Well, so much for that.
Went to the Tea Party rally this afternoon in DC. Cold and damp. Anemic, pathetic turnout. We barely had 1,000 folks today, if that. Not good. Harry Reid's been saying all week that the Tea Party doesn't have any clout any more. Well, today we managed to prove him right.
A year ago we had the momentum and popular support to block most of the Dems agenda even without having any representation in congress. We did it though massive popular opposition. Last week I was pretty confident we could apply some more of that same political pressure and, along with our new majority in the House, force through some modest budget cuts. We tried to flex that muscle today, and failed badly.
Got ahold of one of Mike Pence's staffers on the way home. He told me that it's been quiet in the capitol all week. No visitors, no flood of phone calls or letters or faxes. The electorate isn't getting in on this fight, not like we did for health care or immigration reform. That leaves the representatives sympathetic to our cause without a leg to stand on.
Yeah, so much for flexing that muscle.
If we get any budget reduction at all out of this, I'll be surprised. Today was a cold, wet dose of reality. We're still the minority. We still lack any real political power. We can halt their advances, but we can't make any advances of our own.
Current scuttlebutt is that they're dickering over cuts in the $30b to $40b over the remaining half budget year, so maybe $60b to $80b in annualized reductions. Rationally, I have to think that that's not small peanuts, that it's a damned sight better than the $200b of increases Harry and Barry would have implemented if left to their own devices. Still, not particularly satisfying.
The silver lining is that there's a real possibility of forcing in a rider to the budget bill defunding Planned Parenthood. So maybe we'll gain some ground on the social issues front, if nothing else.