Matthew Gagnon's blog

This morning on Meet the Press, Erin Burnett brought up an argument about the cash for clunkers program - an argument that opponants of the program have not effectively made to this point.

Most people who argue against cash for clunkers have made general points about the absurdity of the government paying consumers for junk cars, the inherent unfairness of subsidizing new car purchases for often middle and upper middle class citizens, and of course the wasteful nature of the program.

But there is a larger point that is much more important.

The Maine House of Representatives today voted (89-57) to enact L.D. 1020, also known as the Equal Marriage Act, which essentially would extend marriage rights to same-sex couples in the Pine Tree state.  Late last week the Maine Senate also passed the bill, and it is widely expected that Governor John Baldacci will sign it.

The only thing that can potentially stop same-sex marriage coming to Maine at this point is the "people's veto" - a Constitutional mechanism that allows the voters of the state to reject a law passed by the legislature.

This means that Maine is about to see a very "Proposition 8" style campaign come to their back yards, and are about to be inundated with commercials, phone calls, websites and door-knocking activists lobbying for a yes or no on a veto.

But more than that, for the first time in a long time, it will provide a chance to watch how a social wedge issue impacts politics in the northeast. 

Presidents have long been given the credit, and the blame for the status of the budget they oversee on a year to year basis.

I’ve seen this wikipedia article a number of times for example, as well as many charts which tend to focus on the president, his party, and the resulting budget.

This is what is in the public’s consciousness - and I suppose its understandable.  The president does propose the budget annually, afterall.

But its hardly where people should look when they want to assign credit and blame.  The president may propose the budget, but the purse strings have always lied with Congress.  They can summarily reject the president’s budget, they can roll over and accept it, they can play a chess game and force the president to change his budget priorities - and in the end, they can amend it to their heart’s content to shape it how they wish.  Congress is the true target we should look to for scorn, or praise.

As such, I decided to take a gander at the congressional makeup a the time budgets were approved, and found some rather interesting facts.  For the record, I’m using 1900 to today from the historical charts in the 2009 budget for my facts and figures on this - obviously this is not the complete picture, but gives us a relatively good idea of what’s going on.

It has become very obvious over the last month or two that Barack Obama is on the verge of a monumental landslide, and the democrats in congress are poised to push the envelope on supermajorities as well.  We are looking at a one party state, and not only that - its one that has been thirsting for power and will have a great deal of it in January.

Because of this reality, I think it is more than appropriate that we consider what has happened in the past when one party has taken over control of all levels of government.  This is important, because whenever one party gets beat that badly, they always feel as though the world is ending, and they will be permanently relegated to irrelevance.

What is interesting, though, is that this is hardly the case.  When you look back at history, one party dominance does not maintain itself for very long, and it often leads to utter disaster for the party that commands said unbridled power.

Why is that?  Perhaps its because the party in power over-reaches, believing they have more support of the American people than they actually do - as detailed here.  Perhaps it is because the minority party ends up looking at themselves in the mirror and diagnosing their issues, actually addressing the problems that caused them to be so roundly defeated - as I recommended here.  Perhaps its a little of both.

But one thing is for sure - one party controlling the government is not something that the American people tend to like very much.  Lets take a gander at some examples.