Great Expectations

Senate Republicans have officially taken the first formal step to repealing Obamacare, approving a budget resolution that lays the groundwork for a later vote on full repeal.

This is, obviously, a good thing. I can think of no campaign pledge more defining for Republican candidates over the past six years than the promise to repeal and replace Obamacare, and being handed all the levers of power in the federal government and then failing to follow through would be an unforgiveable betrayal of the voters. And while I understand Rand Paul’s concerns about cutting spending, the chance to repeal Obamacare is one that is too important to conflate with any other issue, even something as important as federal spending. With Obamacare repeal, speed is key.

And yet repeal is only the first item on a lengthy wish list conservatives have for the new Republican government. Tax reform, approving the Keystone pipeline, cutting spending, instituting Congressional term limits, securing the border, guaranteeing a conservative majority on the Supreme Court for decades to come… The list goes on and on, and has had Republicans practically drooling for months. In just four years, the thinking goes, we can make it as if Barack Obama’s presidency never even happened.

But those big dreams seem to forget one of the biggest lessons of President Obama’s tenure: Many, indeed most, Republicans in positions of power in Washington are not as committed to sweeping changes as they claim to be on the stump. Republican and conservative goals do not always align. And many candidates who talk big about eliminating departments and slashing the national debt change their tune once in office.

This may seem like an obvious statement of fact to many, just over a year after John Boehner was forced to give up the Speakership. But for others, the headiness of unexpected Republican victory will cause memories to quickly fade. The draw of belonging to a team, especially a winning team, is strong, and it will be easy for many who proudly proclaimed their loyalty to principle during the Obama years to set those principles aside for greater personal power.

Personally, I expect Obamacare to be repealed. The promise to do so was so firm, was repeated so often, that it would now be suicidal not to. Whether it will be fully eliminated is another issue; the few popular provisions of the law, combined with the way other portions have already permanently altered the health-care industry, make the single-line repeal, “The Affordable Care Act of 2010 is hereby repealed,” of conservative dreams all but impossible.

On other issues, voters would do well to control their expectations. In four years, we will have the same number of federal departments as we do now. Federal spending will still be going up, though the rate of that increase may slow—hardly an achievement to get excited about. Keystone may be approved, if it is not already too late, and tax reform may pass, though it will be nothing like the flat tax of an ideal world. And there will be no federal term limits amendment passed by Congress.

I hope I’m wrong. Everything on the conservative wish list is possible. A radical pivot back to Constitutional basics could happen. But Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump are not the men to lead that charge. A more reasonable, and still hopeful, expectation for the next four years is for a competent administration and Congress to limit what new damage the federal government can cause, while laying the groundwork for a future President and Congress to more aggressively shrink the government back within Constitutional boundaries.