Well, the 2010 fall elections have come and gone. We’ve had a landslide victory for Republicans in the US House, and the Democrats have decisively lost their filibuster-proof majority in the US Senate. Similarly, Wisconsin now has a Republican Governor, and Republican majorities in the Assembly and State Senate. And Wisconsin’s change from Democrat to Republican control was reflected to varying degrees in other states across the country, as well.
OK. So what does all this mean for, like, Little Chute and the Fox Valley? Good question. Without a really clear answer yet. But I’ve got a few preliminary observations anyway.
From where I sit, the clear message of this election is about financial discipline. Yes, I know, there were other issues in Washington as well, like a deluge of earmarks and pork and the government bailout of GM and investment banks and the failure of Fannie-Mae/Freddie-Mac and a Health-care bill that topped two thousand pages of one-liner changes to the US code. And there were similar issues in Madison too. Fair enough. But we’ve seen this kind of thing coming from both parties in recent years, to one degree or another.
But the financial soft-headedness of the current administration and of many in the Democrat party seemed to resonate with an awful lot of voters this year. In order to carry out the agenda favored by President Obama and the current Congress, an unimaginable amount of money has recently been borrowed, or will be borrowed, by the US government. And borrowed from countries that don’t always have our national interests at heart. The increased debt and profligate spending that’s the hallmark of this administration is unsustainable without eventual tax hikes, substantial inflation, or both. And tax hikes and inflation, or even the prospect of future tax hikes and inflation, may well turn our anemic economic recovery into a much deeper recession.
On the other hand, our newly empowered Republican legislators have yet to transition from campaigning to actually governing. The challenges facing our state and our nation are quite difficult, and in some cases are very hard to see clearly. The new legislators are going to face a political minefield of competing philosophies and principles when they begin their terms in January. And many of them are new to the job, so they’ll have to learn the ropes while going into battle. Not an enviable situation for them.
In the coming months, we’ll get a closer look at the new Republican agendas in Madison and Washington. If the implementation of the new Republican agenda is found wanting, I’m convinced that voters will not be amused. If the new Republican leadership begins to favor rhetoric over the values and principles that we all cherish, I doubt the voters will be swayed.
And I’ve already caught whiffs of some Republicans going back to the old incompetent, hard-hearted, ideological mindlessness that got so many Republicans voted out of office in the past decade. Americans seem to be in a reform-minded mood, right now. And I suspect that this desire to reform what doesn’t work in the political arena will continue unabated for years to come. So the clock is already ticking for our newly elected legislators. We’ll just have to stay tuned, to see what actually develops in Washington and Madison in the months ahead.
Meanwhile, our local election cycle is beginning once again. We elect part of our Village leadership every year in the spring. December 1st (tomorrow) is the first day that candidates can start collecting signatures to place their names on the ballot. So hopefully, we’ll be hearing from a number of people who want to run for office, who want to make Little Chute a better place to live, work and play.
Michael
