Pelosi Out, Boehner In

Ding dong! The witch is no longer House Majority Leader. Which old witch? Nancy Pelosi! The conclusion of the 2010 mid-term election has brought with it much debate about the relevance and origins of this amazing Republican victory. Winning 239 seats in the House of Representatives and 46 within the Senate is a very good turn around for the Republican party, but what does this mean? What can we, as studious and driven college kid, expect over the course of the next two years? Also, how did our generation vote and in what sort of force?

The overwhelming victories that the Republicans achieved speak volumes as to the national frustration with “hope” and “change”. Nationwide, the number of voters under the age of 30 decreased from nearly a quarter to just 20.4%, which is a substantial drop. In 2008, the under 30 demographic supported Democrats by nearly thirty points which is down to only twenty points in 2010. So what does this mean about us? We are a woefully apathetic generation, for the group with the most to lose to be so uninvolved is rather perplexing. These statistics also indicate that a larger portion of the under 30 voters supported Republican candidates, or perhaps it just means that more of the Republicans who are under 30 got out and voted. Now that the government is more evenly distributed between the Democrats and the Republicans, what will the next two years be like?

House Majority Leader is arguably one of the most powerful positions within the U.S. government, and under the Obama-Pelosi government we as a nation bore witness to a relatively single-party dominant system. The Democrats had no problem taking the seven billion dollar deficit that was created under President Bush and making it nearly two billion all in the name of saving our economy. The health care bill, contrary to the belief that the Republicans stood in its way, took longer than expected to pass because the Democrats themselves were having an inner-party war over the bills contents. Now, after two years of the Obama-nation we have a thirteen trillion dollar debt and yet the economy and the health insurance industry are none the better.

The new House Majority Leader will be John Boehner (R-OH), and the Obama-Boehner government will be a much slower moving government then we have witnessed over the course of the last two years. With a majority in the House of Representatives, and enough seats in the Senate to filibuster, the Republican party will be able to prevent the egregious spending that the Democrats have become so fond of. Expect much more debate out of government that will no longer be dominated by a single political party, and expect some bipartisanship as well. The Republicans have an amazing opportunity right now, and will hopefully make the most of it. The stage has been set for the election of 2012, will the Stimulus bills and the Health care bill have as big of a positive impact as the Democrats hoped? Might the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats be undone by the failure of their policies? Only time will tell.

-Andrew Plocica