clouseaus at House Oversight won't have any "scandals" left to pursue. The word in Washington is that Mr. Waxman is looking to unseat John Dingell as Chairman of Energy and Commerce, in order to shove aside a global warming moderate. That could pave the way for huge new energy taxes. Voters will punish Mr. Obama if they get hammered every time they fill up the gas tank or buy groceries.

Pete Stark. The Chairman of a crucial House subcommittee dealing with health care doesn't think Mr. Obama's proposal to significantly federalize the insurance market goes far enough. He wants a single-payer system like Canada's. Mr. Obama may want to strike a deal with Senate Republicans on health care, but Mr. Stark will be pulling him left at every turn.

All of these feudal lords -- and many others -- also come with their own private armies: the interest groups that compose the money and manpower of today's Democratic Party. The American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch and others on the anti-antiterror left want Mr. Obama to limit the surveillance and other tools that have prevented another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. The Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental Defense will insist on onerous caps -- that is, taxes -- on coal and other carbon energy. Those won't help Mr. Obama carry Ohio and Indiana again in four years.

The trial bar wants an end to arbitration in disputes in return on its Senate investment, while the National Education Association will try to gut No Child Left Behind accountability standards. And organized labor will insist on a major push to pass "card check," which would end secret-ballot elections for unions. If Mr. Obama wants to mobilize the business community against him while squeezing moderate Democrats, he'll go along with that right from the start.

While many voters may think they've voted for "change" in Mr. Obama, they also handed power to the oldest forces in the Old Democratic Party. Jimmy Carter campaigned as a moderate and outsider, but Congressional liberals quickly ran his budget director, the economic centrist Bert Lance, out of town. Then they overrode Mr. Carter's veto of a pork-barrel water bill. Mr. Carter referred to the tax committees as "ravenous wolves" after they transformed his tax reform into a special-interest bouquet. Next came Reagan.

Bill Clinton also campaigned as a moderate, but in his first two years he was unable to govern as Congress pursued liberal priorities, including a big boost in taxes and spending. Recall Roberta Achtenberg as the scourge of the Boy Scouts and Joycelyn Elders calling for the legalization of drugs? Mr. Clinton chose -- or was forced -- to take up gun control and HillaryCare before welfare reform. Next came Newt Gingrich.

Maybe Mr. Obama has absorbed these lessons, but even if he has he'll have to be tough. The Great Society liberals who dominate Congress are old men in a hurry, and they'll run over the 47-year-old neophyte if he lets them.[/ul][/align]

[Lanse couche couche]

That is perhaps my biggest fear; that Obama will attempt to govern pragmatically rather than idealistically, but that the Pelosi posse will not have his back nd wil linstead continue to try to play partisan liberal games.

[MikeVT]

Good post Kevin, however, given BHO's past extremist views, why should I be convinced that he will not embrace these fellow democratsand govern from the far left???

[kevin1]

ORIGINAL: MikeVT

Good post Kevin, however, given BHO's past extremist views, why should I be convinced that he will not embrace these fellow democratsand govern from the far left???

I didn't say "Don't worry about Obama", after all he's the one who signs all the new laws that will be coming down the pike. It's his liberal baron cronies in the stacked deck of Congress who will do us the most damage.

[falcon]

Great post Kevin.

#1

[MikeVT]

Not a swipe at you, I just meant to confer my fears of him working with the radical left. I agree with you, it is these entrenched figures that could do us the most harm. The funniest thing is that if he signs their leftist agenda into law and the public disagrees, it will be BHO, not congress, that will feel their wrath. By the way, what is approval rating for congress these days??

[Arthur P]

I think you're going overboard. Contrary to popular belief around here, the Democrats are not made up entirely of limp-wristed fairy liberals. The far left liberals certainly do have a backlog of stuff they want, but the Democratic party as a whole, I believe, has learned a lesson from the Republicans. Don't go whole hog after your extreme wing's agenda or watch your time at the top come to a sudden, ignominious end. The

Democrats are wanting to expand their base even more and solidify their grip on power, and the only way I see to do that is for them to give up on the gun control and animal rights flakes and make friends with hunters and gun owners. That will definitely give them an inroad with white male blue collar workers across that swath of red states through the south. If they do that and keep spending under control like they managed to do under Clinton, I can't see the Republicans coming back to power for a long, long time.

But if they screw it all up and let the knuckleheads run off with the show, then they'll be sucking hind teat behind the Republicans again in short order. I think they know this.

[MikeVT]

ORIGINAL: Arthur P

I think you're going overboard. Contrary to popular belief around here, the Democrats are not made up entirely of limp-wristed fairy liberals. The far left liberals certainly do have a backlog of stuff they want, but the Democratic party as a whole, I believe, has learned a lesson from the Republicans. Don't go whole hog after your extreme wing's agenda or watch your time at the top come to a sudden, ignominious end. The

Democrats are wanting to expand their base even more and solidify their grip on power, and the only way I see to do that is for them to give up on the gun control and animal rights flakes and make friends with hunters and gun owners. That will definitely give them an inroad with white male blue collar workers across that swath of red states through the south. If they do that and keep spending under control like they managed to do under Clinton, I can't see the Republicans coming back to power for a long, long time.

But if they screw it all up and let the knuckleheads run off with the show, then they'll be sucking hind teat behind the Republicans again in short order. I think they know this.

I don't know, during her speech, Pelosi looked like a teenager who was just given her drivers license and the keys to dad's new sportscar. We'll see if she keeps it under 55.

[kevin1]

That's the problem Arthur, it's the knuckleheads who are leading the party by it's collective noses, the biggest dogs bark the loudest and the smaller ones are nearly always cowed into submission. Liberals own that party lock, stock, and barrel, and they won't be satisfied until we're a socialist welfare state like many of the eurotrash(No offense Remi)countries they hold up as ideals. Look to those countries for their agenda:

Strict gun control
total goobermint control over most things
crippling taxes
curtailment of individual freedoms

One thing I'll never grasp is why they so badly want to adopt a system so flawed that even the folks who invented it are straying toward our wildly sccessful freedom based capitalist model. The Russkies and Chinese are only socialist by name these days(too busy swimming in our money), and only the most hardcore commie dictatorships continue to believe that their system is superior to ours. Rest assured that the euro worshippers in Congress will try to drag us down to that level, if only to set themselves up as the ruling daimyos of their own fiefdoms.

[Arthur P]

Pelosi is certainly going to need a good b*tch slapping from Obama to put her in her place and another every so often to keep her there. Obama's got more political savvy in his little finger than Pelosi, Ried and all those others have got, combined. If they've got any sense at all, they'll take his lead.