Stealing from the Rich Is Still Less Popular in the United States Than in Europe

Prager fan, retired teacher and  friend, Mark Waldeland, sent me this article by Arthur Brooks which can be found at RealClearPolitics:

“By now everyone knows that the dramatic November election was not an endorsement of Republicanism, but rather a rebellion against expansionist government and an attempt to re-establish America’s culture of free enterprise.

The tea party activists behind the wave—and more importantly, the nearly one-third of Americans who classify themselves as “supporters” of the movement, according to Gallup—endure endless abuse from the politicians they have dethroned and the pundits they have challenged. One particular line of attack focuses on their supposed selfishness.

It is common to hear that the popular uprising against the growth of the welfare state, with rising taxes and deficits, is based on a lack of caring toward those who are suffering the most in the current crisis. As soon-to-be ex-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi puts it, the tea party is working “for the rich instead of for the great middle class.” Others have asserted that the backlash against the growth of government is nothing more than an attack on the poor.

Few would disagree that free enterprise is grounded in one’s self-interest. But self-interest is not the same thing as selfishness in the sense of unbounded consumption or disregard for the less fortunate. In fact, the millions of Americans who advocate for private entrepreneurship and limited government—whether they are rich or poor—may be stingy when it comes to giving away other people’s money through state redistribution, but they are surprisingly generous when it comes to giving away their own money privately.

Americans in general are very charitable, by international standards. Study after study shows that we privately give multiples of what our Social Democratic friends in Europe donate, per capita. But not all Americans are equally generous. One characteristic of givers is especially important in the current debate: the opinion that the government should not redistribute income to achieve greater economic equality.

Consider the answer to the question, “Do you believe the government has a responsibility to reduce income differences between rich and poor?” Many surveys have asked this over the years. In 2006, the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) found that Americans were almost equally divided on this question (52% in favor, 48% against). This is in stark contrast to the Europeans. For example, 94% of the Portuguese in the 2006 ISSP survey were in favor of redistribution; only 6% were against.

When it comes to voluntarily spreading their own wealth around, a distinct “charity gap” opens up between Americans who are for and against government income leveling. Your intuition might tell you that people who favor government redistribution care most about the less fortunate and would give more to charity. Initially, this was my own assumption. But the data tell a different story.

The most recent year that a large, nonpartisan survey asked people about both redistributive beliefs and charitable giving was 1996. That year, the General Social Survey (GSS) found that those who were against higher levels of government redistribution privately gave four times as much money, on average, as people who were in favor of redistribution. This is not all church-related giving; they also gave about 3.5 times as much to nonreligious causes. Anti-redistributionists gave more even after correcting for differences in income, age, religion and education.

Of course, there are other ways to give than with money. Here again the results may be different from what you might expect. The GSS in 2002 showed that those who said the government was “spending too much money on welfare” were more likely to donate blood than those who said the government was “spending too little money on welfare.” The anti-redistributionists were also more likely to give someone directions on the street, return change mistakenly handed them by a cashier, and give food (or money) to a homeless person.

So what does all this tell us? Contrary to the liberal stereotype of the hard-hearted right-winger, opposition to income-leveling is not evidence that one does not care about others. Quite the contrary. The millions of Americans who believe in limited government give disproportionately to others. This is in addition to—not instead of—their defense of our free-enterprise system, which gives the most people the most opportunities to earn their own success.

Obviously, not all charity has ideological connotations—nor should it. But for many, especially at this time of year, giving is a cheerful, productive protest vote against the growing state. It is America’s quiet tea party.”

Mr. Brooks is president of the American Enterprise Institute.

Will Obama’s EPA Dictatorship Move to Sue Texas over Carbon Rules

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it will take control of carbon-emission rules in Texas after Governor Rick Perry rejected new federal regulations intended to combat climate change.

The EPA will decide directly on greenhouse-gas permits for companies seeking to build or upgrade power plants and oil refineries in Texas, the agency said today in a statement. The EPA’s nationwide carbon rules, imposed under the Clean Air Act, take effect Jan. 2.

Texas is the only state that has refused to implement the new rules. President Barack Obama is pressing ahead with the regulations after Congress failed to pass legislation capping carbon emissions. Perry, a Republican, calls the rules overreaching by the federal government that will cripple his state’s economy.

“The EPA’s misguided plan paints a huge target on the backs of Texas agriculture and energy producers by implementing unnecessary, burdensome mandates on our state’s energy sector, threatening hundreds of thousands of Texas jobs and imposing increased living costs on Texas families,” Katherine Cesinger, a Perry spokeswoman, said in an e-mailed statement.

