Checks and Balances Are Back

With the just-declared victory of Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts, checks and balances have finally been restored after a year of Democratic dominance in Washington. And that means the pace of their big spending, big government agenda will slow down dramatically.

Not that unified Republican control several years ago was a picnic. Those years brought us massive federal encroachment into K-12 education, a major expansion of an already unsustainable entitlement program, corruption, continued government meddling in all variety of personal matters, a bloody and expensive war of choice, a spending explosion, and the abandonment of the limited government (aka freedom) agenda that was supposed to be the heart and soul of the conservative movement.

But Democratic control has--in only one year--brought an escalation of the war in Afghanistan, the continuation of Bush-era violations of civil liberties and opaque budget processes, even greater recklessness with our fiscal future, the attempted nationalization of our health care system, increasing the burden of taxes and regulations, and pushing a pork-laden energy bill that even greens have rejected.

This country is better served when checks and balances exist, as when Clinton was balanced by a Republican House from 1995 to 2001. Sure, the internal tensions within the Democrat caucus provided some impediments, but at the end of the day, leadership has an awful lot of clout and can force (and has forced) much down the throats of the rank and file.

This should serve as a wake up call. As Gerald Seib pointed out on WSJ today, Americans' political preferences have stayed remarkably constant over the years. A successful governing agenda is not one that tacks hard to the left or right, but one that is essentially a free market, socially tolerant agenda of "live and let live."

The Democrats still hold the White House, 256 of 435 House seats, and 59 seats in the Senate. But at least the filibuster is back.

If this is a harbinger of things to come, November will be very, very interesting. Stay tuned.