Euphoria and Reality

The election is over and Democrats won to an extent that few expected, though many had hoped.

It was widely expected that the Democrats would win in the House of Representatives but while there was always hope for the Senate, it was generally considered to be a long shot. Well the long shot came in. In the outgoing Congress, which will remain under Republican control until January, the Republicans controlled the House by 15 votes. As of this moment Democrats control the House by 33 votes and eight races are still undecided. However in the Senate the control is by only one vote, which means that the death or incapacity of a single Senator in a state having a Republican governor would swing the Senate back to Republican control. Nevertheless, grounds for euphoria-absolutely.

There are even more reasons for optimism. Voters seem for the first time in a long time, to care about the political process. More than 40 percent of registered voters showed up - apparently, the highest midterm turnout in a generation. (20 years) Voters aged 18 to 29 cast an estimated 10 million votes, or 13 percent of all ballots, up from 11 percent in 2002 and they voted for Democrats by a wide margin: 22 percentage points, according to CNN's exit poll data. Democrats cracked the South, justifying Dean’s 50 state strategy, Evangelicals gave smaller majorities to Republicans than in past elections, and almost every demographic group tended more Democratic.

Governing is where the issue of reality comes in. First nothing has changed until January. Democrats, or at least some of them are talking about bringing our troops home from Iraq within 60 days, or at least within six month. This is not governing. This is grand standing. The reality is that the President, not Congress has the power to make these decisions. Clearly, Congress can pass resolutions but they are not binding on the President. Congress holds the purse strings but Democrats would not dare to cut off funding for our troops. That would be political suicide.

Congress can investigate, and intends to do so, but I predict that the President will obstruct on the grounds of national security, on executive privilege, on attorney/client privilege, etc. All this can affect the political climate, but it cannot dictate policy. So on Iraq nothing fundamental has changed, even if Rumsfeld is out. If there is a change in policy, and there may well be one in the making, it will ultimately be the President who will dictate this. This may be all to the good from a political standpoint because we are now in a loose-loose situation no matter what policy is followed, and the ability to continue to blame the Republican President may be all to the good. The President may denounce the “blame game” but the “blame game” is just another way of ascribing responsibility, the acceptance of which this President and this Administration have never been good at.

On the domestic front the picture is somewhat different but not much. There has been much talk of bipartisanship by both the Administration and the Democratic leadership but that is nothing more than posturing. In every area of policy the parties are too far apart for compromise to be possible.

One area that has been spoken of as lending itself to bipartisan action is raising the minimum wage and the Administration has indicated an interest in dealing with this on a bipartisan basis. But we have already seen what they mean by this. They will not go along on this without a quid pro quo. This was illustrated in the last session of Congress when the House voted 230 to 180 to raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, from the $5.15 rate on the books since 1997. The bill also would have exempted from taxation all estates worth as much as $5 million -- or $10 million for a married couple -- and apply a 15 percent tax rate to inheritances above that threshold and as much as $25 million. For estates exceeding $25 million in value, the tax rate would be 30 percent. The measure died in the Senate after then Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid said he "is confident the Senate will defeat this fiscally irresponsible estate-tax proposal, as we have in the past."

For all the posturing Republicans will not support a minimum wage increase without their estate tax measure and Democrats will not accept it. There will be no bi-partisanship.

Once Democrats take control in January, they may be able to pass the minimum wage bill but because of a possible filibuster by Republicans in the Senate it is not likely to pass there, and if somehow it does pass the Congress without the estate tax provision, it will almost surely encounter a Presidential veto. Good from a political standpoint but not from a policy standpoint.

The reality is that under the U.S. Constitution the President wields enormous power. While the Congressional victory will give Democrats veto power over Republican initiatives, such as making the tax cuts permanent, their own initiatives face an uncertain fate. The next two years will consist primarily of posturing leading up to the Presidential Race in 2008. To the extent that Democrats may be able to accomplish anything positive it will be in areas with such great public support that Republicans dare not oppose them. Whether an increase in the minimum wage is such a wedge issue is problematic.