An April Cold Spell in American Politics

Washington should have been in its prime at the beginning of April — the cherry blossoms being a wonderful prelude to the return of spring, the bright sun chasing away the early spring chill. However, Washington is filled with an uneasy political atmosphere. With the Republican’s prestigious midterm election victory still lingering in the air, the scraping sounds of knives are welcoming a budget battle, preparing to cut the Obama administration’s programs severely.

In fact, the United States’ 2010 fiscal year began last Oct. 1 and lasts until Sept. 30 of this year. But thanks to the Republicans’ obstruction measures, the 2011 budget so far has not passed in Congress. It has had to rely on temporary budget resolutions to keep the government operating. The current temporary budget resolution allows the government to maintain its existing level of expenditure until early April. For now, the two parties are still unwilling to compromise, even at the cost of forcing the federal government to temporarily shut down.

The Republicans retook the House majority, thanks to the surging tea party movement, the right-wing media’s malicious slander, vested interests’ staunch resistance and Obama’s weak political character. Before taking office, he vowed to promote the three most important reform bills: comprehensive health insurance, fixing the financial situation, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions and developing green energy. Each reform bill is difficult to implement; therefore, all the passed legislation is attenuated.

Now the Republican Party is arrogantly using the tea party to support its extreme conservatism in Congress and to prepare for a comprehensive counterattack. They not only insisted that they slash the federal government’s budget by $61.5 billion, they also refused to fund Obama’s health care reform, making it impossible to implement. They are still slashing from the budget all kinds of controversial amendments — for example, the limit on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and factories in this fiscal year and not allowing the federal government to provide funding to Planned Parenthood.

On the surface, the Republicans’ reasoning behind this is to avoid losing control of the federal deficit and preventing the United States from having the same disastrous financial crisis as Greece and Portugal. However, their real intention is to dismember the previous Democratic president’s construction of Social Security. So they are slashing the social welfare budget with the left hand and propping up the defense budget with the right. Furthermore, they insist on maintaining the Bush administration’s tax cuts for the most affluent groups. They are completely ignoring the fact that the United States still has 14 million unemployed, and that there are 6 million families who are suffering through their homes’ foreclosures and auctions.

The same fierce budget battles are also being fought in every state in the U.S. For the 2012 fiscal year, it is expected that 44 states and Washington, D.C. will be facing budget shortfalls of up to $112 billion. Now, in every place in the U.S. libraries and parks are being forced to close, a large number of elementary school teachers are losing their jobs, subsidies to low-income seniors are being reduced, health care services are being disrupted, and police and civil servants are being forced to take unpaid leave. These are just a few of the bleak stories.

Republicans are not only determined to dismember the U.S. Social Security system, they are also determined to disrupt the Democratic Party’s grassroots organizations. The newly elected Wisconsin governor is strongly advocating legislation restricting civil servants’ and teachers’ rights to form trade unions and getting rid of their right to collective bargaining. This has caused the largest demonstrations in the capital since the ’60s Vietnam War protests. This kind of political struggle is similar to those being staged in Ohio and Indiana.

The University of Wisconsin’s well-known historian, William Cronon, criticized the governor in The New York Times as being far-removed from the state’s traditional image of friendliness, gentleness and mutual respect. This resulted in an immediate reaction by Republican senators, demanding that he hand over all emails from his school’s email account containing the words “Republican Party.” Other university professors are showing their solidarity by protesting violations of academic freedom, which also immediately resulted in retaliation from the Republican Party’s fringe organizations. Conservative organizations are using the “Freedom of Information Act” to require schools to hand over any professor’s emails that contain the words “Wisconsin,” “trade union” or anything related, accusing them of using working hours and public resources for political activities. An inquisition will soon unfold.

And all this happened in sharp contrast, bringing a smile to the faces of the Wall Street predators. Even though the Democrats held a majority in both the House and the Senate in the past, Obama still had to make every effort to pass the Financial Reform Act. However, he could only set up a new consumer protection agency, give regulatory agencies more power to dissolve troubled financial institutions, strengthen the restrictions on high-risk derivative trading and prohibit traditional banks from investment banking. Yet, he failed to limit senior-executive incomes and dividends.

For more than the past year, a rebound in the stock market, a rebound in the profits of the financial and banking sectors, and a relapse in Wall Street’s inherent greediness have supported the Fed’s quantitative easing monetary policy. One by one they have been exerting pressure on the government for deregulation. Furthermore, last year U.S. financial institutions gave senior executives record-high bonuses and incomes — all together, about $11.4 billion. History once again proves they are always the winners in American politics.