Update on my predictions on how the Democrats would do from November of 2006

In one phrase, The Democrats are embarassing themselves on the national Level.

Jeff Pruitt on his blog has had some very negative things to say about the Mayoral campaign of Matt Kelty. I wonder how he would rank the progress of the Democratic majorities so far in regards to their broad promises they made?

If he thinks the Kelty campaign have made mistakes (And they have) he must be really appalled by the Democrats in Congress. In my opinion he would have to consider them a complete and utter failure...

Lets look at my predictions from last November.

1. Pat White and most conservative talk radio hosts seem to think the Democrats will kill talk radio. This is just right wing paranoia. It will not happen. If it does happen I will have to call in to Pat White and tell him I was wrong; he and I have argued this on the air several times... I would be VERY ANGRY if the Dems try to do this. I am against re-instituting The Fairness Doctrine; it would be a violation of Free Speech.

Updated status, this has been discussed a little bit; however, as I predicted the Democrats are not seriously considering this. I was right.

2. Pat White and most conservative talk radio hosts seem to think that the Dems will try to impeach Bush. If the Dems try to do this they will regret it... I do not buy this either, the Democrats are not going to do this. I am against impeaching Bush.

Updated status, to date this has not been seriously considered and as I predicted the Dems are not seriously considering this. I was right.

3. Amnesty to illegal aliens. This would be terrible for America and wrong. If the Dems make this mistake they will be made to regret it in 2008. There is little doubt in my mind that Bush and The Democrats will grant Amnesty and it will make me angry. I am against Amnesty.

There was a bi-partisan effort to grant Amnesty earlier this year led by Bush and members of both political parties. This effort was defeated by the outrage of the voters. I expect this issue to come up again and I expect a bi-partisan effort to grant amnesty to happen again. The Democrats and President Bush tried to grant amnesty and thank goodness failed. Thanks goodness I was wrong about this one.

4. Pat White and many people think the Dems will immediately draw down troop levels in Iraq. They are wrong and this will be fun to watch. The left wing bloggers and peace wing of the Democratic party is about to get into a big fight with the mainstream Democrats and it will be an ugly fight. It will be an ugly fight because we are not going to do ANYTHING new in Iraq. Even with a new Defense Secretary our policy in Iraq will not significantly change. The media will cover the war differently; but, nothing will change. Not at all. This is really going to make a lot of Democrats like our own Robert Rouse VERY ANGRY at the Dems. We have 133,000 troops in Iraq right now; expect that to continue. We will still have at least 120,000 troops in Iraq in one year.

The Democrats have not done ANYTHING to get troops out of Iraq, in fact we currently have about 162,000 troops in Iraq. Since the Democrats have been in power the troop levels in Iraq have INCREASED. I was right.

5. Pat White and many others think the Dems will go after John Bolton in The United Nations. I am not as sure about this one. My guess is that there will be a half hearted effort to get rid of John Bolton. If Bush caves in John Bolton may go... I think he will stay. I think John Bolton should stay, he has done a good job. Overall The United Nations is a huge waste of taxpayer money...

They unfortunately got Bolton to resign right away which is a shame. I was wrong.

6. I have heard a lot about The Dems repealing all of Bush's tax cuts. I do NOT think the Dems will repeal them all; however, they will allow some of them to retire via their sunset provisions. My guess is that those geared towards the middle class and the poor will remain and that those geared towards the wealthy will be allowed to expire. Unfortunately I think the Dems will make the tax code even more complicated. I think they will allow the tax cuts for the wealthy expire. I think the tax code should be scrapped and simplified.

So far the Democrats have done NOTHING as far as Bush's tax cuts. The silence has been deafening. This will come to a head in a couple of years. I am right so far.

7. I have heard a lot about the Dems allowing the estate taxes to come back. This is definitely not true. The Dems are not going to mess with the estate taxes too much. They MAY even raise the threshold to around 5 million dollars for an estate. I think that the Dems will basically leave The Estate tax alone. I think estate taxes are evil and should be eliminated entirely.

