Nancy Pelosi shepherded everything that President Obama asked Congress for through the House. Her poll ratings are way less than his -- seven out of 10 Americans say they don't like her. In 2011, she will no longer be speaker of the House but will remain the leader of House Democrats.
The highly unpopular Harry Reid will still be Senate majority leader but will have a much tougher time getting Democratic bills passed.
The Congress that ended an amazing lame-duck session by passing a flurry of legislation once thought to be dead will be replaced. The new Congress includes Tea Partiers whose exact agenda remains murky but who are coming to town determined to change the status quo.
So, what can we expect from Washington in 2011?
There will be an incredible uproar over money. Obama will send his proposed budget for fiscal year 2012 to Congress in early February even though Congress never even passed a 2011budget.
Republicans, who pushed for and won an extension of tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, will demand cuts in dozens of social programs. Even if they win, however, the savings will be a drop in the bucket; the national debt is headed toward $15 trillion. What we have done is take the private debt that nearly crippled the financial system and add it to the public debt.
As for legislation, it will be a hold-the-line year. No more major new programs such as health care or financial reform will pass. There will be no solution to the problem of Social Security and Medicare draining us dry. Unemployment will remain abnormally high. The housing market will stagger along but will not fully recover. The war in Iraq may be winding down, but the war in Afghanistan is not.
After his colossal 11th-hour wins (the new arms control treaty, the free-health-care law for 9/11 responders, the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, a new food safety law, expansion of middle-class tax cuts and unemployment compensation), Obama will again be human, attacked by those on the left and the right as he tries to steer the ship of state somewhere in the middle.
A leader must be visionary, so Obama will again try to pursue simplifying the tax code, giving undocumented workers a chance at citizenship, improving education and infrastructure. But he will have a tough time getting anything through a bitterly divided, strenuously partisan Congress, and the usual cries that he is a weak leader will return.
The reason Obama got his string of last-minute legislative victories is that he caved on giving the richest a $700 billion tax cut. Yes, politics is the art of compromise, but in this case it came at the expense of good public policy. What will he compromise on next? "We celebrate wealth," he said at his Victory R Us press conference before flying off to a gated estate in Hawaii. We're left to ponder what that means.
Sometime in the next few months, Republican candidates for president in 2012 will start making I-am-running announcements. That's another huge diversion for our one-trick political pony away from grappling with the very real economic binds in which we have entangled ourselves.
Congress just spent another trillion dollars of money we don't have, which apparently is very easy to do. Once again we kicked the can down the road, pretending the economy will magically grow, tax coffers will be replenished and there will be enough money to pay baby boomers' Social Security benefits and medical bills.
Obama boasted that the gridlock widely predicted after the November election, which slapped so many Democrats upside the head, did not come to pass. But the hundred new legislators who defeated many of his supporters have not yet been sworn into office. January could be a rude awakening.
Republicans painted Pelosi and Reid as evildoers. But their Democratic confreres owe them a hearty "Congratulations. Now show us what you can do in 2011."
Scripps Howard columnist Ann McFeatters has covered the White House and national politics since 1986.
Poorman posted at 7:08 am on Mon, Dec 27, 2010.
As an independent voter i do'nt expect much of anything.Now that the House is all messed up with the Repubs.It will be push and shove all the rest of Obama's term. And of course he will get blamed for just about everything. The voters seem to have forgotten what part was in power for the last eight years or so. As for the jobs market,get used to it,most employers have figured out they can get by with less employees than before so their not about to hire back many people.
Dale Whiting posted at 1:29 pm on Mon, Dec 27, 2010.
I'd say that Ann Featters' assessment, though pessimistic, was fair and unbiased. And I'd say that Poorman's summary and statement of expectations was right on target.
But I expect President Obama to be able to stump effectively. He will go back to being extemporanous where he is at his best. And he will be able to point to those lame duck achievements shepparded in by Pelosi and Reid. No one in the legislature is ever very popular.
So I am going on record as an optimist. President Obama will show his colors [the ones you could have seen from reading carefully his two books] as a moderate democrat with almost Bill Clinton savey. And Bill will continue to help Barack behind if not in front of the screen.
How about someone getting Colin Powell to come back as a Secretary? If and when Gates retires, Powell could make a fine Sec Def or even Sec State. But would Hillary take a go at Sec. Def?
And as I stated in my own letter to the editor, next year at this time the biggest "no big deal" will have been implementation of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
Dale Whiting posted at 1:33 pm on Mon, Dec 27, 2010.
P.S.
Where Ann points to gridlock on the budget and spending cuts, isn't any one out there going to take a stab at what you would have done? I have put Defense at the head of my list. And I have pointed out that both Education and Healthcare could use additional cost cutting, but performance enhancing improvements. Nothing, even entitlements, can be spared.
I expect that our local Desert neo-cons will want spending increases on border security. That's just about as useless a place to spend money as is Afghanistan.
Rich posted at 3:49 pm on Mon, Dec 27, 2010.
