A question for Democrats disinclined to work on congressional campaigns: do you know the GOP agenda? In brief: repeal health-care reform, so if you lose your job and your kid gets sick, you may have to sell the house; repeal financial reform, so Wall Street scammers and predatory lenders can return to doing everything they did before they wrecked the economy; maintain corporate-welfare subsidies that move jobs overseas; reduce spending by slashing education funding; and ending all clean-energy projects aimed at curbing our dependence on Mideast oil. Of course, these policies won’t cut the deficit. Republicans insist on extending $700 billion in tax cuts for the wealthy and leaving the $500 billion defense budget un-touched. Entitlements would merely be “reviewed regularly,” the GOP leadership says, which is code for doing nothing.

We’ve heard a lot of comparisons with 1994, when Newt Gingrich and the GOP last took control. But the “Contract With America,” while only two pages long, had some good ideas, like welfare and tort reform. The putative speaker, John Boehner, is the last guy who will change how Washington works. He freely admits, “I’m cozy with lobbyists” (The Washington Post, 2006), and once had to apologize for passing out checks from the tobacco industry on the House floor. His “Pledge to America” is 21 pages long, but I defy any thoughtful independent to study this document and conclude Republicans are ready to govern in another recession.