Democrats are starting to become more audacious where they hold sway. In your state, they have probably already tried:
- Giving in to Unions with Prevailing Wage and Fair Share
- Giving in to Populist attempts to circumvent the Constitution
- Giving in to attempts to minimize the value of the family by elevating gay unions as marriage
- Giving in to solutions lacking real problems, such as Worker’s Compensation Physician’s Choice
- Giving in to their lust for spending, a long-term need for greed that feeds a push to raise taxes… yes, your state government is probably trying right now to raise your taxes!
If you don’t believe all this, just look to Iowa. Smack dab in the middle of the country, normally expected to be a follower, Iowa politicians (that is, the Democratic majority party in the Iowa General Assembly) have been trying their darnedest to do all of these things. And Congress just leaves people walking around in a haze, to think that members can get away with the integrity of the likes of Chris Dodd.
Iowans are watching this year. Very closely. Republicans are taking a strong stand on these and other issues, and some of the more conservative Democrats are also helping stem the tide despite the strong-arming of party leaders. Keeping these issues in public view is helping keep the self-serving at bay, and may even protect Iowans from a liberal free-for-all that would bankrupt the state, both fiscally and morally.
As far as I know right now, the items in the list above, except for the last, are more or less dead for 2009. Democratic leaders are not going to be dissuaded so easily. They are keeping their options open as long as they can. And they will be back in 2010 to try again. And they know that they are pushing the envelope. That is the strategy for manipulating society: push to the extreme long enough and eventually it becomes the norm.
But we still face a number of unhealthy possible fiscal solutions to the current budget mess in Iowa, and Democrats are not going to let go of their entitlements, their strangle-hold on spending control, their total lack of restraint. And their contempt for Iowa taxpayers. It will be interesting to see the behavior of Democrats at the Public Hearing on March 31 (HSB 284: Elimination of Federal Income Tax Deductibility) and their reaction to the speakers and throngs of Iowans expected to attend.
Democrats still believe they have a mandate to do as they please. They believe that the elections of 2008 settled the topics above. When President Obama in his first press conference tried to quell the decision point on a controversial issue by stating that the election was over and he won, that just crystallized for us the true sense of hopeful audacity that resides in the President’s office and and resonates across the country with other liberal leaders.
And without a doubt, Republicans have managed to mess the carpet themselves in the past. Holding majority power is a serious responsibility, but one can get very heady with the intoxication that power brings. The ability to handle power rightly does not make the bearer right, but it is does give them credibility. Democrats are slowly losing theirs after watching Republicans squander theirs away.
It will become a desperate audacity that plays out across the country over the next few years. The elections of 2010 may well become a watershed of reality for people who have been duped into believing that the strategies of the Left will overcome the adversities we face.
Only Americans living in a free society, in an unfettered (not unregulated mind you) business climate, where the Bill of Rights is not arbitrarily ignored by the well meaning at the expense of liberty (a conundrum for both parties at times), only WE can overcome our adversities. Government can try to resolve real emergencies, but if it tries to permanently solve every problem, our biggest problem will be the government.
Iowans appear ready to rise up and oppose the terror of state government as it tries to tax its way out of the spending hole it has dug. Let’s hope Americans in every state begin to see what pain they have wrought upon themselves before it becomes a disease that cannot be cured.