I’ve been going over some things in my mind lately, and I’ve decided to put them into list form here. It’s my list of political predictions for 2010. Some of these are obvious. Some might be more of a stretch. No matter what happens, 2010 is going to be an interesting year in politics, and I’m very much looking forward to it.

I don’t have inside information on any of these items. This is just my speculation at what will happen.

In Georgia

• Democrats in Georgia will pick up some House seats. I don’t know where or how many, but to think the Georgia Republicans can have all the chaos they’ve had lately and not lose seats is just not logical thinking.
• Johnny Isakson will have the same runoff opportunity that Saxby Chambliss had in 2008. At this point, I’d probably vote for Satan if he ran against Isakson.
• Taxes will rise. Our dollars are as weak for us as they are for the state. And since Georgia can’t just make more money like they do in Washington, it will need higher tax revenues to compensate for the ever-weakening dollar.

In Washington

• The Republicans will take the majority in the U.S. House.
• Harry Reid will lose his run for reelection.  (I’m going way out on a limb there, huh?)
• The resulting power shift in the Democrat Party (after losing the House and Reid not returning) will cause chaos in the party, which will start a downhill trend for the Dems that will cost Obama the election in 2012 (unless he runs against Sarah Palin).
• Jim DeMint will no longer be the only consistent voice of reason in the Senate, as he will be joined by Rand Paul.
• There will be more bailouts of “too big to fail” companies that come with rules on how they are allowed to operate.

Across the Nation

• The Libertarian Party will see a 50% increase in votes over 2008 election numbers. I think this is a conservative estimate. It may approach a 75% increase if the Republicans nationwide continue to offer poor candidates.
• There will be more scares over terrorist plots (not involving airplanes) that will give gun grabbers a reason to push for more gun laws under the guise of keeping people safe and secure.  As a result, we will have more gun laws, but we will be less safe and secure than we are now.
• The Tenth Amendment will be an issue of much discussion as states who can’t afford the mandates from health care legislation will have to consider rejecting it.

So that’s my list of political predictions for this year.  What are yours?

Today the House voted 328-93 in favor of taxing the bonuses given by companies that received TARP funds.  Granted, it’s only for some employees of some of the recipient companies, but it’s still a big deal.

I wrote my Congressman (Phil Gingrey) this morning to encourage him to vote against the bill.  I was happy to see that he did, but I was not surprised.  Gingrey has a pretty level head on his shoulders when it comes to voting on bad legislation.

(You can see how your representative in the House voted here.)

In my letter to Congressman Gingrey, I outlined 3 reasons for opposing the bill:

First, I oppose any further government involvement in companies in the private sector.  If companies handle TARP funds poorly, the members of Congress who voted to give them that money must be held responsible.  The solution to this problem is not more government involvement in companies; the solution is for citizens to elect fiscally responsible politicians to represent them.

Second, large companies attract good leaders by offering aggressive bonus structures.  If these companies are going to succeed, they need to attract good executive teams.  Government regulation of their bonus structures will make it harder for these companies to attract and retain good executive leadership.

Third, I oppose any taxation based on income.

The unfortunate thing that I see (outside of the House-approved additional government involvement in companies) is that the Republicans were almost split 50/50 on this issue.  The Party still needs to figure out what it stands for and start portraying unity and direction if it hopes to have any hope of gaining (or even retaining) seats in 2010.

Where’s the direction?  Who’s the leader?  Does anyone know?