So far the Democrats have done NOTHING and that is what I predicted. I was right.

8. The Dems will increase the minimum wage on the Federal level. This is a given and Bush will not Veto it. Bush babbled about making sure it would not effect small business in his Press Conference; so I am afraid this may become another overly complicated bill The Dems will increase the minimum wage. I am against this because I understand economics and The Constitution. The Federal minimum wage should be abolished and each State should set their own.

As I predicted the Dems did this right away. I was right.

9. The Dems will make no real progress on the Federal Debt no matter what they promise. The Federal Debt was about 8.5 trillion dollars in 2006 at the end of the fiscal year (End of September). Over the last six years the Federal Debt has increased ABOUT 400 billion dollars each year. I expect this to continue. My guess is the Federal Debt will be 8.9 trillion dollars at the end of Sep 2007. I expect it to be 9.3 trillion dollars at the end of Sep 2008. I will be watching this very carefully along with Jeff Pruitt. Nancy Pelosi has made promises that I think she will break. The Dems will talk about fiscal responsibility and will not follow through with them. I am in favor of balancing the Federal Budget TODAY, not in five years.

The National debt grew even more then I expected. It was 9 TRILLION dollars last month. The Dems have not made ANY progress on the national debt, as expected. I was right.

10. The Dems will create even more unfunded Federal liabilities then we have today. I have posted a lot of information on our unfunded Federal liabilities. They are about 75 trillion dollars today. This is criminal. I expect them to continue to increase. The Dems will not touch this issue at all. I am in favor of eliminating all of our unfunded liabilities.

As I predicted the Dems have done nothing to fund any of our existing unfunded liabilities; in fact, most of their presidential candidates are telling us how they will create more... I was right.

11. The Dems will talk about protecting Social Security a lot. As of May of 2006 the unfunded liability of Social Security was 13.4 trillion dollars. (<http://www.bc.edu/centers/crr/issues/ib_46.pdf>) In other words, if we had 13.4 trillion dollars invested in US Treasury's in May then Social Security would be solvent; unfortunately, you need to read #9 above. We have NOT saved ANY money for Social Security. What this means is future generations are going to have to pay for the current generation and past generations, which is wrong. The Dems will talk about protecting social security and they will do NOTHING. Social Security needs to be fixed now. It should never have been allowed to have ANY unfunded liability. Note that it had an unfunded liability the day it was created.

As expected the Dems have done nothing to "shore up" social security and I do mean NOTHING. I was right.

12. The Dems will talk about health care a whole lot. One of the largest Democratic talking points was the fact that 50 million American are uninsured as far as health care. I have NO IDEA what The Dems will do. They DO NOT have a plan to fix healthcare. I think they will push for more government involvement and they will throw more money at the problem. This will not work and where will the money come from. I have to think the Dems will try to get health insurance for more people and I have to think they will want the government to pay for it. Obviously I want to kick the government out of health care entirely.


As I predicted the Democrats have tried to get more involved in health care with a large expansion of the SCHIP program. Luckily President Bush vetoed it and his veto was just upheld by Congress. I nailed this one... I was right.

The following items Nancy Pelosi promised to do within the 1st 100 hours and The Dems MUST accomplish to maintain ANY credibility.

13. "Put new rules in place to break the link between lobbyists and legislators." I love this idea; however, The Dems will NOT do this. They will completely blow this promise. I am in favor of this Democratic promise.

To date, by ANY measure, this has been a 100% failure for the Dems as I predicted. I was right.

14. "Enact all recommendations of the 9/11 Commission." I am not sure about this one but I tend to favor it. I fully expect The Dems to keep this promise. I think I am in favor of this promise.

The Dems kept PART of this promise. They ignored the most important and most difficult to implement provisions; however, they did the rest. I will call this one a draw since they did enact many of the easy recommendations.

15. "Cut interest rates on student loans in half." I am against this for obvious reasons. The Federal government needs to get out of Education entirely. The more money you throw at something the more expensive it gets. It is simple economics. If the Federal government cuts the interest rates in half on student loans that means they will pay the difference out of tax payer dollars. This will get expensive and make it harder to balance the budget. I think the Dems will keep this promise. This promise is a bad idea, we need less government involvement in education not more.

