As the session winds down, the President's federal budget has been introduced to Congress. With a Republican in the White House and a Democratic-Controlled Congress, we knew that sparks were going to fly from the moment the budget hit the floor. However, President Pizzuto's budget was relatively unobjectionable on many fronts. But this did not stop the Democrats from trying to put a spin on the President's budget, saying that he was cutting many programs that he actually, well, wasn't.

It started with Homeland Security, where the House Democratic Whip accused President Pizzuto of slashing massive amounts of funding from the Department's budget. This turned out to be false - it was actually due to the massive California Relief spending passed by Congress at the start of the session. Then it went to Education, where Congressional Democrats claim that President Pizzuto massively cut into the Education's budget. Truth is - President Pizzuto's budget actually appropriates over $2.5 billion more for education than the Cullen Budget did, and Cullen was a Democrat. It was only a matter of time before pundits were asking - What are they going to criticize next? Well, we got our answer.

The Department of Transportation. It's a department that has slowly had its funding cut over the last several years, starting with President Cullen's budget. However, Democrats had no opposition back when President Cullen did it. The opposition comes now on the heels of President Pizzuto. But what the Democrats fail to mention is their legislation on the side. Take, for instance, the Rail Infrastructure Expansion Act up for debate in the Senate. It was originally a piece of pork-barrel spending proposed by Senator Dmitri Kowalchuk (D-FL) to give $1.06 billion to MARTA.

But Democrats like Kevin Santos-Carter of New York couldn't stop there. Senator Santos-Carter proposed a massive amendment totaling over $7 BILLION dollars to give to every other region in the United States, all heading towards the Department of Transportation's budget. And lest we forget the Regional Transportation Omnibus Act, another Transportation pork bill in the Domestic Affairs Committee totaling another $6.4 BILLION dollars. Along with the increases proposed by Congressional Democrats to the Budget, all in all, they want to give the Department of Transportation a whopping extra $15 BILLION dollars over the next three years. Some people, like Senator Santos-Carter, want to give it up to $17 BILLION dollars over the next three years.

So while Democrats whine that President Pizzuto is driving massive cuts into the Department of Transportation, they've proposed nearly $14 BILLION dollars on the side for the Department of Transportation. Yet, even they claim this isn't enough. This reporter asks - where will the hypocrisy end? Did anyone even bother to ask President Jack Pizzuto if he noticed these massive transportation bills and factored them into the cuts in the budget? Or are the Democrats simply set on racking up record deficits AGAIN before the American people say enough is enough? Regardless of what happens, it is clear that the Transportation Boondoggle is far from dead under a Democratic Congress.

There are some delusional liberals out there hanging onto hope by the thinnest of threads that Democrats, in some way, will triumph as November dawns above the horizon. Today, Democrats elected their second Speaker of the House on the heels of Speaker Leah Henderson, who handed off the gavel to House Majority Leader Stephen Frye and disappeared for months and months. Members of the Republican Party were ultimately confused, and one day received letters in their offices saying the Speaker had quit with no explanation or notice. Though not before House Majority Leader Frye yielded the gavel to the House Majority Whip and resigned himself, similarly with no explanation.

Since the Democrats have been in charge of the House, the gavel has changed hands numerous times as has the position of who is in charge of the chamber's work. A once-diligent Democratic majority, they are now on their second Speaker and third House Majority Leader and are losing votes by nearly double digits to a Republican "minority". To say that the House Democrats have managed to get anything done would be untruthful. In a session where the house can usually debate 50+ pieces of legislation, House Democrats dropped the gavel so many times that they barely got through 35 pieces. Votes remained uncounted for months and months at a time, forcing the parliamentarian to demand the votes be counted or he would do it himself without regard to the Majority. It was even so bad, Minority Leader Steve Rayburn took the floor and tallied several of the votes himself.

But where does the minority stand on all this? They're winning votes left and right, under the only Minority Leader of the session Steve Rayburn. Winning by near double digits, and passing many amendments in committee, House Republicans have actually been seen as what the Democratic majority should be. And while the Republicans continue to work for the values they were elected on, Democrats in both the House and the Senate continue to push the deficit upwards towards a whopping $500 billion dollars with more deficit-spending bills. And yet, liberals have the nerve to complain when President Pizzuto has to draw out his veto pen to protect the American taxpayers from a fiscal disaster?