The American Petroleum Institute in Washington, the largest U.S. lobbying group for the oil and gas industry, called the EPA’s plan improper.

‘Coercing’ States

“In unprecedented fashion, EPA is now coercing some states to relinquish their authority and is directly usurping state regulatory authority in Texas,” Howard Feldman, API’s director of regulatory and scientific affairs, said in a statement.

The EPA’s rules are set to start 13 months after the agency declared carbon-dioxide emissions a danger to public health and welfare. The EPA’s “endangerment finding” followed a Supreme Court ruling in 2007 that the agency has the authority to regulate carbon emissions under the Clean Air Act.

Neil Carman, who studies air pollution for the Sierra Club, an environmental advocacy group in Austin, said the new rules won’t be costly to implement, comparing them to measures aimed at reducing acid rain in the 1980s. Businesses that opposed the rules at the time ultimately benefited from them, he said.

“There have always been these scare stories — ‘the sky is falling,’” he said. “The sky isn’t going to fall.”

EPA Assistant Administrator Gina McCarthy said today that the the agency isn’t taking over Texas’s permitting program. She said its handling of carbon regulations was meant to supplement the existing permit process.

“All we are trying to do is ensure that Texas businesses that are applying for a Clean Air Act permit can get one and have somebody to apply to,” she told reporters on a conference call today.

Seven States

The most antiAmerican president in History, Mr. Obama and his Environmental Protection Agency are ‘nationalizing” Texas’ control over carbon emissions in Texas.  Virginia, Florida, Arizona, among other states are in court battles  launched by Obama’s Marxist  politics.

The following is an article by Kim  Chipman at Bloomberg:

“Most states are prepared to grant the permits starting Jan. 2, according to the EPA. Seven have agreed to have the agency issue permits while they revise their programs to accommodate the new rules.

Texas emits about 11 percent of U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions, more than any other state, according to Texas EPA spokesman David Gray. If Texas were a country it would be the world’s eighth-largest polluter, he said.

Texas, home to about a fourth of U.S. oil refining capacity, has more coal-fired electrical capacity than any state in the U.S., according to the San Francisco-based Sierra Club.

Talks Continue

The EPA remains in talks with Texas and views federal control of greenhouse-gas permits in the state as a temporary arrangement, McCarthy said.

“We are more than willing and in fact anxious about how quickly we can work with them to have them take over,” she said.

Business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Republicans and some Democrats in Congress are pushing to halt the EPA’s authority over greenhouse gases.

The agency announced today a plan to propose a second wave of greenhouse-gas regulations. The move was part of a lawsuit settlement with environmental groups and states, such as New York and California, that pushed the Obama administration to go further to limit heat-trapping emissions.

“Power plants and oil refineries are among the top three emitters of carbon dioxide in the country,” California’s Governor-elect Jerry Brown said in a statement. “While California has been aggressive in regulating such emissions, until recently, the federal government has not.”

The EPA will propose new standards for utilities by July and for oil refineries by December, McCarthy said today. Those rules will be made final for power plants by May 2012 and for refineries by November 2012, she said.

Attracting Investment

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson today sought to respond to concern that the rules will burden business with excessive new costs and hurt the economy.

“These standards will help American companies attract private investment to the clean energy upgrades that make our companies more competitive and create good jobs here at home,” Jackson said in the statement.

The EPA officials said today it’s too early to know what the new rules, known as “new source performance standards” for pollutants under the Clean Air Act, will entail.”

Comment:   Those of us living in the upper midwest should do all we can to increase carbon dioxide emissions.   Cold weather is by far more lethal to humans than warm.   One can grow Japanese maples in horticultural zone 5.

How Are Things in Iraq?

Nine months it took Iraqi leadership to form a government.  There’s trouble in the Northeast with Irani troubles.  Yet….

Paul Mirengoff writes “A Good Year in Iraq” at PowerLine, and it may be so despite president Obama:

The Washington Post’s editorial board describes what it calls “a good year in Iraq.” The Post cites (1) a national election judged to be free and fair, “a rare event in the Middle East;” (2) the eventual formation of a coalition government led by Shiite parties, but with Sunnis and Kurds in major positions; (3) a significant decrease in violence; and (4) a much improved economy that, at least in some areas, is beginning to boom.

