A Ruling Majority? - September 2005

When the 108th Congress took office in January 2003, the Republicans had finally reached majority control of the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives after more than 50 years in hiatus.

They had not held such power since the mid-1950’s when President Eisenhower was in office unless you count the 4 months in 2001 when the voters gave the Republicans a ruling majority until Jumpin Jim Jeffords changed his party registration and gave Senate control back to the Democrats for the subsequent two years.

For those of us who are fiscal conservatives, we were looking forward to complete majority rule in Washington, D.C. in 2003. After all, we had frequently pointed to the social experiments and bloated government spending of the Democratic majorities in the 1940’s, early 1960’s and mid-1970’s and confidently said that would never happen under our control.

Until 2003, the best we could do was keeping the Democratic Congress in check with Republican presidents during the 1980’s and early 1990’s. Things reversed in the late 1990’s when we counted on a Republican House to counteract a Democratic President.

So where are we today? Has a Republican majority in Congress and control of the White House met our hopes and expectations? Is having single party majority rule good for the country?

Under the leadership of President Bush and a Republican Congress, our country has benefited from notable tax cuts giving our citizens the incentive to work harder and invest in our future. That leadership has given us a stronger military to battle the continuing and growing threat of terrorism. That leadership has also given us some key regulatory relief. And that majority rule has also resulted in the selection of strict judges who will rule by the law rather than create it which is the role of our lawmakers in Congress.

And it has been fun to watch some of the political payback which comes with a change of ruling party such as the mass rearrangement of office space on Capital Hill during which the Republicans took over the prime office space while the Democrats moved into the closet-size spaces formerly forced upon the Republicans when the Democrats wrote the rules. Politics can be a blood sport although I find this disorganized movement of metal and wood to unbecoming of adult men and women.

That is the good news. Now for the bad news. Many of the Republicans in Congress have exceeded the worst performance of the big spending Democrats on pork barrel projects. Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens brazenly made sure his state received $ 220 million for a 200 foot bridge for a city of 8,000 citizens who did not want it and an “initial” $ 229 million for site preparation work for an estimated $ 2 billion 2-mile bridge from Anchorage to a sparsely inhabited section of marshes.

Even our Republican Congressmen from South Florida proudly brought home some extra pork to our area. That is the way the system worked when Democrats were in control and, apparently, now is how it works when the Republicans have their turn at majority rule. Without giving President Bush the line item veto – which we fiscal conservatives yearn for – I am disappointed to say that Republican pork is now the status quo.

And speaking of vetoes, President Bush appears hesitant to strike down any legislation now that his party is writing it. Vetoes historically are more prevalent when the President and Congress are from opposing parties. Bad legislation is bad legislation regardless of which party writes it.

So is our country actually better off to have divided government which occurs when the Democrats or Republicans control the White House and the other party controls the Congress? Unless the current crew of Republican leaders sees the light, I believe the American voters will answer that question for us in 2008 by possibly giving control of one – if not both – houses of Congress back to the Democrats. I can only hope that the Republican leadership puts its ship back on course in time to avoid that happening.