On the latest edition of “This Week with George Stephanopoulos”,
GOP strategist Mary Matalin championed the GOP’s successes in statehouses
across the United States. While Washington remains mired in dysfunction, the
Republican Governors Conference makes Obama, the Democrats, and their
liberal-progressive agenda disintegrate from bad to worse.
The Democrats made gains in the US Senate and took back the
White House. Let President Obama and his elite upper-chamber caucus clean up
the mess that they started. Demonstrations against Democrats in the Beverly
Hills-West Los Angeles have engaged protestors lighting candles. Not for
Hanukkah, but as a vigil they are warning incumbents Henry Waxman and Karen
Bass, both of whom will have to explain to their constituents how they plan to
solve the fiscal cliff without neglecting the cracked fiscal foundation. Reelected
Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill must explain away the “Illegitimate rape” of
the entitlement funds by our own federal government.
Now to the statehouses.
Kansas is GOP all the way, with former Senator and
Presidential candidate Sam Brownback as Governor. He now oversees a
supermajority composed of conservative Republicans, minus moderates purged in
the last election. The new agenda for the state: cut income tax rates down to
nothing and spur the economy. The Oklahoma GOP supermajority has signaled their
support to do the same. Florida’s Rick Scott and Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal have rebuffed
ObamaCare insurance exchanges. Florida’s “no income tax” is still a big draw,
in spite of the anemic housing recovery. Teacher tenure no longer has a hold on
the Sunshine state.
New Jersey’s Chris Christie has lowered property taxes three
times with a Democratic legislature. He cut spending, reformed pensions, and
took on the teachers unions. His stunning demonstration of leadership and
bipartisanship post-Superstorm Sandy taught the nation where to find the real
executive authority.
Susana Martinez of New Mexico is leading the fight to repeal
one of the last remaining “undocumented drivers license” laws in the country.
Budget surpluses in the land of Georgia O’Keefe have resurfaced following deep
cuts under her leadership.
Jan Brewer of Arizona pressed through a necessary provision
for law enforcement to check the immigration status of incarcerated suspects.
Citizenship-profiling, not race-baiting, is the order of the day for a border
state which has lacked support from the federal government.
For the first time since the Civil War, Arkansas Republicans
not only control the state legislature, but command a two-thirds majority.
While the generic media frenzy feeds off of GOP losses, this startling gain in “Dixie-crat”
Arkansas cannot be ignored. Alabama also boasts a Republican supermajority in
both chambers of the state legislature, due in part to four defectors to the
GOP. Alabama engineered its own immigration reform, resulting in a net drop in
unemployment for all Alabamians.
Rick Perry of Texas may have flubbed in the Presidential
debates, but his state is taking in work, workers, and working for the good of
all. While California has sagged beneath
highest taxes, regulations, and unemployment, Texas continues to rebound.
Indiana under outgoing Governor Mitch Daniels witnessed
budget surpluses, privatization of state roads (with a profit for the public
coffers), right-to-work legislation, and now a voucher program. Indiana swung
uncharacteristically for Obama in 2008, returned to the right in 2012, and will
keep a right course under Governor-elect Mike Pence with a GOP supermajority.
Wisconsin, the former home of the Progressives and
Collective Bargaining, has witnessed the turn-around against these outdated
programs. Scott Walker walked through budget reforms, tackling the high costs
of worker pensions and benefits and curbing collective bargaining rights. 18%
of Democrats supported his reelection post-recall. Post-2012, Walker’s GOP took
back the state senate and kept the state House. Lower taxes, mining rights, and
education reform will soon follow.
And now Michigan. The Great Lakes State serves as
headquarters for the auto industry, and by extension organized labor. Issuing a
reform bill which rivals the Wisconsin budget reforms of 2011 in importance and
legacy, Republican Governor Rick Snyder has signed into law “right to work”
legislation for public and private sector unions, the twenty-fourth state to
champion the Little Worker against Big Labor. The unions are showing their true
colors in Lansing, red-hot with rebellion, and forcing peace-loving supporters
to spill theirs, red as in blood. Union thuggery is on a full display, along
with the decline and fall of the Labor Union Empire.
GOP stalwarts in Massachusetts and California have less to
celebrate, so far, along with the GOP in Rhode Island and Illinois, where they
remain barely-mentioned opposition. Yet even Rhode Island instituted one of the
most comprehensive pension reforms in the country, and one of “Rhody’s” worst
performing schools submitted to massive layoffs and restructuring. California
leaders have back-pedaled on one projected tax increase, likely responding to
the growing exodus of residents out of the state. Massachusetts has lost a
house seat, and may join Michigan with the dubious distinction of net
population loss.
Keep your eyes on the states, GOP. Minority Republicans,
press for the best for your state, no matter what. 2013 and onward will bring
on the sharper repudiation that was so lacking in 2012.
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