If given the chance, the dems will make the U.S. into a "flabby Europe".

• Author: Bresler, Robert J.
• Position: National Affairs

"... A [Democrat-controlled] government will make the Obama Administration look like weak tea. The program will be to alter the political landscape so that nothing like the Trump Administration or, for that matter, any conservative administration, ever returns to power."

CAN THE REPUBLICANS govern? By the end of the current congressional session, the public will have an answer. During the last six years of the Obama Administration, the Republicans controlled Congress. Then, they worked on proposals to reform taxes and restructure ObamaCare. Any such proposals that passed the House died in the Senate or were vetoed by Pres. Barack Obama. It was the politics of symbolism, but not simply a kabuki dance.

One hoped that the Republicans were giving the public an indication of what would happen if they were to capture the presidency and the Congress. Perhaps few congressional Republicans believed that would not occur, so many were just going through the motions-but it did happen and now the cold reality of governing is upon them. It staggers the imagination that seasoned Republican legislators did not have legislation polished and ready to go when the current Congress convened. Why weren't these bills on Pres. Donald Trump's desk soon after the inauguration?

Admittedly, the Republicans face a polarized and embittered partisan environment. The Democrats have made it clear that they will not lift a finger to get heath care reform, tax reform, or anything else of consequence passed. However, in the first two years of the Obama Administration, the Democrats faced a similar opposition from the Republicans and were able to get ObamaCare and their bloated stimulus package through Congress. Whatever one thinks of those programs, they became law. If the Republicans cannot do the same, why would voters give them another opportunity?

A central promise of the Republican platform was reforming the tax code so as to unleash capital from home and abroad, ignite a business boom, and bring jobs to an underemployed working class. If that central promise remains unfilled and the economy begins to slow down, the 2018 elections will do to the Republicans what the 2010 and 2014 elections did to the Democrats--sweep many of them out of office. Should that happen, little will remain of the Trump presidency. No judges will be confirmed; no legislation will have a chance; and the "Russian collusion" investigations will proceed with a vengeance.

What should be even more...