What Will Be the Impact of Nancy Pelosi's Reign in the House?

Confident and self-assured, Nancy Pelosi made her debut this week as Speaker of the House by painting herself as a "Grandma from Baltimore", and inviting childen to come up and touch her gavel. She was elected on a platform of "ending corruption and partisanship" in Congress - and her acceptance speech echoed these premises.

This is quite ironic, for Nancy is well known to be one of the most rugged supporters of the old partisan mentality in Congress! Can she truly transform into a politician interested in working together with the Republicans to achieve goals in the best interest of America?

Her agenda is clearly stated in her blog post of November, 2006:

" If you honor Democratic candidates with your vote today, in the first hundred hours of a Democratic Congress: We will restore civility, integrity, and fiscal responsibility to the House of Representatives. We will start by cleaning up Congress, breaking the link between lobbyists and legislation and commit to pay-as-you-go, no new deficit spending.

We will make our nation safer and we will begin by implementing the recommendations of the independent, bipartisan 9/11 Commission.

We will make our economy fairer, and we will begin by raising the minimum wage. We will not pass a pay raise for Congress until there is an increase in the minimum wage.

We will make health care more affordable for all Americans, and we will begin by fixing the Medicare prescription drug program, putting seniors first by negotiating lower drug prices. We will also promote stem cell research to offer real hope to the millions of American families who suffer from devastating diseases.

We will broaden college opportunity, and we will begin by cutting interest rates for student loans in half.

We will energize America by achieving energy independence, and we will begin by rolling back the multi-billion dollar subsidies for Big Oil.

We will guarantee a dignified retirement, and we will begin by fighting any attempt to privatize Social Security."

This is a tall order for any politician, and her initial statements sound as if written by a Republican rather than by a Democrat. I believe she will find support for an ethics cleanup among the recently besmeared Republicans seeking to clear their names, and also no new deficit spending.

However, the typical Democratic party agenda has always been to increase spending for social programs. How will Nancy vote when forced to choose between this platform, and the party agenda? So far, it appears that she is sticking to her word, by pushing through two bills on her second day in office to curb spending. One bill forces Representatives to pen their names to funding for pet projects that traditionally are tacked quietly onto existing bills for other issues. The second bill, called the "pay-as-you-go" bill requires the House to offset any new tax cut with spending cuts of equal magnitude. Designed to keep the deficit from growing, it requires the same cash cuts if any federal progams such as Medicare are expanded. Although the Republican party has traditional stood for lowering the deficit, we can expect a fight on this bill as it raises the specter of tax increases.

We can also expect that she will fight a battle with the small business lobbyists - the very lobbyists she is trying to remove from power - over the minimum wage increase.

By far the largest battle she will face in her early days is the one over the War in Iraq. She and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have drafted a letter to President Bush opposing an increase in troops in Iraq. Bush is a lame duck, but on his side is John McCain, a 2008 Presidential hopeful. As the Democrats have a thin majority, this battle could get ugly.

The November vote made it clear that she has the American people on her side on this one! Several senior military leaders are also on her side, voting for more training of the existing Iraqis as the best solution.

One thing is for sure, Nancy is not going to be a passive Speaker of the House! This will be an interesting year, and hopefully a fruitful one.