I believe that Congress will pass the Wall Street Reform bill, possibly with a lot of Republican support. That will represent two giant wins for the Obama administration in a row. But I don’t know if they can keep it going. The climate bill is definitely a stab at getting a vote or two from the Republicans by giving every industry group some goodies as compensation for increased regulation. But even this watered down piece of crap bill is likely to face unified opposition from the GOP. The Chamber of Commerce is withholding their endorsement, and the Republicans probably feel like they can’t afford to let Obama reel off health care>Wall Street reform>energy rerform>Elena Kagan all in a row. People might get the idea that the government works and the president is effective, and they can’t have that. I think we’ll get nowhere on climate change and won’t even be able to bring it up for debate. Now, I was hoping that Harry Reid would force some votes on Obama’s nominees by threatening to take the August recess away. But maybe he needs to use that threat to get debate started on the climate bill. What do you think?
On another topic, Durbin announced what I already knew, which is that immigration reform isn’t coming up this year. I don’t know why Reid jerked the Latino community around by suggesting otherwise. It was stupid. The time to take up immigration will be next summer, with the goal of passing it in the fall, just as the Republicans are beginning their first debates for the presidential nomination. The candidates will outdo each other in offending Latinos and render themselves completely unelectable in the general. If the Republicans are going to prevent us from passing a humane immigration bill, they must be made to pay the maximum political price for it, and that includes getting absolutely crushed in the 2012 elections.
