Georgia, You Have An Opportunity To Flip The Senate

Georgia, you have an opportunity to flip the Senate. With just two votes you can do it. When this is done, President Biden will certainly be able to reverse most of the damage done by the Trump administration with the help and continuous support of Mitch McConnell and his tame Republican-dominated Senate. The importance of obtaining a Democrat Senate majority is made clear by the past actions of McConnell when he addressed the Republican caucus shortly before Obama took office as the 44th President of the United States. I have excerpted the following from The Dividend Investor's Guide, written and published in 2011: 

On January 16, 2009, days before President Obama took office, Rush Limbaugh addressed his radio audience, wishing for Obama to fail. Later he softened his words by saying it was Obama's policies that he wanted to fail. And thus was born the Republican strategy to insure Obama would become a one-term president, which was later given voice to by the Republican leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, shortly after the Republican victory in the 2010 midterm election when his party retook control of the lower house of congress. Implausible as this might sound, it is my contention that from the very beginning of the Obama presidency, the Republican Party did everything in their power to prevent Obama from rescuing the failing American economy, and more specifically their effort to keep the unemployment rate above 8%. They realized that if Obama succeeded in rescuing the economy, the Republican Party would, not only be terribly weakened for at least a generation but that it might actually cease to exist as a viable party. In order to accomplish their nefarious goal, they first fought against and, consequently, reduced the requested amount of Obama’s initial stimulus request from 1.2 trillion dollars to 787 billion dollars. Then with Senator Richard Shelby at point, they strenuously fought against Obama’s bailout of the American auto industry, which had they succeeded would have cost Americans directly involved in that industry at least a million jobs, with an additional untold number of jobs lost in sectors of our economy both directly and indirectly supported by our auto industry. Most egregious and cynically harmful, the Republicans, emulating Chicken Licken, fought against Obama’s attempts to rescue the economy by continually and remorselessly frightening the already shaken American public, exclaiming that his policies, especially the stimulus and tarp programs were abject failures. In fact, to this day, Romney, the leading Republican presidential contender, proclaims that the stimulus was an abject failure producing no job growth, disregarding the fact that the month Obama took office we were losing over 750,000 jobs per month, which turned into a net positive the following year. Had we been in a shooting war with the nation’s fate at risk as we were in 1942, the year following the disastrous Pearl Harbor attack, it would most certainly have been considered treasonous for an individual or party to continually and publicly disparage our war efforts. Yet, at the outset of Obama’s presidency, when we were most certainly in the economic battle for the very life of our nation’s economy, and a heartbeat away from a second great depression, the Republicans, did just that. And because our economy is basically, and unfortunately, 70% consumer-driven, Americans, further frightened by the Republican ongoing diatribe, drastically reined in their spending and investing, which further depressed our failing economy, and it is my contention, has delayed and stalled the recovery. This is further evidenced by the actions of the lower house since the Republicans regained control. Not only have no bills been presented or passed promoting job growth, but because of spending cuts initiated in the lower house, we are experiencing a marked reduction of public sector jobs, which has served to negatively affect the unemployment rate in spite of the gains from job growth in the private sector. Historically, no president has been reelected when the unemployment rate has been above 8%, the magic number, above which the Republicans plan to recapture the White House without destroying their brand in the process. Fortunately for them, a major segment of the American public, for a variety of reasons, is not paying attention, at least as of yet, and another segment is so set in their ideology that they simply refuse to accept what should be clearly obvious. Bottom line, at the time of this writing, the global economy, primarily because of Europe's sovereign debt crisis, and ours, primarily due to our political gridlock, is on the verge of sliding back into recession. And the Jury's out about whether or not we'll fall back into recession, and if so, how deep it might be. All we can be certain of is that we cannot control the outcome. Our job as investors is to protect our respective portfolios from a further decline in value.

Today's Republican Party is far to the right of the party it was in 2009. As then, Mitch McConnell remains the leader of the Senate Republicans; however, it is currently a Republican-dominated Senate. Furthermore, the country is more divided than it has been in my seventy-year lifetime, and as made evident by the recent election, Republicans were rewarded, not for compromise, but for their continued acts of obstruction. In addition, although Trump was beaten by Biden, he still holds a great deal of power as the leader of the Republican Party. Sadly, Trumpism remains a force to be reckoned with in America, aggravated by the fact that Trump refuses to acknowledge his defeat and is yet to even grant permission for Biden's transition team to access the current administration's offices and records in order to begin the orderly and smooth transition process, which is of national security importance.

Because past is prologue and those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it, we have a clear picture of what to expect from McConnell should he remain leader of the Republican-dominated Senate. As I wrote in 2011, McConnell, even as the minority leader in the Senate, was capable of forestalling Obama on a regular basis. In fact, the Obama administration's most productive years in spite of McConnell's obstruction, were its first two years when the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. This ended in 2010 when the Republicans captured the lower house. Then with John Boehner, the Speaker, little of what Obama wanted was passed by Congress. Worse yet, upon the death of Justice Scalia in February of 2016, McConnell the majority leader, prevented Obama from placing Merrick Garland, his rightful choice of a Supreme Court Justice.

Given all the above, it would be foolish to expect McConnell to work with Biden for the good of the country. He didn't do it when we were in danger of falling into a second great depression, why should we expect more of him now, especially when our country is further polarized? I hope that Biden has learned this lesson and acts accordingly. He must hope for the best, but be sure to plan for the expected worse.

Our job is to help Georgians do the right thing that not only will be best for Georgia but for our country. Trump has left the Biden administration an incredible mess that must be handled with as little Republican obstruction as possible. To best accomplish this Georgia must fill its two Senate seats with Democrats and flip control of the Senate to the Democrats.

This is important because:

• Should McConnell, the self-styled "Grim Reaper," retain his leadership position in the Republican-dominated Senate, the damage he could and most probably would do to impede Biden's efforts to restore the economy and health of the country is inestimable. Singlehandedly, he alone would have the power to stop any bills that originated in the lower house from even being considered, much less voted upon.  
• As a result of the current administration's gross mishandling of the coronavirus, our Main Street economy is in freefall with over 11 million Americans unemployed and on the verge of being made homeless, and an untold number of American businesses on the verge of being permanently shuttered unless funds are authorized by Congress to help them survive this downturn. The CARES act earmarked to provide those funds and passed by the Lower House in May remain held up by McConnel and the Republican-dominated Senate. This alone could throw the country into a deep depression.
• As before, Biden might not rightfully be able to appoint any Justices or judges to the various benches simply because McConnell wants to continue down the path of obstructionism.
• McConnell will do this regardless of the injury it might do the country because he will continue playing power politics with his intent on flipping the House in 2022, and the presidency in 2024.
• With the pandemic raging and out of control, how many more American lives are the Republicans willing to sacrifice in their efforts to regain full political power? To answer that question let history be your guide. For at least a generation the GOP has acted like a death cult placing all our lives on the line to achieve their goals