Senate leaders have pushed back the vote on T. Boone Pickens’ natural-gas-subsidy measure until next Tuesday, a Senate aide tells me.
This four-day advanced warning gives the Republicans a chance to consider their election-year strategy and their view on corporate welfare. I wrote earlier this week that the GOP has a “free-market populist opportunity.” Because Obama’s Win-The-Future, National Greatness Liberalism, National Industrial Policy, America Inc. policy platform involves federal support for Big Business, Republicans have an opportunity to claim the populist mantel.
The GOP could oppose Obama’s expansion of the Export-Import Bank, they could pass the Pompeo-DeMint-Lee measure ending all energy tax credits while cutting the tax rate, they could unwind Fannie & Freddie, and, next Tuesday, they could band together and kill the bill to subsidize billionaire T. Boone Pickens.
Or they could keep showing that they only believe in the “free market” when that means particular deregulations their K Street friends want.
