-Caveat Lector- <http://www.nypostonline.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/18832.htm> CAN BUSH GOVERN? Friday,December 15,2000 CONSUMER ALERT: Don't believe anything you have heard or seen on television in the past 48 hours! Despite their claims of the end of partisanship, House and Senate Democrats are going to go after President Bush II - big time. Disguising their carnivorous intentions behind smiles of conciliation, Sens. Tom Daschle, Ted Kennedy and Paul Wellstone; Reps. Charlie Rangel, Dick Gephardt and David Bonior - all will do their best to bring George W. Bush down. Their animus will not be motivated by the close presidential race or any doubts about the outcome in Florida. The Democrats in Congress could care less. What matters to them is that they are within one vote of controlling the Senate and a handful of taking the House. Had Al Gore won, they would likely have fallen further back in the 2002 midterm elections. But now that Bush II is in office, the Democrats feel they can look forward to the customary gains of the out-of-power party in the midterm elections. With control come committee chairmanships, staff allotments, perks and privilege. Trashing Bush II is a small price to pay for those kinds of rewards. The "Republican-run" Congress is largely an illusion. They will more or less control the House of Representatives by maintaining party discipline, but the Senate, with its unlimited debate rule, is quite another matter. In the past two decades, the Constitution has been gradually amended, de facto, so that it takes 60 votes - the number needed to shut down a filibuster - to pass a bill through the Senate instead of the legally required 51. Trent Lott doesn't have nearly that many. In a sense, Bush II faces the same situation Bill Clinton did when he first took office in 1993. Having won with only 43 percent of the vote, Clinton felt that the Republicans regarded his presidency as "illegitimate" and refused to deal with him. "They say that I only won because Perot split their vote and that they'd rather wait out the four years than work with me," Clinton complained in 1993. With a united GOP refusing to do serious business with him, Clinton chose to try to govern through his Democratic majorities in each House of Congress. But faced with the need to round up every last liberal to back his programs, he had to veer far to the left in his policies and proposals. "I didn't even recognize myself," he admitted in 1995 as he looked back on the liberalism of his first year in the presidency. In the Senate, even with a united party behind him he couldn't prevail because he could never shut down a filibuster without GOP help. In 1995 and 1996, Clinton found the answer - an answer Bush II needs to emulate. He governed by shoving the GOP agenda down their throats and passing it into law. Unable to refuse Clinton's "yes," the Republicans had no choice but to pass their own bills and watch the Democratic president sign them and take credit for their passage. The result was that the Republican Party had no issues for 1996. Welfare was reformed. The budget was en route to balance. Crime was down. Tax cuts had passed. Now Bush II has the chance to take away the agenda of the Democrats in the 2002 election. By passing a prescription-drug benefit and a patient's bill of rights that the Democrats have to accept, he can denude the opposition of its best issues. If he adds to it by passing a moderate tax cut - only somewhat larger than the one Clinton proposed - he can steal the entire agenda of the opposite party. A president doesn't conciliate the opposition party, he acquires their cooperation by forcing them to pass their own agenda. If he does govern by moving to the center, he will retain Congress - and perhaps acquire a governable majority as well - as long as the economy doesn't tank. But if he tries to veer right and govern through the caucus as Clinton did in 1993-94, he will face two, or if he's lucky, six years of misery with a hostile Congress on his case, just as Clinton did. ================================================================= Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT FROM THE DESK OF: *Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends ================================================================= <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! 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