Given that no one expects anything productive out of D.C. over the next two years, our sharply divided government should provide both parties plenty of opportunities to define themselves ahead of the 2016 elections.
For example, new Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, fresh off his stint of trying to destroy Barack Obama’s presidency, is now worried about scaring off voters from a potential future Republican president. “I don’t want the American people to think that if they add a Republican president to a Republican Congress, that’s going to be a scary outcome,” he said. “I want the American people to be comfortable with the fact that the Republican House and Senate is a responsible, right-of-center, governing majority.”
{mosads}Hmmm, why would he feel the need to say that? Perhaps it’s because the GOP has been so effective at playing to its radical base to the detriment of the broader American mainstream? Their approach has worked great for the low-turnout midterm elections that base Democrats tune out. But in a presidential year, McConnell knows the GOP needs to be less “scary.”
That’s a heavy lift for a party accustomed to indulging its fringe.
To start, the best approach would be to clean up the mess McConnell’s merry band of obstructionists created while in the minority. There’s the Medicare “doc fix,” which will cost billions that fiscal conservatives won’t want to spend. There’s the unfunded highway trust fund, which will run out of money in May if nothing is done, halting all federally funded roadwork around the country. McConnell and the Republican House will be responsible for replenishing those funds — whether via a general fund bailout or increase in gas taxes. That should be fun to watch.
Then there’ll be the debt ceiling battle in the summer.
And while fiscal conservatives work overtime to starve crumbling roads and bridges of funding, while they fight hard to deny doctors fair compensation for their work, while they try their darndest to default on our nation’s financial obligations, social conservatives will be doing their own scary business.
First up, the GOP’s xenophobic right will fight Obama’s immigration executive order preventing the deportation of undocumented immigrant parents of U.S. citizens. Furious at the administration’s efforts to prevent American kids from losing their parents to federal police action, Republicans funded the Department of Homeland Security only through the end of February. You see, the party of “family values” thinks playing politics with our nation’s security is fine if you’re trying to tear families apart!
The problem is the agency tasked with implementing Obama’s executive orders, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, isn’t funded out of appropriations — it’s funded by user fees. So Congress can’t defund what it doesn’t fund in the first place. And even if they could, how do you defund an order that changes the agency’s focus from noncriminal parents of American children to terrorists, gang members and other violent felons? In any case, Latinos and Asians, the nation’s two fastest growing demographics, will get yet another (scary!) reminder that Republicans genuinely want to tear their families apart.
And finally, there will — as always — be a vocal conservative caucus tilting at the windmill of repealing or defunding ObamaCare.
Adding spice to this will be the GOP presidential field taking shape in the background, influencing the agenda as candidates all try to out-conservative each other to the nomination.
So McConnell doesn’t want a “scary outcome”? He’s got his work cut out for him.
Moulitsas is the founder and publisher of Daily Kos.