From a realist's perspective, there is absolutely no doubt that the Republicans will dominate Washington in the coming elections - and like President Pizzuto, they'll have the backing of the American people to do it. Early estimates show a huge monetary advantage for the House Republican Caucus while Republican candidates have put up a serious challenge upwards through Democratic incumbents in New England and New York for the Senate. Whether you agree or disagree with the Republicans, no one can deny that they have been acting more and more like a majority party intent on opposition whilst the Democrats have squandered their precious Congressional majorities into oblivion. Only time will tell...but I think the turning tide will overcome Washington as the American people call for a changing of the guard.

Four years ago, the American people delivered a supermajority to the Democratic Party in the Senate. Two years later, even as President Pizzuto was elected to the White House, Democrats won back control of the House of Representatives for the first time in multiple sessions of Congress. At the time, Democrats were falling all over themselves to tell any Republican in earshot that "elections have consequences". In the aftermath of the 2018 midterm elections, Democrats find themselves locked out of the mechanisms of power, as Republicans have won back their majority, albeit a very thin one, in the House, and they have won a majority in the Senate for the first time in nearly a decade. How did we get to this point? It's worth noting, but first, let's take a look at the races where Democrats ended up coming just short of retaining their Senate majority.

Wabash Senate
This was, without a doubt, the closest election of an extremely close election cycle. The Democrats nominated Holden Sawyer, a freshman Congressman from Illinois whose main contribution before running for office seemed to be seconding the effort to move President Pizzuto's budget to a vote in the House. The presence of party money and high profile surrogates on the campaign trail was a sign of just how close this campaign was. In the end, this election came down to a failure of both message and strategy. The first half of the campaign cycle saw Congressman Sawyer making an aggressive push for Indiana. The success of the initiative can be seen in how aggressive the Porter campaign had to be during the campaign's second half. Overconfidence in their advertising strategy led to the Sawyer campaign abandoning the very strategy that might have delivered Indiana, and with it the election, into the Democratic column.

Another problem for the Sawyer campaign was the message that they were giving. As was evidenced by the post-election analysis provided on the race, the claim that the presence of any one man, and this is no comment on Holden Sawyer personally, was laughable. The man Sawyer was running to replace, newly reinstalled Midwestern Governor James Kennedy, was very aggressive in the Senate on pursuing progressive tax policy, social policy and immigration policy. If a two term Senator and former Governor who can claim a 61% approval rating during his previous tenure in Springfield couldn't get this tax policy passed when Democrats had a near-total domination of both the Senate and the conference committee necessary to get any legislation passed, then what magic wand would come as a result of Wabash voters pulling the level for Mr. Sawyer? This was always a message that would be problematic for Democrats supporting Sawyer to sell, and it combined with the strategic mistakes made by the campaign to give the moderate Porter just enough momentum to successfully cross what was a very difficult finish line.

Farmbelt Senate
Run of the mill Democrats thought that this was finally the year when the seat that had evaded them - and their candidate - might finally be theirs for the taking. Mr. Edwards, the former Secretary of Homeland Security under the Cullen Administration, seemed involved and engaged on the campaign trail in a way that he simply did not during his previous runs for this seat. The problem was that he faced an absolutely outstanding campaign waged by incumbent Senator Mark Casey. Whatever points might have been made by Edwards were undone by the highly organized and efficient Casey campaign. Thos race was for the Republicans what the California I race was for Democrats in 2014 with Edwards cast in the role of the scrappy fighter that was occupied four years ago by former California Representative Eric Cohen. The Casey campaign adopted a very similiar reality stick approach to that used by the campaign of former Senator Alex Jameson of California, reminding voters in the Farmbelt that, while they might respect Edwards for his determination to run for this seat again, Edwards' policy positions placed him at odds with what most people in the region thought should be the priorities of the Federal government. Without a significant funding advantage, this was always going to be an uphill battle, and that was before the outstanding work of the Casey campaign. Democrats should really be asking themselves whether it is a judicious use of money or resources to commit to winning a race that has proven all but unwinnable for them in even the friendliest of circumstances.

