Miserable failures: The Democratic Congress (MORE: LIEBERMAN SLAMS DEMOCRATS)

Karl Rove, as sharp as ever, reflects back on the last year of failures from the Democratic Congress, proving that even though he’s no longer a part of the administration, he’s not going to leave the Democats alone:

This week is the one-year anniversary of Democrats winning Congress. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid probably aren’t in a celebrating mood. The goodwill they enjoyed after their victory is gone. Their bright campaign promises are unfulfilled. Democratic leadership is in disarray. And Congress’s approval rating has fallen to its lowest point in history.

The problems the Democrats are now experiencing begin with the federal budget. Or rather, the lack of one. In 2006, Democrats criticized Congress for dragging its feet on the budget and pledged that they would do better. Instead, they did worse. The new fiscal year started Oct. 1–five weeks ago–but Democrats have yet to send the president a single annual appropriations bill. It’s been at least 20 years since Congress has gone this late in passing any appropriation bills, an indication of the mess the Pelosi-Reid Congress is now in.

Even worse, the Democrats have made clear all their talk about “fiscal discipline” is just that–talk. They’re proposing to spend $205 billion more than the president has proposed over the next five years. And the opening wedge of this binge is $22 billion more in spending proposed for the coming year. Only in Washington could someone in public life be so clueless to say, as Sen. Reid and Rep. Pelosi have, that $22 billion is a “relatively small” difference.

Let’s also be clear about what it means to roll back the president’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, as the Democrats want to do. Every income-tax payer will pay more as all tax rates rise. Families will pay $500 more per child as they lose the child tax credit. Taxes on small businesses would go up by an average of about $4,000. Retirees will pay higher taxes on investment retirement income. And now we have the $1 trillion tax increase proposed as “tax reform” by the Democrats’ chief tax writer last month.

Of course, some of their failures we’ve been glad to see – like their failure to force the President into cutting and running from Iraq, and their failure this week to stop Bush’s pick for AG from being confirmed. His answers on waterboarding didn’t satisfy the anti-“torture” crowd which includes Senators Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, and John McCain – all candidates for president, all of whom couldn’t be bothered to show up for last night’s vote. Guess they had better things to do. Or something.

Anyway, read the whole thing. You won’t agree with all of it, but I think you will with the gist of it, which is that the Democrats who promised “change” last year have been miserable failures to more than just their Nutroots base, but – much more imporantly – failures on issues regarding this country’s national security interests, too, and that what they’ve given us is actually worse than the same ol’ same ol’ we’re used to from Democrats when they’ve controlled Congress in the past.

Update: Senator Joe Lieberman has been doing some reflecting of his own on the Democratic Congress, which you can read here.

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