Posted on 11/11/2006 4:08:13 AM PST by MadIvan
On the morning after the mid-term elections, a humbled President George W Bush called it "a thumping".
But yesterday he described the disastrous result for the Republicans, when Congress turned from Republican red to Democrat blue, as a "great opportunity".
His aides were briefing that he now had the chance to build a domestic policy legacy and use his final two years in the White House to prove that politicians could get things done in Washington.
After a White House coffee meeting yesterday, Mr Bush chuckled as Senator Dick Durbin, part of the new Democratic leadership in the Senate, joked: "I do want to say thanks personally to the president and vice-president for their conciliatory gesture by wearing blue ties today.
"From our side, we think that is a symbolic indication."
Conservative Republicans and wary Democrats fear that Mr Bush might indeed try to steal the Democrats' clothes. "They talked about issues that people care about, and they won," he told the senators.
As a lame-duck president after years of poor relations with Democrats who were bitter about being frozen out of the decision-making process, turning opportunity into legislative reality will be one of the biggest challenges of Mr Bush's political career.
The message from the voters was that they rejected one-party rule in Washington and wanted to see whether divided government could lead to the kind of results Mr Bush was unable to achieve when Republicans were the kings of Capitol Hill.
Having been swept into power on the backs of their condemnation of a "do-nothing Congress", there will be pressure on Democrats to demonstrate that they can do business with Mr Bush. The president will want to leave office with achievements under his belt and use his power of veto sparingly.
"The Democrats should adopt a good government strategy rather than a take-no-prisoners strategy," said Senator Birch Bayh, a Democrat who served in the Senate for 18 years.
He believed that Republicans in Congress would adopt a new approach. "They've gotten the signal that people didn't like what was going on, that the well was poisoned. They're not going to be bomb throwers."
In 1996, President Bill Clinton and a Republican-controlled Senate and House of Representatives introduced a welfare reform Bill that became a landmark piece of social legislation. Both parties claimed credit for it. Republican presidents have also signed legislation sent to them by Democratic houses of Congress.
To the dismay of conservative Republicans, Mr Bush has already indicated that he agrees with the Democratic proposal to raise the minimum wage. But the centrepiece of his last 24 months in office could be a comprehensive overhaul of America's immigration laws.
His desire for tough border security measures combined with opportunities for many of America's 12 million illegal immigrants to become citizens is shared by more Democrats than Republicans on Capitol Hill.
Gardner Peckham, a senior aide to Newt Gingrich, speaker of the House after the Republican takeover of Capitol Hill in 1994, said: "Democrats will have to be very careful not to appear like they're looking backwards and wanting retribution.
"They won't want to look like they're the source of the problem. But they're not going to want the president to look good on any of these issues. The prize is the White House in 2008. Control of Congress is great, but without the White House you can't control the agenda."
Immigration, he suggested, would be "an interesting test" of whether genuine cooperation was possible.
It was all bull because most Universities do not teach economics, they teach "Economics" . When the professor uses Greek looking symbols on the board and speaks dense argot he is a normal University Prof and also a fraud, unless he believes it himself, in which case he is a fool. Ronald Reagan got his degree in Economics, probably the only president who has studied it for real, in a college that taught real Classical Economics. He used his economic understanding of choice and motivation to bring down the Soviet Empire.
Just a few points for those that don't know why minimum wage should not be raised or be a state issue only.
The minimum wage is a starting wage, all of us have earned a minimum wage, usually when we are starting out work for the first time. We do a good job, work hard, aquire skills and get a raise, find a better paying job, with our new skills or go back to school when we figure out we cannot support ourselves on minimum wage and need to aquire more education, experience, skills.
If you force businesses to pay more for unskilled labor, they will lay off some of their employees, usually the unskilled ones, or they will cut back on the hours of all their employees, cut benefits, raise prices or all of the above.
The raising of the minimum wage will hurt the very people it is designed to help. The unskilled, undereducated, person who will be layed off first because he is not worth the extra money.
"minimum wage"-tag word
is only a 'secret handshake' to the Unions for their support..the minimum wage is not about teenagers, college students (who by the way do or will get perks in some big businesses like McD's and Walmart). If one things raising the wages for these kids is going to see them tucking it away in a college account, for the most part will be spent on designer clothes and beer on the weekends..
Good Lord! Where do they find reporters to write this tripe?
I do fear GWB will throw conservatives to the wolves. He has done it many times when republicans were in control of Congress (CFR, immigration, spending), so why should he change with democrats in control?
But the tone of this article - Americans voted for divided government, etc - reflects a total lack of knowledge about american politics. I do wish the reporters who breathlessly repeat polls before the election would bother to read the exit polls to find out what voters were really trying to do.
In some cases they said worse things about Reagan... but Bush has been attacked far worse.
LLS
Amen!!!
LLS
But, I'll check out the book.
;-)
Or best for the country, they will purge themselves of the Moonbat contingent that currently runs the party.
Mostly true about RR except that he later admitted he was wrong about the 1986 amnesty. He thought it would be a one-time act followed up with strict border enforcement.
GWB has that history to look at. Amnesty does not work. So why does he cling to it? Because it's about the North American Union and cheap labor.
McCain Fiengold, bridges to nowhere, rain forrest in Nebraska, caving in to RATS, open borders and amnesty....the list goes on. He is/was better than Gore or Kerry but deserves a lot ofthe blame for the demise of the Republicn base. Good bye Mr Bush....wish you well.
Consequences?
Let's boost the cost of keeping the low end segment of the population employed 40%. Let's discourage business owners from hiring young people, older people and anyone who wants and needs a job but doesn't have skills. Let's encourage businesses to reduce their labor costs by firing people. Let's jack up labor costs on businesses so we can all pay higher prices. Minimum wage laws limit job openings because if a business can afford to have 5 people working there for $30 an hour then under new laws they can only afford 4 people to work there.
I realize that most people want to go by what's "fair" but you can bet the will notice when they go to Starbucks in the morning and find one less person behind the counter to get them their muffins or the cost of their gay latte drink goes up 15 cents.
Sorry Ivan, with all due respect, but Republicans lost because of an apparent fealty on the illegal immigration issue, and embracing the "big tent" philosophy while ditching their core voters.
To put it mildly, which nobody wants to admit, is that the core was and is conservative Christians.
The terrorists would be dictating the terms of our surrender. The economy would have tanked after 9-11 and Katrina if not for the Bush tax cuts.
I'm thankful for President Bush.
Everyone is betting on an Iraq and WOT pullout by the end of 2007. If Bush doesn't have a spine and doesnt wield the veto pen, count on this happening.
As always, you are dead on!
LLS
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