The Post warns about drawing final conclusions about Iraq as “many opponents of the war did long ago.” It notes, however, that Iraq’s “political class has repeatedly chosen democracy over dictatorship and accommodation over violence,” thus creating the real possibility that “a rough version of Mr. Bush’s dream [for Iraq] may yet come true.”

Here are two other conclusions I believe it is fair to draw. First, Iraq, the Middle East, and the U.S. would be much worse off today if, as most liberals (including Barack Obama) wanted, we had not overthrown Saddam Hussein. Iraq, of course, would still be plagued by one of the most oppressive regimes of modern times. And Saddam would almost certainly be up to mischief, including the support of terrorists, in the Middle East and possibly elsewhere.

Furthermore, in the face of Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons, Saddam would probably have developed, or be developing, a nuclear arsenal of his own. Iran, for its part, would likely be closer to having nukes, since it reportedly halted or slowed down its program for a while in response to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Second, Iraq, the Middle East, and the U.S. would be much worse off today if, as most liberals (including Obama) wanted, we had not surged in 2007. Without the surge, al Qaeda and its supporters probably would have remained dominant, or at a major force, in Anbar province. Among other evils, this would have prevented the national reconciliation that, to a considerable degree, has occurred. Meanwhile, sectarian violence would have continued to rage in Baghdad and its environs. This too would have prevented reconciliation.

Without the national reconciliation, Iran would be more influential in key parts of Iraq than it is now, to the detriment of Iraq, the region, and the U.S. And America’s standing would be significantly diminished if it had accepted a defeat in Iraq at the hands, in part, of al Qaeda.

The costs to the U.S. of fighting in Iraq since 2003 have been extremely high, of course. It is possible to argue that the benefits of overthrowing Saddam do not outweigh these costs. I believe it’s considerably harder to make a reasonable argument that the much lower costs associated with our actions since the beginning of 2007 are not worth the astonishing gains we have seen during this period. These days, few critics seem interested in attempting such an argument.

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Ann Coulter: Scrooge Was A Liberal

Found at Drudge report, Ann Coulter writes:

“It’s the Christmas season, so godless liberals are citing the Bible to demand the redistribution of income by government force. Didn’t Jesus say, “Blessed are the Health and Human Services bureaucrats, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”?

Liberals are always indignantly accusing conservatives of claiming God is on our side. What we actually say is: We’re on God’s side, particularly when liberals are demanding God’s banishment from the public schools, abortion on demand, and taxpayer money being spent on Jesus submerged in a jar of urine and pictures of the Virgin Mary covered with pornographic photos.

But for liberals like Al Franken, it’s beyond dispute that Jesus would support extending federal unemployment insurance.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the Bible, but it does nicely illustrate Shakespeare’s point that the “devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.”

What the Bible says about giving to the poor is: “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” (2 Corinthians (9:7)

Being forced to pay taxes under penalty of prison is not voluntary and rarely done cheerfully. Nor do our taxes go to “the poor.” They mostly go to government employees who make more money than you do.

The reason liberals love the government redistributing money is that it allows them to skip the part of charity that involves peeling the starfish off their wallets and forking over their own money. This, as we know from study after study, they cannot bear to do. (Unless they are guaranteed press conferences where they can brag about their generosity.)

Syracuse University professor Arthur Brooks’ study of charitable giving in America found that conservatives give 30 percent more to charity than liberals do, despite the fact that liberals have higher incomes than conservatives.

In his book “Who Really Cares?” Brooks compared the charitable donations of religious conservatives, secular liberals, secular conservatives and “religious” liberals.

His surprising conclusion was … Al Franken gave the most of all!

Ha ha! Just kidding. Religious conservatives, the largest group at about 20 percent of the population, gave the most to charity — $2,367 per year, compared with $1,347 for the country at large.

Even when it comes to purely secular charities, religious conservatives give more than other Americans, which is surprising because liberals specialize in “charities” that give them a direct benefit, such as the ballet or their children’s elite private schools.

Indeed, religious people, Brooks says, “are more charitable in every measurable nonreligious way.”

Brooks found that conservatives donate more in time, services and even blood than other Americans, noting that if liberals and moderates gave as much blood as conservatives do, the blood supply would increase by about 45 percent.

They ought to set up blood banks at tea parties.

On average, a person who attends religious services and does not believe in the redistribution of income will give away 100 times more — and 50 times more to secular charities — than a person who does not attend religious services and strongly believes in the redistribution of income.

