Worry About The Lame Duck Congress Is Lame

Daily it becomes clearer that the Obamists and leftist Democrats are in real trouble. They have just gone back into session, and they still have major goals that they want to accomplish, but won't have time to debate and bring to votes before the November elections. They are already trying to attach socialist and bureaucratic legislation to defense bills in hopes nobody will notice. It isn't working. The DREAM Act ploy just failed.

So now, the big worry among Republicans and conservatives is that after the Democrats lose the House and possibly the Senate, they will attempt to ram their agenda through before the new Republicans can take their seats in 2011. Let's stop the hysteria. First of all, we don't want to start using the word "unprecedented" since lame duck Congresses doing the opposite of the electoral will of the people is hardly unprecedented. Republican Congresses have done it, and so have Democrats.

Next, as much as I put nothing past the leftists, if they couldn't accomplish their massive governmental takeover when they had a huge majority in the House and a filibuster-proof Senate, how likely is it that they could pull it off now, when their numbers have already been depleted? Republican crossovers, on the other hand, become less likely because the message at the ballot boxes is going to be "stop this out-of-control train!" RINOs who didn't get the message earlier and are not up for re-election in this cycle are not going to risk being bumped off in the next election after they get the November report card.

In addition, the Democrats have a wind-testing, poll-watching president who will not give them any support for lame duck radicalism after his party loses control of Congress. Obama truly is a socialist prole, but more importantly he is in love with himself and wants the American people to feel the same way. He will even soften his big government socialist rhetoric when his party is handed its teeth in November. The day after the November elections is the first day of the next Obama for Messiah cycle, and he's not going to screw that up by encouraging lame duck Democrats to find a way to pass legislation that will cause an even bigger public revolt in two years.

There is also the big scare tactic that Democrats who lose their seats will work extra hard to take revenge on the public for disavowing them. These are politicians, for God's sake. Some will immediately start working on looking reasonable and misunderstood (particularly House members who only have to wait two years to run for their old seat) and will not risk alienating the public entirely by spitting in their eye. The remainder will be too shell-shocked to do much of anything. They thought their districts were safe forever and that the Democrats would never, never, ever lose control of Congress. Many will just be thinking, "What am I going to do now? Am I going to have to look for a real job? Omigod, there aren't any. We killed them all."

As much as it's a good idea to watch out for sneaky leftists desperation maneuvers, it is far more important that the Republicans concentrate on developing a simple, clear and positive message about what they intend to accomplish after November. Trying to use scare tactics about a lame-duck session is like trying to scare little children with the boogeyman. First, it makes the Democrats, even those who lose, look like the victims of irrational right wing propaganda if the lame duck session doesn't try to push unpopular legislation. Second, if they do try something, the Republicans merely need to stay united and show that they were prepared for but not shaking in their boots over such an eventuality.

The Democrats might want to write and compromise on some kind of energy bill before they vacate their seats so they can claim some kind of accomplishment. But such a bill is unlikely to resemble in any way the radical cap and trade and carbon emission controls that they have tried to pass before the elections. Any additions to Obamacare are dead on arrival. That leaves the union favorite, card check, and the Bush-era tax cuts. The card check proposals are becoming less popular by the day as regular people come to understand that card check prevents free union elections and coerces membership in new potential union shops.

Allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire, then rewriting them the same way or extending them temporarily for everyone except those "earning" over $250 thousand is their best shot at lame duck legislation. People are starting to catch on to the fact that a wage-earner making $250 thousand is well off, but the small to medium-size business owner, who is the engine for job creation and innovation is put in the same category as the wage earner, and is therefor paying taxes on $250 thousand dollars when his or her real income from the business after costs may be less than his lowest-paid employee.

The Republicans are absolutely right about extending all the Bush tax cuts, and better yet, making them permanent. But their message is muddled, and the Obamists have suddenly discovered how effective it is to talk about "retaining the tax cuts for the middle class" when they don't even really understand what the middle class is comprised of. They've always made the middle class the enemy of the poor, downtrodden and helpless. That class warfare nonsense isn't playing well now, so they've switched to praising the middle class by claiming to protect their tax status. It's all smoke and mirrors, ignores sound economics and the Laffer curve, but for the uninitiated, it sounds good.

Republicans should quit warning everyone about a lame duck disaster, and instead concentrate on getting out the message that the Democrats' claim to be preserving the middle class tax cuts is an outright lie on one side, and pure ignorance on the other.