Well, yours truly has been busy as of late. I will have to leave the United States in December and probably in January for work related issues. Still, I have been mildly active on the local political front. I have been primarily active in opposing Metro's empire building rail expansion.
Much has been written on the 2006 mid-term elections. I can say this:
1) Anyone is this world who thinks that America is about to pull out of Iraq soon just because Congress has changed hands does not understand how politics works or how statesmen think. This goes for America or in any other large, powerful country.
2) The Democrats will start the process of putting price controls on pharmeceutical drugs. As you might remember, the Bushies and Republicans extended Medicare such that Medicare now pays for prescription drugs. They did so, but put few if any constraints on the prices paid for them. That will now change.
3) Although the Democratic party won the election, the Democrats as a party have been in a much more fractious state than the Republicans for quite a while now. Much has been made about the divisions between social conservatives and economic libertarians within the Republican party, but that split pales in the comparison between the Democrats. Try this for a list: free trade Democrats like Bill Clinton verses labor unions, blacks verses Hispanics, verses Asians (all three groups lean Democrat and all of them don't care too much for each other), the elite lawyers verses the blue collar Democrats, the "Progressive" (what I call Progressive Enslavement) Democrats who want to increase taxes and continue to mobilize state power verses the so called "Blue Dog" or "Yellow Dog" Democrats. And that list is just for starters.
4) The oil and gas industry will get picked on, but President Bush may veto any such initiatives unless the Democrats bundle them together with other items in tax and regulatory legislation.
5) The minimum wage will probably go up a little, but not to $7.25 per hour.
Any such political party is going to have a hard time getting much accomplished. An argument could be advanced that the fractiousness of the Democratic party was the cause of death surrounding Bill and Hillary's 1994 universal health insurance regime.
Part II will involve my analysisi and commentary of the 2006 RevCap and the political situation in Houston.
Posted by The Mighty Wizard at November 8, 2006 08:32 PM