By John Hood
John Locke Foundation
A useful way to think about the two Democratic wave elections of 2006 and 2008 is that they’ve taken America back to the status quo ante of 1993, though not all the way back in the case of North Carolina.
After the 1992 election, America had a young Democratic president promising change, economic recovery, and a middle-class tax cut and a Democratic Congress intent on federalizing health care and cutting defense spending. There were 57 Democrats and 43 Republicans in the U.S. Senate. In the House, the Democratic majority consisted of 256 members. At the state level, Democrats controlled both legislative chambers in 25 states, Republicans in eight, and power was split in 16 (Nebraska’s legislature is nonpartisan and unicameral). There were 29 Democratic governors, 20 Republicans, and one third-party governor. Read the rest of this entry