Secular liberals, the second largest group coming in at 10 percent of the population, were the whitest and richest of the four groups. (Some of you may also know them as “insufferable blowhards.”) These “bleeding-heart tightwads,” as New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof calls them, were the second stingiest, just behind secular conservatives, who are mostly young, poor, cranky white guys.

Despite their wealth and advantages, secular liberals give to charity at a rate of 9 percent less than all Americans and 19 percent less than religious conservatives. They were also “significantly less likely than the population average to return excess change mistakenly given to them by a cashier.” (Count Nancy Pelosi’s change carefully!)

Secular liberals are, however, 90 percent more likely to give sanctimonious Senate speeches demanding the forced redistribution of income. (That’s up 7 percent from last year!)

We’ll review specific liberals next week.

Needless to say, “religious liberals” made up the smallest group at just 6.4 percent of the population (for more on this, see my book, “Godless”).

Interestingly, religious liberals were also “most confused” of all the groups. Composed mostly of blacks and Unitarians, religious liberals made nearly as many charitable donations as religious conservatives, but presumably, the Unitarians brought down their numbers, making them second in charitable giving.

Brooks wrote that he was shocked by his conclusions because he believed liberals “genuinely cared more about others than conservatives did” — probably because liberals are always telling us that.

So he re-ran the numbers and gathered more data, but it kept coming out the same. “In the end,” he says, “I had no option but to change my views.”

Every other study on the subject has produced similar results. Indeed, a Google study of philanthropy found an even greater disparity, with conservatives giving 50 percent more than liberals. The Google study showed that liberals gave more to secular causes overall, but conservatives still gave more as a percentage of their incomes.

The Catalogue for Philanthropy analyzed a decade of state and federal tax returns and found that the red states were far more generous than the blue states, with the highest percentage of tightwads living in the liberal Northeast.

In his book “Intellectuals,” Paul Johnson quotes Pablo Picasso scoffing at the idea that he would give to the needy. “I’m afraid you’ve got it wrong,” Picasso explains, “we are socialists. We don’t pretend to be Christians.”

Merry Christmas to all, skinflint liberals and generous Christians alike! “

The Marxist Drive to Deconstruct America’s Christmas

You don’t think the Obama family of Big Brother Marxists  isn’t watching over you, think again!!

The following review of Christmas’  downfall cranked by the Left over the past years is from and article by Dan Miller at Pajamas Media:

” ………. the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has warned school officials in Tennessee that wishing folks “Merry Christmas” is bad and that they should instead wish them “Happy Holidays.” It apparently did so in response to “a number of complaints” about school party activities. A secret amendment to the First Amendment prohibiting offensive speech has apparently been disclosed by WikiLeaks. Happy Saturnalia, ACLU. Commerce Claus Santa Claus has some pretty coal lumps wrapped up for you in plain brown paper; don’t burn them, they emit carbon dioxide. But you already knew that.

A bank in Texas affiliated with JP Morgan/Chase was directed by corporate officials to remove a Christmas tree from the lobby. The tree had been donated by a friend of the bank manager:

[To] ensure that everyone who visits Chase branches feels welcome and comfortable, the bank’s policy is to use only decorations supplied by the company.

“We appreciate the thoughtful gesture from [the donor] … ” Hassell said. “Unfortunately, we’re unable to keep it [the tree] on display for the remainder of the holiday season.” JPMorgan Chase ensures that decorations are “something everyone is comfortable with, regardless of how they celebrate the season,” Hassell said.

Nor are Christmas trees permitted in Orlando, Florida, toll booths:

Holiday decorations of any kind have been banned from all toll booths along the 460 miles of toll highways run by the Florida Turnpike Enterprise, which is part of the Florida Department of Transportation, a local spokeswoman said. … The ban was put in place several months ago after some motorists complained about decorations. … “Some Christian organizations complained about Halloween decorations,” said spokeswoman Christa Deason.

Turnpike leaders have now decided to ban holiday decorations of any kind, she said. The Florida Turnpike does not spend any money on decorations for any holiday.

An examiner for the Federal Reserve Board ordered a bank in Perkins, Oklahoma, to remove all “religious signs and symbols.”

And, in Once Merry Old England, the Red Cross has banned Christmas stuff — other than merchandise which it sells — from its four hundred and thirty shops:

Staff have been ordered to take down decorations and to remove any other signs of the Christian festival because they could offend Moslems. … The charity’s politically-correct move triggered an avalanche of criticism and mockery last night — from Christians and Moslems.

