The Iron Lady's Reign is Ending

What concerned me most Democrats controlling both houses of Congress in 2008 along with a Democratic President was their ability to push through a progressive/socialistic agenda without compromise and that concern proved true. For the past two years, they have voted down virtually all Republican amendments in committee or taken bills directly to the floor where they could be passed without amendment with a super-majority. On the health care bill, they debated one version for months and then at 3:00 in the morning of the vote they withdrew the bill and replaced it with a 2,000+ page bill that was voted on without reading.


The Democrats even ran the country for the past year without a budget. They just brought up these massive bills as emergency measures and passed them along with a “continuing resolution” to provide the spending authorization for them. They can’t be accused of overspending the budget, because there wasn’t one.

The main perpetrator of this abomination was Nancy Pelosi. They called Margaret Thatcher the “Iron Lady” because of the way she controlled the Tory Party in Great Britain with iron fisted control. Well, Margaret has to pass that iron gavel on to Nancy. She was able to maintain virtual domination over a party that has a lot of diversity. Those that disagreed were bullied into supporting the bills by threats of pulling spending from their districts or running an opponent in the 2010 election. And now, the Democrats are even more hard line than before because the more moderate Democrats have been purged.

And now, this weekend, the progressives had their little show. They brought up the continuation of the Bush era tax cuts the way they want with no amendments; a continuation for up to $250k and tax increase over $250k. The Senate, as expected, shot it down. This was as expected. Most commentators believe a deal is in place to continue the tax cuts for all in return for an extension of unemployment benefits (another issue) and that this weekend’s exercise was just a show for the progressive base so that they can continue their class warfare agenda, for example, Republicans favor the rich.

I’m looking forward to the new year and a little gridlock. At least, the two sides will have to talk to get something done and we might see things become a little more reasonable.