Consequences of the 2006 Election

The people have spoken. They lashed out against the Republican party on a nationwide basis. Both houses of Congress have fallen into the hands of the Democrats. President George W. Bush has officially been declared a "lame duck". Good reason here because it will be very difficult for him to advance his agenda with the Democrats in control of Congress. The only good thing is that Democrat control is slim. The Dems have a 51 to 49 majority in the U.S. Senate and a 229 to 195 majority in the U.S. House. They may not have enough votes to override presidential vetoes. Hopefully the President will not be timid and yield his veto pen more often than he did in the past to stop bad legislation.

I expect a lot of bad legislation will be introduced in Congress for at least the next 2 years. That will start with efforts to "cut and run" from the Iraq War, increasing the minimum wage and advancing the agenda to bring on socialized medicine. Tax increases are sure to follow.

The consequences for Hawaii is the high probability that our all Democrat Congressional delegation will get to chair some very high profile committees. Already the scuttlebutt coming from Senators Daniel Akaka, Daniel Inouye and U.S. Congressman Neil Abercrombie is that they will try to get more money to Hawaii to fund projects like the proposed rail system. The possibility of the Akaka Bill passing in the next 2 years is higher than it ever was.

Abercrombie was caught on TV yelling as usual about building the rail out to Waikiki, Koolina and Mililani. He is scary but even worst the possibility of this thing going out to all of these places with the costs skyrocketing into the 10s of billions dollars.

Our wallets are doomed. Democrats are known for hiking taxes and taking more of our money to use somewhere else. It is too scary.

Lastly this note of hopeful optimism comes from radio commentator Rush Limbaugh:

Republicanism lost. Conservatism was nowhere to be found other than on the Democrat side of the aisle. Now, there are a number of theories that are running out there on what caused all this to happen. The political environment was terrible; the public deeply unhappy with the fact that the Republican Congress got too comfortable in power and that the conservativism that was known to exist in the House Republicans just vanished, in many cases died. The public is unhappy with the war, but they're unhappy and because they don't see the progress or the result that they want. There wasn't any big move toward liberalism on national security issues. There wasn't any big move on liberalism when it comes to gay marriage or affirmative action. Affirmative action lost in Michigan.

We'll see what happens in the next 2 years.