Christine Banks, a volunteer at a Red Cross shop in New Romney, Kent, said: “We put up a nativity scene in the window and were told to take it out. It seems we can’t have anything that means Christmas. We’re allowed to have some tinsel but that’s it.

“When we send cards they have to say season’s greetings or best wishes. They must not be linked directly to Christmas.

“When we asked we were told it is because we must not upset Muslims.” … Mrs Banks added: “We have been instructed that we can’t say anything about Christmas and we certainly can’t have a Christmas tree.”

One of the country’s most prominent Muslim politicians said: “It is stupid to think Muslims would be offended.” Despite their multiculturally sensitive piety:

British Red Cross leaders have … not extended the ban to their own profitable products. Items currently on sale include Christmas cards featuring angels and wise men and Advent calendars with nativity scenes.

The spokesman said: “The Red Cross is trying to be inclusive and we recognise there are lots of people who want to buy Christmas cards which they know will benefit us.”

Strangely, the Young Men’s’ Christian Association has failed to fall in line. Indeed, in Savannah, Georgia, it probably seems a bit like Christmas:

[T]he Islands YMCA has placed angels on the Christmas tree with the name of a child and the child’s Christmas wish list. Islands YMCA members choose an angel and buy a gift for the child.

“It is an important part of the YMCA’s Christian [GASP!] mission. It gives our members an opportunity to give back to deserving children and help families that need help during this Christmas season,” said Mark Simons, executive director of the Islands branch of the YMCA.

In Leesburg, Virginia, something of a compromise has been reached. Ten spots on the lawn of the historic county courthouse were reserved for Christians and atheists:

Selection is done strictly on a first-come, first-served basis. This year, the atheists grabbed an early lead. They submitted four applications in July, before the Christians realized they were behind and finally put in for a creche in August.

The atheists ended up with six out of 10 positions on the lawn, including the most visible location at King and Market streets. A weather-beaten Nativity scene has filled that spot for at least four decades. This year, it’ll be occupied instead by a banner reading, “Celebrating our Constitution: Keeping Church and State Separate since 1787.”

The problem arose strangely:

The controversy initially had nothing to do with atheists. It began two years ago when an interfaith organization recommended including Jewish, Muslim, and Sikh symbols along with Christian ones in the December displays. … Christian groups immediately protested, and some say they thought atheists secretly influenced the committee. Regardless of whether that’s true, the public clamor then galvanized the atheists, as well. They insisted that if the creche were reinstated, then nonbelievers’ statements needed to be accommodated.

The article does not say whether any Jewish, Muslim, and Sikh symbols are being displayed. Still, many folks seem somewhat happy.

Even things like this strangely bother me: some folks who boarded their dingy and used the oars to break through the ice in a Maryland river to rescue a stranded deer — it may have been a distant relative of Rudolph — were fined by the Natural Resources Police for not wearing life jackets.

Much of the world seems to be getting certifiably insane. Perhaps I have been paying too much attention to the ongoing efforts of the lunatics in North Korea to remain in charge of their asylum and have gone nuts myself. Freedom? What would Speaker “Are you serious? Are you serious?” Pelosi say? If I could focus more on life here in Panamá, where political correctness has barely raised its head, it might be better. Still, in the spirit of Xmas Christmas, I retain a bit of hope that at least in some parts of America and Europe where sanity seems to be vanishing it may eventually prevail. Maybe by January of 2012?”

A Center-Left Review of Obama’s “One for the Books” 111th Congress

Ronald Brownstein at the National Journal, a left of center place,  glories over Obama successes of the 111th Congress led by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. 

In my lifetime Democrats have ALWAYS measured ”success”  toward  ‘better’  government, not by the damage their legislation  may  cost the nation, but by the  increase of government power  to enforce LIBERAL Laws  their politicians pass.  Quantity always surpasses quality of work.  Ultimately, a police state is inevitable to enforce  the ever growing volume of Leftwing laws micromanaging American lives.

 Hence, the country now faces financial and cultural bankruptcy,  balkanization, facelessness as a world entity,   and the rapid deterioration of personal and group liberty.    Its basic insitutions, especially its universities are in decay having become  mouthpieces for the building of America as a Marxist state.   Recorded unemployment in the nation stands at 9.8%……real unemployment at 15%.  Crime is out of sight.  Prisons are a mess.   Borders are not secure.

Gays, however, can now openly dance in the military.   

