Prediction: Gridlock for the Next Two Years, but that’s Better than the Alternative

There’s a lot of navel-gazing analysis in Washington about whether to expect some sort of bipartisanship over the next two years.

I find such discussions very irritating because they assume that you automatically get good results when Republicans and Democrats both agree on a policy. My reaction, to put it mildly, is “these people are f@*&#^@g crazy!!!”

Was it progress when Republicans and Democrats conspired to bail out their contributors on Wall Street with TARP?

Was it progress when Republicans and Democrats joined hands to impose Bush’s no-bureaucrat-left-behind education scheme?

Was it progress when the first President Bush broke his read-my-lips promise and sided with Democrats to boost taxes and spending in 1990?

So you can see why I instinctively like gridlock. Simply stated, it’s better to do nothing if the alternative is to have more bad laws that expand the burden of government.

But perhaps I’m being too cynical. After all, sometimes bipartisanship accidentally produces good policies. Like when we got the Budget Control Act as part of the 2011 debt limit fight, which then led to the sequester.

Though I’m not holding my breath expecting similar good results over the next two years.

Why? Because as I said in my first comments during last week’s John Stossel show, the President is simply too far to the left to expect any progress.

I do acknowledge in the interview that you have to give Obama credit for ideological consistency, but his agenda of bigger government and more dependency doesn’t lead me to think we’ll get any good policy in the near future.

Here are a few additional points from the interview that are worth highlighting.

*This is still a weak recovery, perhaps most compelling illustrated bycomparing what happened under Reagan with what’s been happening under Obama.

Recommended

Man Lights Himself on Fire Outside Trump Trial Courthouse Spencer Brown

Advertisement

*But things have improved in the past couple of years, in part becausethere’s been progress in restraining the burden of government spending.

*Ironically, the President bragged that America’s been creating more jobs than Europe even though hewants to copy European policies.

*It’s also galling that the President says he wants to make America more competitive even though he’s pushing class-warfare taxation.

*Republicans also deserve criticism since some of them are advocating for higher gas taxes rather than the federalist approach of decentralization.

*On tax reform, if you give politicians a new tax, it’s very likely they will use the money to finance bigger government instead of abolishing an existing tax.

*My final comment from the interview brings us back to the central point of today’s post. Simply stated, bipartisanship isn’t good if it means more government.

P.S. I goofed last week when I wrote that median household income fell every year under Obama, and I repeated that mistake in the Stossel interview, which took place before I discovered that there was a very small increase in 2013. Well, I also made another mistake in the interview. I said that Kate Upton was the daughter of Congressman Fred Upton. That’s wrong. She’s actually his niece. Alas, yet another sign that I’m clueless about popular culture. I guess that means Kate won’t date me after the PotL finds another boyfriend.

P.P.S. Since we’re still debating over the issues Obama raised in his speech, I may as well call attention once again to my contribution to the U.S. News and World Report online debate on whether the State of the Union is strong. I’m doing okay in the overall reader rankings, but (as I write these words) I do have the third-highest number of “down” votes, so I gather that some of our leftist friends must not like what I wrote. So feel free to go to the article and click on the “up” arrow if you want to help me out.

P.P.P.S. Shifting to a less narcissistic topic, I wrote in 2013 that the Ohio Governor should be known as John “Barack” Kasich because he chose to expand Obamacare in his state. Now, as explained by Philip Klein of the Washington Examiner, we have Mike “Barack” Pence from Indiana.

…on Tuesday, he betrayed taxpayers when he embraced an expansion of Medicaid through President Obama’s healthcare law. …Pence buckled under pressure from hospital lobbyists who are eager to receive more federal money… Myopic Republican governors think they can fool conservatives by gaining token concessions on what remains a government-run healthcare program and calling it “free market reform.” But the Obama administration is playing the long game, realizing that if it keeps adding beneficiaries to the books, big government liberalism wins.

How disappointing. Yes, GOP governors are getting pressured by in-state lobbyists because of the lure of “free” federal money, but that’s no excuse for adopting a policy that will hurt federal taxpayers in the short run and state taxpayers in the long run.

This is yet another reason why we need to replace the federal Medicaid entitlement with a block grant.

P.P.P.P.S. I don’t want to close on a dour note, so let’s shift to sequestration, which was one of the topics in the Stossel interview. That was not only an unambiguous victory over big government, but it also resulted in some great political humor. You can see some of my favorite cartoons on the topic by clickinghere, here, here, here, here, and here.