Atlantic Seaboard Senate
This is a region where, for reasons passing understanding, Democrats have had a hard time competing, and 2018 was no different. This was due in part to the fact that Antonio Davis, the incumbent Senator since being appointed to the seat, is one of the most personable and interactive members of the Senate's new Republican majority. Because he is a quiet fiscal conservative who rarely inspires the kind of antipathy among the Democratic base that is engendered by Republicans whose last names are Fossil and Justice, Independents in the region seemed far more comfortable with Davis. Add to that the lack of a cohesive record or platform brought into the race by Maryland Democrat Andres Maximiliano, and this was always going to be a difficult race. The lack of party money made available in the race nearly guaranteed the result. Had Democrats funded Maximiliano with the requisite amount of funding for an ad that asked voters in Maryand and New Jersey how comfortable they would be with Peter Fossil being given control of the docket in the Senate, and this race could have been much closer than it was. If Andres Maximiliano had the funds made available for J.K. Edwards in the Farmbelt, they might have made up the ground necessary to win here. The lack of competition here is enough to seriously question the strategic wisdom being employed in the choice of campaigns that were funded by the Democratic National Committee.

The Return of a Republican Majority in the House
As the final returns began showing Republican after Republican getting elected to the Senate, all eyes turned to the House of Representatives. Two years ago, Democrats regained a majority in the House by focusing public attention on partisan management of the House Floor, inactive committees and an inattention to what Democrats called the "big issues" faced by working families. Two years and four Speakers later, the hole dug for House Majority Minority Leader Addie Jackson simply had too large a hole to dig himself out of. The platform run by likely House Speaker or Majority Leader Steve Rayburn with it's emphasis that "America can do better" reminded voters that Democrats who were asking for their vote in 2018 could hardly be distinguished from their well-funded Republican counterparts in 2016. The fact that the bleeding wasn't worse than it was for the Democrats is a sign of just how effective a campaign Jackson ended up running. Under a close minority, Jackson can use that to force the Republican majority to be far more moderate than they might otherwise be. The extremely close nature of the vote is indicative of not only the extremely aggressive campaign run by both sides, but also of a still divided electorate. If the new Republican majority proves no more adept than their predecessors at forging bipartisan consensus, then they may find their stay in the Speaker's chair cut short come 2020.

How Did We Get Here?

With the rise of moderate reformers like Archie Foster in Arizona and Thomas Jackson in Michigan, one point became very obvious as the campaign unfolded - the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee was committed to recruiting and electing reform-minded candidates who would contrast well with members of the Senate's majority who refused multiple compromises on multiple items on their legislative agenda. When Jackson, then a Republican in the House, brought up legitimate issues with the American Family Economic Empowerment Act, Democrats led by Jackson Rockefeller refused to even acknowledge the criticism. The end result of their refusal to compromise was that Republicans, led by President Pizzuto, could run on a platform of getting things done. In campaign after campaign, the promise to deliver on results was contrasted with Democratic candidates whose main message seemed to be "this time, we'll finally get it right!" In a contest of competence versus Democrats asking for yet another chance at accomplishment, voters cast their ballots for reform to get something done. The challenge now is for those reformers to justify the faith Republicans were given. If they don't, then Democrats may have the chance to talk about elections and their consequences once again. When the history of the 2018 campaign is written, it will likely be said that it was a victory of commitment and reform over laziness and inactivity. When presented with that choice, given that House Republicans ran on a platform that "America can do better", the voting public's response in the voting booth seemed to be a resounding "yes we can".

The news is not all bad for Democrats. With wins against Republican incumbents in Governor's races in the Gulf Coast and the Mid-Atlantic region, Democrats are now presented with an opportunity to provide a contrast to the policies likely to emerge from Washington in the next two years. Much like the 2006 election of Democrats Janet Napolitano in Arizona and Kathleen Sebelius in Kansas, John Kent and Dimitri Kowalchuk will now provide their party with a cohesive policy alternative to the Pizzuto Administration and a Congress now controlled by Republicans who have been in the minority for a very long time. The degree to which they do that may well determine the future of the body politic in America for a very long time.

