Mitch McConnell Must Go

The GOP Might Not Win The Senate

The Republicans looked like they would win the Senate and the House this fall. The Red Wave was real. It still might be but Mitch McConnell is doing all he can to screw it up.

The Republicans are known as “the stupid party” for a good reason. As a former resident of Illinois, I have experienced the stupidity of the Republican Party firsthand. Democrats run Illinois and have for a half-century. Republicans scream like two-year-olds and when they are handed their goldfish crackers they keep quiet and roll over while the adults eat steak.

There is no crime in changing out of poor leadership. Lincoln ran through a lot of generals until he landed on US Grant. General George C. Marshall got rid of all the top generals ahead of WW2 and restaffed the entire general cadre with younger generals that could fight the next war. Companies get rid of poor-performing executives all the time. McConnell is a poor leader because he enables the worst in elected officials.

Top movers and shakers in the party will tell you that Mitch is a “knife fighter” and he did do that with the SCOTUS. It took balls of steel to derail Merrick Garland’s nomination and it looks genius now given that Garland has proven to be nothing more than a third-rate apparatchik at the Department of Justice. He thinks nothing of using the government power of his office to attack political rivals. But, one victory doesn’t make a season. Do you want to be the NY Yankees or the Cleveland Indians?

At his core Mitch is GOPe and GOPe is not good for the United States. Instead of a fast double timed march to socialism or corporatism, it’s slower. GOPe doesn’t ruffle feathers and won’t actually change anything.

What just happened in the Senate proves my point.

First, is the largesse being given to computer chip companies by the government. McConnell and GOPe Republicans voted to give free money to chip companies. That will limit competition and innovation and it will screw up market signals in the chip market so that supply and demand don’t work efficiently.

Second, they thought they could play nice with Democratic West Virginia Senator Manchin and sweetheart talk him to switching parties. Manchin played McConnell like an old fiddle. It’s like going to a strip joint thinking you will get laid. All you do is spend money and walk away horny.

Instead, a 700-page spending bill with increased taxes will pass the Senate. This bill is inflationary and will hurt GDP growth and despite claims to the opposite, we are in a recession. It is absolutely the wrong thing to do and the worst instincts of Beltway insiders are on full display. The only beneficiaries of the bill will be the Big Four tax firms and their consulting arms. WSJ reporter Kim Strassel has the tawdry details here. She writes,

some Republicans saw an opportunity to funnel money to home-state chip interests, while others saw a chance to do the only thing they know how, spend. Even Mr. McConnell—“master strategist”—voted yes. Don’t confuse getting duped with a failure of basic impulse control.

The strategic failures of this vote are legion. Republicans will boast to their constituents about the semiconductor cash, but 15 of the 17 who voted yes aren’t even up for re-election this year.

The ones not up for election were actually running for corporate board seats and lobbying positions.

Both the Chip bill and the Biden Tax Increase and Spending Bill will hurt Americans. Yesterday I blogged about the carried interest part of the bill. But, the alternative minimum tax put on corporations that have more than $1B in income is just as bad.

Manchin might be dumb too. The coal industry is going to be hit hard by this new tax and green energy subsidies will skate by untouched. Companies will get tax credits for spending on wind, solar, critical minerals, biofuels, hydrogen, carbon capture, nuclear, “sustainable” aviation fuel, lithium-ion batteries, electric-vehicle charging stations, and more. He thinks he got a pipeline out of the deal but I don’t think we will see it happen this term.

Maybe the most egregious, Automakers will get $20 billion in cheap federal loans for building “clean vehicle” factories.

The Trump tax bill wasn’t exactly smart policy the way it was written or passed. It passed without one Democratic vote. In a political climate like we have today, that might not be a black mark since it is a cold Civil War. However, the language in the Trump tax bill was not precise and it was sloppy on the corporate side.

The Democratic bill is worse. As a business acquaintance points out, this is a disaster of poor drafting, lack of clear policy, and language bordering on the incomprehensible. The Democrats followed the lead of the OECD and put in a tax that computes by reference to financial statement income. But unlike Europe where tax is computed by reference to financial statement income the US doesn’t do that and hasn’t done it for 100 years. It will make money for the accounting firms but won’t grow the economy."

Not only that, but it will distort how companies allocate capital. Instead of putting money into net present value positive projects that will grow their business, help customers, and increase the volume of jobs and gross domestic product, they will twist and turn in all kinds of yoga positions to try and get under the wire of the subsidies and avoid the new alternative minimum tax.

If you think that the Medicare provisions of the bill will improve care, you have another thing coming. It will do nothing to reduce drug prices and instead will invite more regulation into the market. More regulation means higher prices and shortages.

Have they solved the baby formula shortage yet? Heck, yesterday here in Grand Marais they told me there was a national shortage of minnows. There are so many shortages in the Joe Biden Economy the only thing that has a surplus is adult diapers, soft serve ice cream, epinephrine, and oatmeal.

The bill gives the Department of Energy $40 billion to spend on new ventures. The government never invests, it only spends. The next Republican President along with a Republican-led Congress ought to just eliminate the Department of Energy. It does nothing except create grifters, graft, and dumb policy. You cannot point to one thing the Department of Energy has done to spur energy growth or development in the entire history of the DOE. Never mention Solyndra in their grifter-filled halls.

For me, this all goes back to McConnell. He is the leader of the Republican Party in the Senate. On Garland, his instincts were right, but 90% of the time his instincts are not in the best interest of the citizens. He also enables faux conservatives like Lindsay Graham. He enables grifters like Lisa Murkowski. He voted for the bill and cleared the way for other grifter Republicans to vote for the bill. It is time for him to go, whether the Republicans take the Senate and especially if they don’t. His leadership makes for a weaker Republican Senate in sum.

He just made the climb to retake the Senate a lot tougher. He has to go and any Republican Senator like him needs to go too.