What should have been done is obvious in hindsight. Obama had to fix the economy first. He instead chose to concentrate on a radical, divisive program of bail-outs, gimmicks like trade in your car and healthcare, that has divided the country into impotence. If you follow what Reagan did, he attacked economic policy first, When that succeeded, he proceeded with his agenda. Obama proceeded with his agenda first, digging a hole we will still be trying to crawl out of in two years with a divided legislature half mired in ideology without a practical thought except to probe to what extent platitudes will help get them re-elected.
What to expect in the next year? Incompetence. However I do hold out for the very slender chance that they will stumble into doing a right thing or two by accident. Obama threw away his chance to lead. About all he can do right now is stumble and fall in the right direction.
Slabside posted at 4:10 pm on Mon, Dec 27, 2010.
Very well put Rich.
Accuracy posted at 6:08 pm on Mon, Dec 27, 2010.
What to expect from Washington in 2011
I too agree..... “Very well put Rich”
"Incompetence". The fact of being incompetent and lacking the qualities needed for effective action.
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Along with national debt, Government spending and unemployment.
With the 2012 elections looming, the debt threatening the future of the economy, and the fact the total unemployment numbers are going up significantly, Obama is facing a delicate balancing act.
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., warned if Americans don't stop the binge-spending, they'll face what he calls "apocalyptic pain," including 15 to 18 percent unemployment.
While the best opportunity for strong job creation, and growth, is for the U.S. economy to sharply boost its exports and with far less imports.
Dale Whiting posted at 6:40 pm on Mon, Dec 27, 2010.
Rich,
Refresh my memory, please. Reagan held to a program of fixing the economy and then, once the economy was fixed, went to his agenda? Your talking about 1981 to 1988, right?
As I recall, we had an S&L crisis after that industry was degegulated and now we have no S&L's at all. Was deregulation a part of fixing the economy or a part of his agenda? And didn't Reagan raise taxes? Was that fixing the economy or his agenda?
I do recall the 1980 primary during which Geo.H.W.Bush characterized Reaganomics, certainly a big part of Reagan's campaign agenda, to be voodoo economics. Just when did Reaganomics kick in? I just do not remember.
However, I do remember attending economics class in graduate school during the spring of 1980. The professor would lecture us on emerging economics theory and then we would go home and hear the lecture repeated by Ronny on TV. After the election, that professor became Ronny's chief economics advisor. I got an A in the class. I know Reaganomics from the ground up and I have the transcripts to prove it. The professor resigned as an advisor when Reagan listened more to Ed Meese than to his advisors. Reaganomics was a fraud. Reagan was a fool. The economy did not fully repound until Clinton took office.
Or am I some how confused?
Rich posted at 10:13 pm on Mon, Dec 27, 2010.
Tried to answer you six times, this what comes up. "An error occurred: Your comment cannot be accepted due to the presence of profanity. Please remove any objectionable content from your comment and try again." Congrats you are one of chosen of EVT. BTW William S. Buckley and I knew each other, I have six books of his inscribed to me. I was always a little to his right. As to poltiticos, produce or go away. Reagan produced, Obama hasn't. If we knew thw answers, we'd be Gods.
kathrynmuniz posted at 12:35 am on Tue, Dec 28, 2010.
But for many hardworking families, affordable insurance can be hard to find. The new "Wise Health Insurance" is giving you more control over your family’s health care by expanding your options for health insurance and making them more affordable.
Dale Whiting posted at 12:03 pm on Tue, Dec 28, 2010.
Rich,
Sincerely, I am impressed. I am impressed with most everything you say. You speak from the perspective of one who is well informed. We have both similar and dissimilar backgrounds. We have looked into some topics much more than has the typical growd that pupulates these pages. So, seriously, when you say Reagan accomplished [much] of his agenda after squaring away the economy, please list what of his agenda he accomplished. I just don't see much.
I understand your point about President Obama getting sidetracked on healthcare reform, too. The way I see it, a new president has only so much political capital and President Obama chose to spend hisbefore it was gone on perhaps the most timely measure from his campaign, healthcare reform.
I understand how angry conservatives, [and likely Bill Buckley] are for his going after that agenda when seemingly more important matters were pending, i.e. the economy, stupid. But even if he had gone there first, I see little prospect that the economy would be any better today and no prospect that any healthcare reforms would have occurred.
Bottom line, if unemployment is not below 8% in Oct of 2012, it will be interesting to see what Republican emerges to challenge President Obama and whether a Democrat challenged him in the primary.
Now back to Reaganomics. Neo-cons [and it is not clear to me that you are or are not a neo-con] sing the praises of Reaganomics. Having spoken up in class challenging the underlying assumptions of that body of theories, I pretty much understand why it did fail and why it will continue to fail when tried. Reagon's chief accomplishment was to derail [perhaps unwittingly] the one thing which changed the game and undercut the theory by changing the economic world. He oversaw and in fact helped support Gorbachev in ending the Cold War. Before him, Carter facilitated peace between Egypt and Israel. Both had unforseen impact on the overseas investment game. That lead to an atmosphere where capital investment could savely be made in israel as well as in third world countries and stimulated the growth of overseas industrial development. Now the "invisible hand" chooses to do business with those capitalists who invest overseas. Nothing much trickles down in the US. So cutting taxes no longer stimulates our economy like it once could have.
That simple!