Right wing flexes muscle

3 stories offer glimpses at the Republican Party early in 2011, the year it assumes some governmental power.

Darrell Issa, soon to be launching at least half a dozen investigations into the Obama administration's first two years, offers to have business tell him what laws and rules they it would like to have repealed.

Companies spend millions of dollars each year complaining to Congress about burdensome laws and regulations, pressing their concerns in public campaigns and in private meetings. They rarely wait for invitations. Last month a senior House Republican, Representative Darrell Issa of California, nevertheless dispatched letters to 150 companies, trade groups and research organizations asking them to identify federal regulations that are restraining economic recovery and job growth. Mr. Issa, incoming chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the concerns of businesses had been ignored by the Obama administration as it pursued what he described as an unprecedented regulatory expansion.

He's offering them a rebate on lobbying, in effect. Indiana's governor, Mitch Daniels, has his own agenda: burnish his credentials as a budget hawk in advance of launching his own presidential bid.

Congressional Republicans have spent much of the last decade voting for tax cuts and spending increases, all the while giving speeches decrying the deficit. Mr. Daniels, who took office in 2005, has reduced the number of state workers by 18 percent and held spending growth below inflation. He has raised the sales tax to help make up for a property tax cut. Largely as a result, Indiana finds itself in better fiscal shape than many other states.

Reduce the state's work force, increase unemployment, and cut one tax whilst raising another: balm for the gilead?