Over at the conservative Washington Examiner, Tim Carney teases the possibility that if the GOP gains control of the Senate, there might finally be a showdown against crony capitalism:
What Republicans need today — to pitch on the campaign trail, and to pursue if they control both chambers — is an anti-corporate-welfare agenda….
Republicans have for too long been captive to industry lobbyists seeking special favors. In these days where Democrats still control the Senate and the White House, the GOP has a chance to speak free enterprise to power.
Carney knows, and so does everyone else, that even with solid control of the House, the GOP seems unable merely to prevent the expiration of Export-Import Bank reauthorization.
Doing nothing would allow the bank’s authorization to expire, but they’ll not even do …nothing; they will likely vote to extend authorization yet gain (for another nine months, then perhaps to be followed by still more).
Claims for someday, somehow, some way restraint from the GOP are flimsy; there’s no cause to hope that the party will abandon arrangements by which they are so powerfully enriched.