So the Kenyan Socialist we have in the White House is so anti-business that America's corporations are now facing record-high corporate profits and undergoing mild criticism for their offshoring practices. Luckily, Republicans are already itching to restart coordinating policy with the business-lobbying community -- after they punish any company that tried to work constructively with the Democrats, that is.
Jon Chait calls it the return of the K Street Project, which you may remember was an effort to line up corporate lobbyists behind House Republicans, punishing those who worked with Democrats and rewarding those who didn't with special access to the legislative process. I imagine Tim Carney will find some way to frame this as virtuous free-market Republicans punishing the corporatist firms who sought to unfairly suckle off the government teat.
I just can't wait for the Tea Party to realize that, should the Republicans experience great gains today, they'll have successfully returned the GOP of 2000-2006 to power in Congress. Unpaid-for tax cuts? Sure. Serious about cutting spending? Not at all. Working with the business community to advance their agenda in return for political support? Absolutely.
Meanwhile, the argument that Obama worked too closely with corporate interests to achieve his ends certainly has some traction, but look at the two biggest examples: To reform the health-care system, Democrats needed to work with insurers, since they killed the last big effort in that direction. He worked with insurers, acheived universal health care, and now insurance companies ... still give more money to Republicans, who are promising to repeal or defund the Affordable Care Act. To reform the financial system, the Democrats did a lot of things banks did not like, though he did not go as far as many on the left and the right hoped he would in dismantling the financial sector. The result? Banks immediately started supporting Republicans.
That's the context of today's expected Republican gains. I'm sure this time will be different, though.
-- Tim Fernholz
