Congratulations! The 2010 midterm elections are over and the results are in! After months of dealing with apocalyptic campaign commercials between double jeopardy and final jeopardy, I can now relax knowing they won't be around for another year or so.
Like every other election of the past few decades, the 2010 midterms were dubbed the most important of our lives. Exaggeration aside, perhaps we should look into what the results might mean.
Republicans had the huge night everyone had expected Tuesday, retaking the House majority 239-188 and gaining five seats in the Senate to narrow the Democrats' lead. Tea Party candidates had a mixed showing, with Rand Paul in Kentucky and Marco Rubio in Florida easily winning seats in the U.S. Senate, but Christine O'Donnell, Carly Fiorina and Sharron Angle all losing by fairly wide margins. The award for worst campaign-investment goes to Meg Whitman in California, who failed to beat Democrat Jerry Brown in the California gubernatorial race after spending $175 million of her eBay fortune on the campaign. She beat Linda McMahon, from Connecticut, for the award, who only spent a paltry $40 million of her pro-wrestling fortune on a losing effort.
Individual stories aside though, it was a bad night for Democrats. Losing the house to the GOP will make passing Democratic legislation nearly impossible. Besides blocking Democratic legislation, how else Republicans will use their newfound strength remains entirely unclear. We know the platform - cut taxes, cut spending, cut debt and stop regulating - but the details have been elusive to say the least.
Instead of details, we've gotten catch phrases, which is apparently a winning strategy among the U.S. electorate: Get government out of Americans' pockets. Stop irresponsible spending. Stop putting our grandchildren in debt.
It all sounds good, but a detail or two might make it actually viable. After all, most of our entitlement spending is on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, extremely popular programs that account for about 40 percent total spending and more than half our entitlement spending. After two years of screaming about death panels and Obama pulling the plug on grandma
are the Republicans going to be the ones to tell retired voters to tighten their belts?
The defense budget was about 23 percent total spending in 2009. Perhaps the GOP wants to trim the fat on the Pentagon. Then again, their unblemished record of supporting military excesses makes this prospect pretty doubtful.
So cutting spending effectively is tough, but perhaps lowering the debt through tax policy is the answer. Unfortunately, the GOP already committed to preserving the Bush tax cuts that would lower the deficit by a third if allowed to expire Jan. 1, 2011. Maybe the GOP will just push the debt issue back for a couple years.
Well, what will the details be, then? The GOP must have some plan to address spending, debt and saving future generations from enslavement by Chinese debt collectors. Maybe the top-ranking Republican, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, can clue us in. Here's what he said regarding the GOP platform two weeks ago:
The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.
So that's what we can expect from Tuesday's Republican election victory: Some catch-phrases, some big talk with little action, and some Obama bashing. This has been no different from Republican policy during the past two years. I can only hope voters tire of it by 2012.
Phil Stephens is a graduate student studying public administration and columnist for The Post. What do you think the Republicans' next move is? E-mail him at ps245605@ohiou.edu.
4
Opinion
Phil Stephens