The Dems kind of did this. They basically did this for future loans. I was right.

16. "Allow government to negotiate directly with drug companies for lower drug prices for Medicare patients." I think this is a great idea. I think it is going to be much harder then The Dems think. The drug companies are very powerful and control a lot of Republicans AND Democrats. This issue will be very important to The Dems and they need to keep this promise. I think the Dems will make a feeble effort to do this; however, they will NOT significantly lower drug prices. This promise is a GREAT idea.

Complete failure to date; in fact they are not even discussing it. This was one of their best ideas and it has been an utter failure. I was right.

17. "Broaden the types of stem cell research allowed with Federal Funds." I have no problem with stem cell research; however, The Federal government is spending too much of my money as it is. The last thing we need is more government money being spent on a new program. I think the Dems will keep this promise. I have no problem with stem cell research, it should be funded privately or with money from the fifty states; it is not something The Federal government should be involved in.

The Dems did try to do this; however, they failed to over-ride the Presidential veto. I was right.

18. The Dems promised to "pay as you go." I do not understand why we EVER got away from "pay as you go." It makes sense and is most likely my largest problem with both Dems and Reps. They have mortgaged America. The Dems will NOT abide by "pay as you go." Obviously "pay as you go" should be the way it is.

The Democrats have not passed any meaningful legislation at all. We will have to wait and see about this one. We will call this one a draw.

19. "Eliminating corporate subsidies for oil companies." I am in favor of eliminating all Federal subsidies. The Dems will find this more complicated then they think; however, I think they will get this done. Federal subsidies should be eliminated...

The Democrats have started down this road; however, they have still failed to get it done. We will have to wait and see on this one as well. We will call this one a draw.

20. "We will energize America by achieving energy independence." I am in favor of this. It cannot happen in 100 hours and she should NEVER have said this. We are too reliant on foreign oil and we will be just as dependent in two years as we are today. The Dems will fail on this 100%. We need to work on energy dependence; however, neither Party has a plan that will work.The 2006 election was yesterday; Nancy Pelosi has already made some promises that we will look at.

This has been another embarrassing failure. I was right.

21. "Nancy Pelosi promised to run the most ethical and honest administration in history." This is a promise I hope that she keeps; however, I do not think it is possible. This one will have to be graded over the next two years. I expect The Dems to keep using all of the legislative "tricks" both Parties have used for the last 50 years to continue. This promise will be broken, possibly by #20 below. This promise SHOULD be kept; but, they will not.

This has been another awful failure. Nothing has changed in Washington and everyone knows it. Earmarks and corruption are everywhere. I was right.

22. "Nancy Pelosi made the promise in 19 above." Each and every Republican involved in a corruption scandal was defeated in the 2006 Election. Amazingly enough Democratic Congressman William J. Jefferson has not yet been defeated. In Louisiana you have to get at least 50% of the vote or participate in a run off election. Jefferson is still alive and will face off with a Democrat next month in the run off election. Jefferson is accused of accepting $400,000 in bribes by the FBI. The FBI took $90,000 from his freezer and has bribes on videotape. There is really no doubt that Jefferson is guilty. This will be one of The Democrats first tests. Nancy Pelosi promised to clean up Washington and Jefferson is where she needs to start. If she is serious about cleaning up Washington she should travel to Louisiana and back Jefferson's opponent. The National Democratic Party should pitch in a lot of money and destroy Jefferson in his election next month. I expect Jefferson to be defeated in December; however, I do not expect The National Democrats to ensure his defeat. Jefferson is scum and should have resigned...

The Democrats blew it on this one as well. Big time. I was right.

I made 22 predictions about the Democrats almost a year ago when they won the Elections. Here is the score:

I was right on 17 issues
I was wrong on two issues
Three issues are a draw and we will have to wait and see

The National Democratic Party has not done almost ANYTHING this entire year.

Mike Sylvester