At last – the mid-term election is behind us. President Obama had said that although he was not on the ballot, his policies were. The nation’s voters repudiated those policies. Republicans were voted in and Democrats voted out. Some races are still in dispute, but Republicans have already secured more than enough new Senate seats to replace Democrat Senator Harry Reid, Leader of the Senate, with Republican Senator Mitch McConnell. In his victory speech, Senator McConnell said, “It’s time to go in a new direction. Real change in Washington is what I intend to deliver.”
I know that a lot of people might ask, “What difference does an election make?” Well, we shall see. Hopefully, we will see an effort to reform our complicated, full-of-loopholes tax system. Maybe the Congress can pass “Trade Promotion Authority.” Then, we will be taken seriously by other countries as we negotiate trade agreements. How about passing legislation to authorize the Keystone Pipeline? President Obama has blocked every effort so far. Corporate taxes need to be reduced. Our rate is higher than any other developed country in the world.
Businesses in the U.S. have been intimidated by the Obama Administration regulatory overreach. If this can be stopped, maybe we can see new business investment and economic growth. The economy was the voters’ top concern in this election by a wide margin.
Next year, I would expect the Republican Congress will be sending a number of bills to the President for his signature. With some compromise, perhaps he will sign some of them. We desperately need to deal with our backlog of issues.
In years past, we have seen Presidents deal with the other party to get things done. President Reagan worked with a Democratic Congress and negotiated an historic agreement with the Soviet Union to eliminate intermediate-range nuclear missiles. President Clinton signed Republican welfare reform legislation after vetoing it a number of times. Then, he took credit for the legislation.
Here is where we are now. President Obama’s policies were on the ballot, and rejected. But, he still has a chance to reach across the aisle to get some things done which, up until now, he has been unwilling to do. We shall see.
John Block was Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture from 1981-1985, where he played a key role in the development of the 1985 Farm Bill.
