In a post-election interview with ABC News’ Diane Sawyer, outgoing Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, said she had “no regrets” about the way she had governed.
Really? No regrets?
“They are very proud of what they have done,” Pelosi said of now-defeated House Democrats who will not be returning to Washington in January.
Are these people living in a bubble? How about the persistently high unemployment, which came in at 9.6 percent for the month of October? Does Pelosi regret that?
According to Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson, October was the “18th straight month that unemployment has been at or above 9.4 percent — the longest period of time of sustained high unemployment since the Great Depression.”
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Unemployment never was supposed to go above 8 percent — because of the Pelosi-Obama “stimulus”. Instead, there are some 14.8 million who are completely jobless, and another 11 million are underemployed.
In many ways, the failure of the $812 billion “stimulus” is one of the main reasons the American people chose to jettison Pelosi’s majority. But she remains unapologetic.
Pelosi accused Republicans of having no ideas, saying that now “they say they have some ideas on job creation. We had hoped they would have suggested them before, they just said no.” Only, during the debate over “stimulus”, in addition to proposing permanent tax relief for the American people, House Republicans did propose an alternative package.
The House even voted on the Republican alternative, and defeated it, under Nancy Pelosi’s leadership. Senate Republicans, too, offered amendments that included slashing the corporate tax rate to 25 percent. Those too were defeated, under Harry Reid’s leadership. Nonetheless, for the past two years, Democrats have pretended as if Republicans never presented any alternatives. It was not true then, and it remains untrue to date.
On everything from ObamaCare to energy, Republicans had real alternatives they have offered. All were rejected by the then-Democrat majority, even as they pretended those alternatives did not exist, akin to a game little children play on each other.
In short, because they didn’t need Republican support to pass everything, Democrats didn’t ever bother compromising on anything. Was it any surprise Republicans voted no on legislation they had no input in? Now, only when they need House Republicans to get anything done are Democrats interested in compromise. “We want to hear what they have to say,” Pelosi told Sawyer. Maybe she’ll pay attention this time.
The only thing Pelosi apparently finds “disappointing” is not the sorry state of the economy she failed fix, but the loss of the election itself. She would do well to consider the economy, however, as it was one of the major reasons she lost her job as Speaker.
She should consider everything government did do and what it failed to do, according to ALG’s Wilson: “It is time for the Obama Administration to change course, and for the newly elected Congress to plot a new direction. ObamaCare and its many mandates are getting in the way of hiring decisions by employers. The automatic tax increases at the end of year are aimed directly at small business owners and other job creators.”
And when those taxes increase on employers, that will just mean more lost jobs. But what does Pelosi care? She has “no regrets.”
Wilson continued, “The Obama ‘stimulus’ program has failed, and has only contributed to an unsustainable $13.6 trillion national debt.” In short, we need a new direction. One that Pelosi never provided.
Pelosi said the election went against her party because “progress was not fast enough.” But, really, it’s that there was no progress at all on “jobs, jobs, jobs,” which she had promised. Publicly, Pelosi may have “no regrets,” but privately maybe what she regrets was that she didn’t listen to the American people when she had the chance.
Robert Romano is the Senior Editor of Americans for Limited Government (ALG) News Bureau.
