Showdown at the Santa Claus Corral

By Charlie Barber
Staff Writer

“...Not since the civil rights movement and the difficult birth of taxpayer supported health care for the elderly and the poor have government leaders made so many big changes…so quickly.” - Laurie Kellman, AP, 12/24/10

“We will move forward together or not at all.” - Barack Obama, 1/25/11

Although there was no violence, it was a cold blooded resolution of two years of contention. It happened last December and was duly, but briefly, reported by our media, before they moved on to more familiar and congenial reporting of conflict -  bloody and otherwise.

In the so-called “lame duck” session between Thanksgiving and Christmas 2010, President Obama and Democrats in Congress forced Mitch McConnell to give in and release numerous bills he held hostage by use of long-standing Senate customs.

What Senate Minority Leader McConnell realized was that President Obama would not back down on his threat to allow Bush/Cheney tax breaks for the rich 2 percent of our country to lapse, unless legislation that benefited the other 98 percent of us were allowed to pass through the Senate. Mitch McConnell knows that he is expected to deliver for the princely hands that feed mouths and coffers of Republicans. 

In addition, Mitch McConnell knew that President Obama had endured threats and vilification in his first two years with grace under pressure. Whatever Barack Obama’s personal feelings about running for reelection, he wasn’t bluffing. He had called Hillary Clinton’s bluff in the 2008 Primaries, and he had called the Tea Baggers’ gun totin’ bluffs at town meetings regarding Health Care in August 2009, and he was calling Mitch McConnell’s bluff in December 2010.

So in return for one item - tax breaks for the rich, Mitch McConnell set aside all his Senate power designed to thwart majority rule and released the following hostages from the power struggle between Republican Party leadership and the agenda of the President of the United States:

The first hostage released was Senate ratification of a nuclear arms treaty with Russia, a former enemy. The Russians, after all, are now our ally, and fellow victims in the war on terrorism. To continue to clothe them in cold war rhetoric for political gain over the past 20 years has been a short sighted and shameful tactic. 

A significant byproduct of the nuclear treaty can benefit the environment and create real jobs as well. Weapons grade nuclear material, no longer needed for rockets, is now available for conversion to manufacture of electricity without contributing to greenhouse gases, right here in North Dakota. Minnesota will be happy to purchase clean electricity from “Generation Three” nuclear plants on the sites of former missile silos, and high tech jobs can supplement our low-paying, service sector jobs.

A second hostage released was tax breaks for the middle class, which they immediately went out and spent on Christmas shopping, thus boosting the economy.

A third set of hostages were brave and loyal men and women of our Armed Forces suffering persecution and humiliation on the grounds of whom they loved besides their country. For one thing, homophobia likely reached the peak of its usefulness for Republicans by the November 2010 elections and is now more likely to linger only in the nasty confines of the Tea Party. Most importantly, the ending of the cynical and cowardly “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy in our military is a major step forward in the continuing story of American civil rights progress. This is a tribute to gay soldiers who have bravely fought for our country.

A fourth set of hostages were many judicial appointments being held up by Republican filibuster tactics for strictly partisan and ideological reasons.

A fifth set of hostages were 9/11 victims and first responders. This outrageous holdup of aid to survivors of the September 2001 terrorism attack on the World Trade Center and responders who became ill working in its ruins shows how Mitch McConnell and fellow Republicans are no more than “plastic patriots.”

Too many Republican legislators are quick to wave flags and shout slogans, but slow to actually do something, like fund veterans benefits, or provide for victims of attacks on this country. Some Republican Senators, like Tom Coburn [OK] and Mike Enzi [WY], grudgingly joined Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York in accepting a smaller amount of the originally proposed $6 billion [$4.2 billion].

A sixth set of hostages are those still looking for jobs, badly in need of the unemployment compensation held up by smug apostles of deregulation who set in motion the crash in the first place 12 years ago.

A Food Security Bill, badly needed to correct blind eyes cast by Republicans (toward unscrupulous merchants in the market place), was a seventh hostage released.

An eighth hostage released was a trade deal with South Korea, which promises thousands of jobs for Americans.

Last but not least in this list of beneficiaries are college students, teachers who buy classroom supplies with their own money and Americans who live in States that have sales taxes, but no income tax. 

Tax breaks for the least wealthy. Amazing.

Just like Christmas shoppers who charge their purchases for the holidays, the bills come due in the New Year, and that was the gist of President Obama’s budget message on Jan. 25, 2011. His quip about the jurisdiction of salmon under one department for fresh water and another for salt water was an amusing insight into waste at the federal level, but also an indication that he isn’t bluffing here either.                                                                                                       

To a budget hawk like North Dakota’s Senator Kent Conrad, Barack Obama’s determination to cut costs is welcome news, and he will no doubt, endeavor to keep the president’s feet to the fire.

Republicans in North Dakota and the nation are on the horns of a dilemma. While consistently putting this country in a hole budget wise with tax breaks for the wealthy and a ruinous war in Iraq, they nevertheless preach fiscal responsibility as a Republican mantra. With President Obama’s determination to pay for his hard-earned victories in the first two years of his administration, Republicans are likely to experience a reenactment of the familiar “beware of what you ask for, for you may get it.”

A balanced budget amendment is completely impractical. Constitutional amendments are the most rigid and difficult means to achieve change in this country and Sen. Hoeven, as well as any student of high school civics, knows it.

Although painful, it’s just simpler to take things out of the federal budget, like the Minot Air Force Base, for example, and possibly, even the one at Grand Forks as well.                                       

In 1970 Sen. J. William Fulbright [D-Arkansas] published a book called “The Pentagon Propaganda Machine.” In it he pointed out how the Pentagon, in defense of Cold War objectives, and with great profits for the “military industrial complex,” as decried by President Eisenhower in 1960, had managed to put a military installation or Pentagon related industry in all 435 Congressional Districts.

That party is over, and some lights will be “turning out.”

Strategically speaking, the Great Falls [MT] and Duluth [MN] Air Bases are capable of handling post-cold war security needs. The biggest threat near the North Pole nowadays is global warming. Also, voters in Minnesota and Montana have shown themselves far friendlier lately towards Democrats. Such things matter. 

Since the 1950s, Republicans have made political hay by exaggerating fears real enough on their own merits. Now Republicans face their greatest fear of all—living up to their own rhetoric that Americans live within their means.

No state is better positioned to live within its means than North Dakota, but that does not mean that Republicans here are ready to face this. 

The truth is that neither Republicans nor Democrats, in the overwhelming number of other states facing huge budget deficits, are going to sympathize with us. 
 
Republicans in North Dakota, who object to the metaphor of a hostage crisis and also are Minnesota Vikings fans, might recall the Herschel Walker trade. That was when the Vikings obtained an above-average running back in exchange for numerous draft choices, which underwrote several Super Bowls for the Dallas Cowboys.

In winning the showdown at the Santa Claus Corral, Barack Obama greatly increased his chances for winning another “Super Bowl,” not for his home team Chicago Bears, but for himself - a second term.

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