Divided Government

Divided Government

Neal Boortz
November 3, 2010

So ... We now have a House solidly under the control of the Republicans. As things stand now the Democrats will have a three seat advantage in the Senate. I'm not upset with this scenario. I've been wondering aloud for weeks what the effect might be on 2012 if the Republicans had both the House and the Senate ... with Obama standing alone as the champion of the Left at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It would be a classic "me vs. them" and would be so easy to spin in to an "Obama as besieged underdog" scenario. If the Republicans had taken the Senate it doesn't mean they would have been able to accomplish anything more than they can right now. Remember, it takes 60 votes in the Senate to pass important legislation, and there was no way the GOP was going to have those seats. I think the Republicans are better off following their agenda and sending bills to the Senate ... if the Democrats and Obama want to block that legislation - a repeal of ObamaCare, for instance, or an extension of the Bush tax cuts - then the voters will clearly see where the roadblocks are being erected.

The question is whether Obama should cooperate with Republicans or are Republicans expected to cooperate with Obama? Clearly it depends on who you ask. If it were up to the ObamaZombie media, it is the Republicans who are expected to cooperate with Obama. Any hint of Republican disagreement with Obama's policies will immediately bring back the "party of no" label in the ObamaMedia. Here's a possible Democrat talking point ... handily crafted for use by the leftist media:

"President Obama, in the spirit of bi-partisanship, is trying to move America forward but the Republicans are steadfast in blocking his agenda. If it weren't for these Republicans, Obama would have been able to pull us out of this mess by now!"

Unfortunately for the ObamaMedia they now have competition - FoxNews, bloggers, talk radio - to challenge them on the fact that Obama had two years with Democrat majorities in Congress, and he was unable to "move America forward."

Democrats who are currently calling the moving companies probably cannot, for the life of them, understand how they could be so misunderstood. This morning they're shaking their heads in wonderment. Just how could these voters fail to understand what is really best for their country and their families? Democrats do. The people just can't be trusted to spend their own money the right way! They need us! They don't know how to educate their children! They need us and the teacher's unions to get that done the right way. Those people would be nothing without government! How could they reject us this way?

Liberals genuinely believe that they know what is best for you - that they are smarter and wiser and you should trust them and the imperial federal government to do what is necessary to keep you doped up enough not to question the system. Just look around ... look at all of the great things that they have done for you! Today should be a day where you should be thanking them for everything they have done rather than kicking them to the curb. They will now sit and wait until you figure out that you don't like personal responsibility, liberty and freedom as much as you thought, and then you will come crawling back to them. And then the cycle continues.

But for the time being, we will now have (as of January) a divided government. This is a government where at least one chamber of Congress is controlled by the other party of the president. For all of the kicking and screaming we are prepared to endure from the Democrats, for the rest of us concerned about our future, divided government can actually be a good thing. The Cato Institute has some insight for us...

Our federal government may work better (less badly) when at least one chamber of Congress is controlled by a party other than the party of the president. The general reason for this is that each party has the opportunity to block the most divisive measures proposed by the other party. Other conditions, of course, also affect political outcomes, but the following types of evidence for this hypothesis are too important to ignore:

* The rate of growth of real (inflation-adjusted) federal spending is usually lower with divided government.

* The only two long periods of fiscal restraint were the Eisenhower administration and the Clinton administration, during both of which the opposition party controlled Congress.

* The probability that a major reform will last is usually higher with a divided government because the necessity of bipartisan support is more likely to protect the reform against a subsequent change in the majority party.

The fact is, folks, is that we are headed into a crucial time in this country. We are at a crossroads. Yesterday, all we were doing was picking the people who would lead us down these roads. Now the journey begins. OK .. enough of the sappy metaphors. But do you understand what these next two years represent? We need fundamental change in this country - to our tax code, to Social Security, to Medicare and Medicaid, to deficit reduction - but I am not talking about the "fundamental" change that Barack Obama desires. Barack Obama, with the Democrats he has left, would prefer for our country to head down a path which punishes wealth, redistributes wealth, expands entitlements and expands government. The fundamental change that we now seek is not just stopping the Obama agenda from "moving forward" but reforming our nation in such a way that Americans can once again prosper.