As Dennis Prager constantly reminds his American audiences, “The larger the government, the smaller the citizen!”

Mr. Brownstein is proud of Mr. Obama’s accomplishments:

This month’s final flurry of legislative successes for President Obama and the Democratic Congress underscores the difficulty of rendering a single verdict on their tumultuous two years in power.

In November, Democrats forfeited control of the House after suffering the largest midterm losses for either party since 1938. They absorbed stinging defeats in the Senate as well. But before that, and to an utterly unexpected extent after that as well, Obama and congressional Democrats passed into law an enormous agenda. This Congress will enter the history books for the magnitude of both its political losses and its legislative victories.

The program that Democrats implemented during Obama’s first two years doesn’t approach the Himalayan peaks of the first congressional sessions for Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson. But probably not since Johnson has either party implemented as much of its agenda in a single legislative session as Democrats did in this one. “You probably have to go back to Johnson to see something as substantial as this,” says presidential historian Robert Dallek, a Johnson biographer. Historian Alan Brinkley of Columbia University agrees: “Legislatively, this Congress has probably done more than any Congress since the 1960s.”

Democrats had their legislative disappointments. Mostly because of Senate filibusters, they could not pass limits on carbon emissions, reform the labor laws or the immigration system, or establish a public competitor to private health insurers. Obama felt compelled to accept the extension of George W. Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy. Nor could he persuade Congress to back his pledge to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.

But the achievements in the ledger’s other column are imposing. Health care and financial-services reform top that list. The 2009 economic-stimulus package contained, by some measures, more net new public investment in education, infrastructure, and clean energy than Bill Clinton achieved during his entire two terms. Other significant wins included bills that restructured and increased college financial aid, toughened pay-equity laws for women, expanded national service, and provided new credit card protections to consumers. This week’s Senate vote approving the New START pact provided Obama a bipartisan foreign policy-victory that steamrolled the opposition of the GOP Senate leadership.

Many of these bills fulfilled long-standing Democratic goals. Presidents of both parties since FDR had pursued comprehensive health care reform; Obama alone signed it into law. The repeal of the Pentagon’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that Obama signed this week concluded an effort to allow gays to serve openly that dated back to Clinton’s 1992 campaign. Earlier, Obama signed legislation protecting sexual orientation under the hate-crimes law and more closely equalizing the penalties for possession of powder and crack cocaine–in each case implementing changes key Democratic constituencies have likewise sought since the 1990s.

Almost without notice, Obama ended a similar odyssey of even greater consequence. In 1996, Clinton’s Food and Drug Administration asserted the authority to regulate the marketing and sale of tobacco products; in 2000, the Supreme Court said it overreached. Since then, public health advocates had repeatedly failed to pass legislation providing FDA that authority (partly because of Bush’s opposition). Last year, Congress finally approved the bill and Obama signed it. FDA has already banned candy-flavored cigarettes and proposed to strengthen health warning labels. “That was the most significant legislative action that the Congress has [ever] taken with regard to tobacco,” said Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids.

Why didn’t this record provide Democrats more defense against the wave that capsized their House majority? One (smaller) reason is that the interminable struggle over health care overshadowed much of it. More important, conservatives, and even many independents, recoiled from the cumulative scale and cost of these initiatives at a time of economic unease. Most important, as the downturn lingered, the Democrats’ agenda appeared incapable of, and even tangential to, creating jobs, the public’s main concern. Many of the Democrats’ priorities “didn’t seem relevant to what the public was struggling with,” says lobbyist Vic Fazio, the former chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.

One other factor contributed. Democrats passed such a comprehensive agenda largely because they achieved near-parliamentary levels of party unity in Congress. That focus on uniting Democrats was probably unavoidable given lockstep Republican opposition, but it produced a kind of myopia. On the biggest issues–health care and stimulus–Democrats spoke mostly to each other and never attracted enough public support beyond their core coalition.

All of these factors converged to ignite a fierce backlash against Democrats in the midterm election. If that recoil carries a Republican past Obama in 2012 as well, many of the Democratic legislative achievements could be uprooted. But if Obama wins a second term, he could instead institutionalize his key reforms. The huge federal deficit, and growing Republican strength in Congress, virtually ensures that the Democrats’ latest tide of Washington activism has already crested. Yet, if Obama can steer a course to a second term, the powerful imprint of that surge might endure.

Note:   Lefties consider Republican voting discipline as “lockstep”.   Only Democrats unite willingly.