Coffee, according to the women of Denmark, is to the body what the Word of the Lord is to the soul. ~ Isak Dinesen
Happy 3rd Blogiversary to:
Election Projection
Leading up to the 2006 mid-term elections and in the wake of the democrats re-taking majorities in both chambers of Congress much was made of the agenda the new leadership planned to push through. They passed the last of their “Six for ’06″ bills yesterday. The AP headline says, House Democrats beat 100-hour clock
“This was only the beginning,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., said at a news conference hailing her party’s accomplishment more than two hours before the final vote, which came on an energy bill.
So, what have they accomplished?
- 1/9 – Bolster terrorism-fighting efforts with more cargo inspections. A good idea on the surface, but I will have to see the actual implementation.
- 1/10 – Raise the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour over 26 months. A really bad idea that will have the net result of hurting those it’s supposed to help. As a “bonus” it will probably hurt small businesses as well.
- 1/11 – Expand government-financed embryonic stem cell research. The President has promised to veto this bill. And he should.
- 1/12 – Make the government bargain directly with drug companies with the aim of reducing prices of prescriptions for Medicare beneficiaries. My bold. Once again the dems prove their love of big government and disdain for free markets. This one also faces the veto pen.
- 1/17 – Lower interest rates on federally subsidized student loans from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent in stages over five years at a cost to taxpayers of $6 billion. Reaching into our pockets again.
- 1/18 – Slap a “conservation fee” on oil and gas taken from deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico; scrap nearly $6 billion worth of oil industry tax breaks enacted by Congress in recent years; and seek to recoup royalties lost to the government because of an Interior Department error in leases issued in the late 1990s. Another example of their total misunderstanding of basic economic realities. It sounds good to say that you are going to get this $6 billion dollars from “Big Oil”, but of course they’re not. A good portion of that is going to show up at the pump.
At the end of this magical 100 hours we have accomplished one major task: We will be able to answer the question from the Capitol One ad, “What’s in your wallet?” Very soon the answer will be, “not very much.”
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