As I write this early Wednesday morning, it looks like the Senate will flip to Democrat control with the aid of the Vice President’s tie-breaking vote. In the Georgia runoffs, Kelly Loeffler trails Raphael Warnock by about 52,000 votes with 2% of the vote remaining. There have been projections calling the race for Warnock. That means that at least one seat flips in the Senate.
The other race, between Jon Ossoff and David Perdue is still too tight to call this morning. Ossoff leads Perdue by about 16,000 votes with again, about 2% of the vote left to be counted. If Ossoff were to hold on, it would mean the Senate is going to be a 50-50 tie for the next two years. Ossoff has already declared victory, which is kind of like declaring your team the winner of the NBA Championship with two minutes to go in the fourth quarter and you up by a point.
So, the big question is, what do you look forward to in the “new Senate”? You’re going to get a change in the Majority Leader status as Chuck Schumer takes over and Mitch McConnell slips back to Minority Leader. And yes, they will try very hard to undo the various things that McConnell has been able to do. They will push for abolishing the filibuster. They will push for packing the Supreme Court to lessen the impact of a 6-3 conservative court. And they will push hard for statehood for both Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico, because that would give the Senate 104 members, and the last four would all be Democrats. Unfortunately, they need every single Democrat to vote their way in order to achieve those items, and West Virginia Democrat, Joe Manchin has said there is no way he will be on board with any of it. So, unless Susan Collins, or Mitt Romney, or Lisa Murkowski jump ship, those items will be as much a pipe dream as the Republicans desire to finish the much needed wall on the southern border.
What the Democrats will probably be able to push through at some point will be more money for those getting stimulus checks. The last one that was bandied about was $2,000 for each adult, though Republicans were against it because they woke up and realized they had been on a monstrous spending spree over the past dozen years or so. Look for your taxes to shoot up…and unfortunately, if you are one of the 47% of Americans who don’t have to pay income taxes, you are going to get caught in the net. You have to. There isn’t enough money amongst “the filthy 1%’ers” to solve our country’s financial woes.
And you’ll probably get some sort of immigration reform. Yes, it’s been long overdue, and I’m not sure it’s going to be much better than what we’ve currently got…but it will probably happen since Dems’ control both houses of Congress, and the White House. Other than that, I don’t look for much to happen. As I’ve mentioned, they only have about a year before they start campaigning for elections again. There will be 14 Democrat and 20 Republican seats up for grabs in the Senate, and all of the seats will be up for grabs in the House.
The most popular version of history states that the party out of power gains in both houses of Congress during midterm elections. If that holds true, the Republicans could very easily take back both the House and the Senate in 2022. It will be an interesting time to watch. Keep the popcorn ready.
Carry on world…you’re dismissed!
The Lone Cactus 
Let’s recap: after the first two democratic primaries Joe Biden was getting his ass handed to him. The easiest step in the world was to go on the debate stage and join the “more free stuff movement.” He elected not to play that game, to remain true to his beliefs and principles. While it was a gamble, it was he he was. In the end it paid off. He won the primaries and then ultimately the presidency.
All of the efforts to paint him as some crazed radical leftist socialist failed. The reason is simple, it simply wasn’t true. Now with the balance of power hanging in the Georgia outcome, he may well have a 50/50 split in the Senate and the democrats become the majority party with the VP breaking any ties.
All of which leads me to this reflection. Biden is old, uninspiring and babbles at times. That said, he is normal, practical and down to earth. That alone is refreshing. But there’s more, way more. This morning he nominated Merrick Garland for his attorney general. That will make several “progressives” angry. So be it.
Biden understands the need to govern from the middle. He’s not beating on his chest this morning. He’s starting to take charge and rebuild the shitpile we are caught up in. There’s no upside to playing politics at this point, there’s too much real work to be done.
In spite of what he has said he would do on day one, his agenda the first year should be basically simple. Put people in positions of government to start to rebuild the infrastructure; direct all efforts to insuring vaccinations are done on a massive scale; target relief for small businesses and people in the most need and start to reopen the economy. You can’t do that safely till we stop the spread.
All of the other grandiose plans we are hearing about will be shoved aside, maybe never even brought up. We’ve failed miserably in injecting common sense into the pandemic plan. In my humble opinion, that will be the first year of the Biden presidency…Who in their right mind would be opposed to that?
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I don’t think anybody would. But I think the actions of today clearly demonstrate that it is going to test Joe Biden’s best efforts to “unite the country”. I think he’s going to have a real hard year.
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Reblogged this on boudica.us.
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