1993 All Over Again

Faced with 24/7 obamamania on the media, the 60 million Americans who did not vote for Barack Obama are wondering where we go from here. Will events turn out like 1993, when another liberal president was inaugurated with the support of big majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate?
Under the direction of the activist First Lady, the liberals attempted a government takeover of the massive health care industry, in addition to passing new regulations and tax hikes. Bill Clinton rewarded the feminists by passing Joe Biden's nearly-billion-dollar-a-year Violence Against Women Act.
But then came the mid-term elections in 1994, and liberals were abruptly reminded how conservative America really is. In a tsunami we hadn't seen since 1946, Republicans won both Houses of Congress by wide margins.
The Speaker of the House, Tom Foley, was defeated for reelection, something that hadn't happened in over a century. President Bill Clinton held on to his power because he was not yet up for reelection, and he quickly changed his stripes to govern more middle-of-the-road.
The new Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) by big majorities and Clinton signed it into law. DOMA protects states and the federal government against having to recognize same-sex marriages that are performed in other states.
The new Congress passed Welfare Reform to end some of the worst abuses of the system started by Lyndon Johnson's Great Society in the 1960s. After much grumbling, Clinton signed it.
The liberals never forgave Bill Clinton for signing those laws, and conservatives were never fooled by his newfound political religion. Bill's signing those laws even hurt Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary over a decade later.
People who gave Obama up to $750 million to bring about "change" surely expect something in return. But will Obama and the Democrats fulfill Obama's very expensive promises and risk what happened in the 1994 elections?
Obama's push for imposing an additional trillion dollars in debt will benefit special interests at the expense of working Americans. That translates to many thousands of dollars in new costs for the average worker at a time when we can least afford it.
Less than half of Americans support this proposal according to polls, and many view it as yet another bailout like the unpopular one for bankers last fall. Just as New Deal spending programs did nothing to lift the United States out of the Great Depression, Obama's proposed "stimulus" package will simply dig us into a deeper hole.
Obama's proposed stimulus promises to create three million new jobs, but even if it reached that implausible goal the price tag would be over $300,000 per job. And would they be short-term government jobs or jobs with a future?
The proposed stimulus is not even enough for some Obama supporters, perhaps because so little of it will reach average Americans. It "falls far short" in the words of Terence O'Sullivan, general president of the Laborers' International Union.
Of course it falls short because government spending only bleeds the taxpayers to pay for government jobs, and what we need is private industry jobs. We need the government to stop its overtaxation and micromanagement of the U.S. economy, and to stop the unfair trade agreements and foreign-government policies that invite corporations to move their manufacturing overseas.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, whose approval rating has sunk to 38 percent, may meet the same fate as the Speaker of the House 16 years ago. Ramming through anti-business feminist legislation like the Lilly Ledbetter Act, which invites lawsuits against large and small companies, will hurt not help job creation.
Even moderate Republicans are risking the wrath of voters. Senator Arlen Specter is already hearing the footsteps of a primary challenge from the right.
Nearly 50 House Democrats hold seats that were Republican in 2002, and perhaps another dozen seats long held by Democrats have been trending Republican. Nearly all those Democrats have just opened themselves up to challenge by voting to expose companies to new job-ruining lawsuits.
There is only one path to economic and social prosperity: less and limited government and enforcing a level playing field for international trade. If Obama and the liberals controlling Congress repeat the Democrats' mistake of 1993, it may be, as Yogi Berra famously said, deja vu all over again.