Senator Bryan McLaggen Floor Statement: Stop Drawing Lines In Sand On CHOICE And Allow For Real Compromise Instead
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE // Nashville, Tennessee
Jon Radcliffe // Spokesperson

With the debate on CHOICE getting heated, Senator Bryan McLaggen recently gave his maiden floor speech on the need to set aside partisan blinders by drawing artificial lines in the sand and instead allow for real bipartisan compromise that half of the Senate won't vote for to take hold. The full remarks are as follows:

McLaggen: Mr. President,

Now that the debate has calmed for a moment, I'd like to take a minute to assess the playing field and look at the options we have going forward.

While others in this chamber wish to ignore history, I do not. Congress, in an overwhelming bipartisan vote, supported a plan that both sides have described as a strong first step to health care reform. President Pizzuto vetoed that bill saying it wouldn't do enough (Mention 1). And as others have pointed out, that is well within his right.

So now we have seen the President's (Mention 2) plan in CHOICE brought forward for debate. There would almost appear to have been a deal worked out that if amendments were made to CHOICE that included many of the provisions from the recently vetoed bill that the skies would open, the light would shine down, celestial choirs would sing, and the world would be good again. There seem to be some who refuse to believe that if you just take the vetoed bill and add it to CHOICE, other may believe more could be done to reform our health care system because it's unreasonable to think that anyone truly believes in it...only I'm allowed to do that.

With all those facts on the table, why is it that we, who perhaps do not support CHOICE in it's current form for reasons we just amended out of it, are being asked to blindly vote yes on it just because what had previously been called 'first steps' are being added to it?

The President (Mention 3) has said he wants truly comprehensive reform, that will change the system and forever leave it's mark on the country.

If that is the case, then those who support CHOICE must stop drawing lines in the sand and demanding no one cross them and compromise the values they don't have, because only I'm allowed to truly believe in anything, and as such I pledge to erase my line in the sand and vote for anything and everything amended into the bill just like I expect of the Republicans.

If this bill is to be the truly comprehensive reform the President I wishes it to be, then all sides except the ones who don't believe in a public option but should be willing to vote for anything in the name of compromise must be heard. All plans must be considered except the original bill, which I have implied opposition to. All options weighed, up to and including banning abortion and privatizing medicare. No one in this debate can get everything they want, including the President (Mention 4), and except me. So let's accept that fact and begin to look for a solution that can pass with the bipartisan support the previous plan had, so basically the exact opposite of the public option. That type of reform will not come by slapping two plans together and thinking the job is finished, because as mentioned before nobody could have actually believed in this plan so I have to minimize and demean it in the name of being open to all options. A true compromise, a real compromise, must include ideas from both sides of the aisle, must reflect the best in our thinking, and must be completely unaccepted to a large enough portion of the Senate to fail it. That will only come from a real and honest debate where all sides consider all options, again noting how broad the term "all" is when it could mean simply ending government healthcare all together, and nothing is left off the table.

I want to close by saying that earlier the gentleman from the Southwest said 'no one is expecting us to come up with a perfect bill.' My reply, no one should expect us to believe this bill is perfect either. This body's duty is to debate and amend if necessary and provided it will prevent the bill's passage. Those amendments should include more than just the first steps that were to begin the reforms necessary, unlike the AUCHAA in which I thought the first steps were just peachy. It should include every idea from every person. The gentleman from the Northwest said that the public option plan was something his party opposed and 'out of respect' they were not offering plans they believed the other party would oppose. I say introduce those plans unless it's to AUCHAA. Let's have an honest open debate. Let's allow ideas to win the day and demeaning the people who support the original compromise, not insults. And let's pass real, meaningful and truly comprehensive reform that will help every American, unlike the AUCHAA I loved in the admitted absence of such.

They deserve no less.

I yield.

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