Welcome to 2014 and the year of the mid term elections to
the Senate and House in November. There
are enough trial balloons released in
media talk shows lately laying out party
game plans, we can get an idea of what to expect.
2014 is likely to be
consumed by mostly posturing
and positioning. Any sound and fury
will signify very little earth shaking
legislative action between now
and 2016 since both sides have
indicated they have dug in with their respective hard line approaches The budget deal has already been struck. Only
the debt ceiling debate looms which will be mostly a vehicle for both political
parties to rally their bases.
Expect the Democrats to go on the offensive to propose
tackling the widening gap between the
rich and the rest with this recovery making a mockery of a trickle down theory. Bucked up by Pope Francis’ new emphasis on
caring for “the least of these”, they
will wrap old issues such as unemployment benefits ,food stamps, and minimum
wage increases in moral tones. Minimum wage increase has a chance of adoption since libertarians and some Tea Party members see it
as a way to reduce the entitlement state.
Expect the GOP to be against whatever President Obama wants, and not for much other than cutting government
services, reducing the deficit, and maybe pieces of immigration reform to garner more Hispanic
votes. Issues such as the economy, the deficit, and Obamacare could initially be their
hottest topics. However, there is a
danger in relying on those two issues
because they may have diminishing returns as November
approaches.
Increasing Obamacare signups will make repeal, taking
away benefits so many will have realized, an untenable political strategy and the GOP will likely
shift to nibble, repair, and sabotage. Rehashing their old ideas for replacement that
failed the effective test over the last four years is not a
promising exercise.
To make their case
for “repair”, we can expect Republicans to continue to dramatize the health care law’s
warts and the plight of those who drew the short stick. We can expect the supporters of Obamacare to
return fire with anecdotes of successes and
to delay implementation of more minor sore points. The
advantage of the battle of the anecdotes will go to Democrats since the numbers
of those benefiting will far outweigh the disgruntled and the 85% of the population on employer’s insurance or
Medicare and Medicaid will have seen little change before November 2014. Their
plans have already adjusted to the new law.
The GOP could make
the limp economy an issue, but
that, too, has diminishing returns. The economy is growing and the forecast is that it will
continue to improve. The better it gets, the less voters will care. The
Democrats could counter that
the economy grew in spite of the
GOP’s putting brakes on it. The
government shutdown reduced the growth rate by 3/10 of percent and the sequester by 0.7 percent by July 2013, and resulting
pain triggered the back tracking
budget deal in December. Further
weakening the GOP will be the split in
their party between the ideologically hide bound Tea Party shutdowners and the more pro business establishment that will erupt in the
February debt limit debate and
again in their primaries.
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