The editors of the Wall Street Journal proffer advice on how the new Congress can be a better Congress:
So the overall GOP goal should be to craft an agenda centered on faster economic growth, job creation and raising middle-class incomes. Theme by theme, Republicans can show the country how they would govern if they take the White House in 2016 while accepting as many incremental policy gains as they can get.
The leadership can start with policies most likely to get through the Senate and onto Mr. Obama’s desk. Two good candidates are bipartisan bills to approve the Keystone XL pipeline and restore the normal 40-hour workweek under ObamaCare. If the President vetoes, he’ll be the obstructionist.
Republicans can then suss out what else is possible with Democrats, with or without Mr. Obama. The most cited areas of potential agreement are trade promotion authority, regulatory restraint and perhaps corporate tax reform. This White House has a talent for inflaming debates when the real policy differences are few and small, but Republicans might as well try to do business, and the sooner the better.
There are quite a few factors left out of their calculus. We already know what a House Minority Leader Pelosi will be like. She’ll act much as she has for the last several years: she will oppose just about everything the majority wants to accomplish and have varied success in holding her caucus together.
But what will a Senate Minority Leader Reid do? Will he be more eager for compromise and, frankly, more interested in enacting legislation than he was as majority leader? I find that prospect hard to credit. Or will his primary objective be not leaving fingerprints as it was when he was majority leader? That resulted in disaster for his party—not leaving fingerprints meant that Democratic senators had no record on which to run other than the areas in which they supported the president which didn’t make for strong re-election campaigns. There are people who believe that if they just keep repeating the same losing strategy over and over again it will eventually succeed. We’ll soon learn if Harry Reid is one of them.
As to whether Mitch McConnell’s leadership will be any better, we can only speculate. John Boehner continues to face opposition from within his own caucus from radicals, some newly elected, who believe they were sent to Washington for the express purpose of not working with establishment Republicans let alone Democrats or the president.
Will the 114th Congress be a better Congress or just a different one? I’d put my money on the latter but I’m always ready to be pleasantly surprised.
Senate minority leaders usually have more power than House minority leaders, which meant there was no reason for Pelosi to not swerve hard against the Republican majority. It just didn’t matter save for fund-raising and creating chatter.
But Reid has more power. I doubt he will use it, but he could.
Mostly I expect more of the same, as I see no reason to believe that McConnell & Boehner have any principles whatsoever, nor any goals other than go along to get re-elected.
I have no confidence that you or me will be pleasantly surprised by this Congress.