U.S. midterm elections
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Article added on November 3, 2010 at 09:18 German time; last update at 09:43
  
The U.S. midterm elections of November 2, 2010 brought the expected shift in power. 37 of the 100 Senate seats were up for grabs. All of the 435 members in the House of Representatives had to be elected as well as 37 out of the 50 governors.

In the U.S. Senate, President Obama and his Democrats have retained power with 51 to 47 seats, with 2 seats still undecided. In the U.S. House of Representatives however, the Republicans may control 243 of the 435 seats, leaving the Democrats with a minority of some 192 seats.

At least in 29 out of 50 States, the Governor will be a Republican.

The Tea Party candidates Rand Paul in Kentucky and Marco Rubio in Florida managed to win senate seats for the GOP. But Christine O'Donnell - who was once opposed to masturbation and had to declare: “I am not a witch” - was defeated in Delaware, where Democrat Christopher Coons won Vice-President Joe Biden's former senate seat. The Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid managed to hold on to his seat in a highly contested race in Nevada against Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle. The former Republican presidential candidate John McCain won easily a fifth term in the Arizona senate race.

In California, GOP candidate and former HP chief executive Carly Fiorina apparently lost against the outspoken liberal Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer. The Democrat Jerry Brown managed to defeat Meg Whitman, the former chief executive of eBay, who had spent some $141 million of her own money to win the gubernatorial race. The Democratic Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, retained her seat, but the Democrats lost the House.

In short, President Obama and his Democrats have not lost everything, but their power has been cut back as expected. Will they change or hold on to their agenda? It will be difficult to stop ObamaCare. Does the election signal the return of a fiscally responsible America?



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The main reason behind Obama's and his Democrats' debacle was that the political left tried to enlarge the welfare or Nanny state (Margaret Thatcher). Their pirorities were not in line with voters. In the economic and financial crisis with the unemployment rate rising up to around 10%, Americans were just looking for jobs and trying to ease their pain. Affordable health care for everyone was no longer one of the main issues.

Team Obama made health care a negative issue. Voters realized that offering health care to some 32 million additional Americans, who currently lack insurance, is a honorable goal but would not be possible without rising costs. ObamaCare offered the fantasy of insuring more people by cutting Medicare's costs without touching any entitlements. In an aging society with steady medical progress, health care costs will continue to rise. Medicare (for the elderly) and Medicaid (for the poor) will get more expensive for taxpayers. This year, Americans experienced higher health insurance costs. Projections predict national debt to explode if health care costs are not curbed.

Spending in the U.S. is out of control. There are also the yearly goodies aka subsidies for farmers, a simple waste of money. The biggest junk of questionable spending however touches the military. Monopolies and oligopolies in this sector offer no or limited competition. Overprized weapons and other goods are purchased. Many military bases are not needed. The savings potential is gigantic, but (almost) no one dares to touch the military budget. It would be considered “unpatriotic”. But there is no alternative. The last superpower has to cut its military spending in order to find back to fiscal sanity.

Just a few days ago, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), Arnold Fields, said that the U.S. do not know how much of the $17.7 billion of aid to Afghanistan for the fiscal years 2007, 2008 and 2009 have been spent. The agency's report revealed that much of the data “prior to 2007 was too poor to be analyzed”. In short, in many areas, not just in the military, the United States could save billions of taxpayers dollars.

It remains to be seen whether the Republicans will help the Democrats and the Democratic president to find back to fiscally conservative ideals. After all, it was the GOP under George W. Bush who let spending get out of control. So far, they have not come up with a credible and comprehensive plan.

As for Sarah Palin, she surely is an excellent fundraiser for the GOP. She can energize the party base. But she is no credible presidential candidate. If she is wise, she will stay with Fox News and continue to be a conservative force within the media. The GOP still has to find a serious contender for the office of the president of the United States for 2012.

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