Can you blame them? Two weeks is all what is left for the Democrat majority in the US Congress to take as much as they can out of the (empty) government chests. And they try hard to do just that until the last day! They even canceled their Christmas vacation. Starting January 5th the Republicans have the majority in the House, and almost the majority in the Senate. All what the Democrats didn’t dare to bring up for a vote in the last two years, although they had an absolute majority for most of the time, is now brought before the Congress. Will they succeed?
 
There are no problems in the House, since the Democrats have a comfortable majority in that legislative body. For the time being they give the impression to have big problems with the compromise text not to raise taxes during the next two years. But, this is only a big show for their union constituents. When you read this text, it is quite possible they already voted for the new law. The Senate accepted the compromise a few days ago. The Republicans convinced Obama to go along with the new deal. This was a first big victory for the Republicans.
 
In the Senate, the Democrats count on convincing or bribing at least two Republicans to go along with them and vote for the Democratic proposals. Two is all they need to reach the threshold of 60 votes.

What else is so important for the Democrats?

The Budget
For the time being, the US government operates without a year-budget, but with budgets voted month by month. The Democratic Congress abdicated its most important task for many months by refusing to present and vote on a year-budget. Up till yesterday evening, they demanded the acceptance of a $ 1.2 billion expense budget for the remaining 9 months of the budget year. The proposed law was 1924 pages long! It spent more than a half billion dollars per page! It listed thousands of earmarks worth billions of dollars. This was their last chance to put their hands on the money!

But yesterday evening the Republicans forced the withdrawal of the proposal. Reid, the Senate leader and a Democrat, accepts the one page proposal of the Republicans to fund the government up to February 18th, without earmarks. This is a second huge victory for the Republicans. They succeeded again by forming one closed block.

The START agreement
Just to give Obama the illusion of an international victory, and to boost his ego and image in the world, the Democrats in the Senate insists to ratify the START-accords between Russia and the US. To succeed 9 Republicans have to vote with all the Democrats, because ratification needs a 2/3 majority (67 votes).

The START contract rules on important aspects of the nuclear weapons technologies of both countries. Opponents of the treaty find it unacceptable to vote so fast without in depth discussions. They believe the intent of the founders of this nation was for the Senate to study and discuss all treaties with due diligence. Secondly they find serious shortcomings in START, and some very dangerous consequences for the US. To name only two: (1) the Russians declared a month ago that this treaty prevents the US to deploy more and better defense against incoming missiles, the notorious anti-missile-missiles. The Russians say they have the texts, redacted during the negotiations with the Obama folks, to prove it. They also say they will abandon the treaty if the US expands its defenses. Obama dismisses the Russian interpretation, but at the same time he refuses to show the transcripts of the negotiations. (2) The treaty doesn’t change anything on the number or deployment of the tactical nuclear weapons, the area wherein the Russians are superior, but only addresses the strategic weapons, the area wherein the Americans are dominant.

Green and other subjects
Democrats in the Senate introduced a law of 327 pages long giving the government the authority to fulfill a maximum of the green lobbies’ wishes. For example, mining, foresting, agriculture, drilling and all other human activities are outlawed in new vast stretches of land. Really shocking and dangerous is the incorporation of such prohibitions on land along the Mexican border. This makes it practically impossible to seal this border and control all border crossings.  Most of the articles in this proposal have never been discussed in the Senate.

The LGBT-movement in the US is bitter towards Obama and the Democrats in Congress for not commanding the military to abandon the ‘Don’t ask, Don’t Tell’ policy. This means installing a new policy: accepting the right of gay military personnel to declare their sexual orientation. The Democrats had 2 years to vote the new policy into law, while they had for the longest time the absolute majority. Not one Republican could block any law. Such change in policy was one of Obama’s important campaign promises to secure the gay vote for him. Now, all of a sudden, the military policy must be changed to appease the LGBT lobby, since Democrats fear the Republicans will not care to bring such issue to a vote next year.

The reaction
The ever fast expanding power of the government over the lives of its citizens, the uncontrolled expansion of government spending leading to huge budget deficits, and the concoctions in secret of long and complex law proposals behind closed doors in Washington, are universally recognized as the reasons why the Democrats were beaten so severely in November. The Democrats, in these next two weeks of their last chance to grab some money and to realize parts of their program, give the impression they want to do exact the opposite of what the majority of the voters want.

The Republicans are strong in their resolve to oppose the Democrat proposals, because they know the people are watching them. If they don’t change radically the way business is done in Washington, they might not be reelected in 2012. The Republicans want to postpone all discussions until early next year when they are in the majority.

But the weak link could be a couple of Republican Senators, who lost their primary against a Tea Party candidate. Six of the Republican Senators are not coming back next year. They could sell their honor for the gift of some millions of dollar for a pet project. Until now, not one of them deserted the Republican cause in the two major issues at hand: taxes and government spending.

We’ll keep you posted. Stay tuned.