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What happened to Government?                                                                                    

Posted at: Dec/03/2012 : Posted by: mel

Related Category: Politics & Gov, Watching America,

In these days of capitol gridlock, never-ending filibusters, budget deficits and fiscal cliffs I am frustrated by what appears to be the total dysfunction of our elected officials. It seems clear that the Senate, the House of Representatives and the President don’t seem able to sit down and agree to anything except that they disagree. I am not one who dwells in the past with rose colored memories where I speak of the “good old days”, but it can’t have always been this way.

When Tip O'Neill retired in 1987, he was asked how the quality of people elected to Congress had changed in his 30-plus years of service. The former Speaker of the House answered: "The quality is clearly better, much better." But, he added, "The results are definitely worse." He went on to compare the Congresses of the 1950s when he first got elected to the Congresses of the 1980s. He went on to point out that the modern Congresses contain fewer crooks and drunks. Additionally, the Congress members of the 1980s were much better educated. Despite all this, the Congresses of the 1950s managed to balance the budget, confirm presidential nominees in a reasonable time and enact major programs including the one that created the interstate highway system. The historical record is clear; the Congresses of the 1980s could do none of these things.

Of course, our contemporary Congressional record is even worse. In the summer of 2011, to solve a budget stalemate, Congress very nearly pushed the United States into an unnecessary default. The solution they did agree to has now come full circle and the mandatory cuts of sequestration that were supposed to never happen, seem likely to happen. Whether we are facing another government shutdown, a double-dip recession looms, or some other major impact is unclear. What is clear is that the budget of the United States is in chaos. Large Defense Department cuts are looming and our current arrays of entitlement programs have blossomed out like weeds in a garden left untended.

There is no doubt that politics is a contest. Every contest is normally played out with either written or unwritten rules. For most of our Congresses history the members played by a set of unwritten rules, what might even be call a “gentlemen’s agreement.” Most of those unwritten rules of Congress have either broken down, or become historical foot notes to be ignored during the last quarter century.

Under the old rules, there were certain things that political parties did not do -- even though theoretically they could. If one party controlled the Senate and another party controlled the Presidency, the Senate party did not reject all the President's nominees. The party that controlled the House did not refuse to schedule votes on the President's budgets. Individual senators did not use secret holds to sway national policy. The filibuster was reserved for rare circumstances -- not as a routine 60-vote requirement on every Senate vote.

It's incredible to look back now on how the Reagan tax cut passed the Democratic House in 1981. Based on the current Congressional business model, the Democratic House leaderships could have refused to schedule votes on the Reagan's tax plans. Instead, they not only allowed the tax plan to proceed -- but they allowed 48 of 243 Democrats to break ranks on the key procedural vote without negative consequences to their careers in the Democratic Party. Representative Dan Glickman of Kansas for example, who voted for the tax cuts, would rise to become Secretary of Agriculture under President Clinton. In the currently model, Rep. Glickman would have had no chance at all of sustaining his political career after breaking party ranks like that.

While it is clear that Speaker John Boehner has a tough time managing the “Tea Party” component of the Republican Party; it would be hard to imagine behavior similar to Representative Glickman’s ever being allowed on legislation proposed by President Obama.

In the old system of Congress; the elected members functioned under 2 basic tenets. The first tenet was to represent their constituents and the related agenda they ran on that best served their district. The second tenet was that sometimes you have to “give a little to get a little.” These vote trades and concessions meant that a Congressman seldom took home to their district everything promised, but they were able to bring something back. I am aware that these tradeoffs periodically led to projects such as the famed “bridge to nowhere”, and other waste. Nevertheless, the deal making kept the business of government functioning, even if it was inefficient.

Maybe I just read too much, but it appears to me that the US Congressional system is adopting the attitudes of a Westminster-style parliamentary system.

In the British parliamentary system, "the duty of an opposition is to oppose" (in the famous words of Benjamin Disraeli). The opposition uses every trick and technique to thwart and defeat the majority government party and their legislation. The government party uses all the powers of a parliamentary majority to overwhelm the opposition. (To quote Disraeli again: "a majority is always better than the best repartee.")

Of course, just to keep it interesting, the two factions will then at regular intervals switch sides.

In the American system, there is technically no "government party” and no "opposition party." If America did have a parliamentary system, who would lead this "government?” Should it be President Obama? Maybe it should be the person in majority command of the lower House -- Prime Minister John Boehner?

Contrary to the parliamentary system, our American system of government is built around an administration and a bicameral Congress. In this model, everybody is part of the government and the government is only capable of functioning if there is a certain baseline spirit of cooperation between the mutually indispensable parts and pieces.

Clearly, the spirit of cooperation has vanished in recent years. Back in 1986, Democratic leaders quashed those in their party who wanted to impeach Ronald Reagan over Iran-Contra. As the Cold War ended, the party struggle on Capitol Hill has intensified. The shock of the economic crisis since 2007 has made things worse still: apparently, desperate times lead to desperate politics. It seems clear that the old rules of Congress were based on conditions that have long since vanished.

There are a lot of things I could point to, though I doubt any one of these is a singularly source of our congressional shift and breakdown. 30 years ago, Congress was filled with legislators who shared the common bond of military service. In 1981, 73 of 100 Senators were veterans compared to only 25 now; the ratios are similar in the House of Representatives. I am sure with this common history or bond the notion of cooperation was aided. The imperatives and challenges of the Cold War likely also inspired a spirit of deference and respect towards the President. Because of its association with opposition to civil rights, the use of the filibuster was generally discredited.

I suspect that some of the congressional shift has to be attributed to our national media. 30 years ago our media was dominated by a few big institutions that professed nonpartisanship. Now, the myriad of media companies out there hang on every word a politician says and they publically remind them anytime that congressman flips from an earlier stance or promise.

Good times matter and the long prosperity of the postwar and cold-war years lubricated the political system with enough resources and prosperity that just about everybody could get some of what they wanted. From this came more spending, moderate taxes, reasonable borrowing and a strong national defense.

With the fading of the cold-war and its related climate of cooperation, we now have a country that is heavily polarized. We get our news and information from media sources that are openly partisan. We are confronting the worst recession and the darkest financial outlook since the 1930s for our country.

For most of our history, we have functioned as a republic; each elected representative sent to Congress came with an agenda specific to their district. With all these diverse agendas, everyone needed to cooperate at least to some extent, despite their party affiliation. This all changed in 1994 with the “Contract with America.” The Contract with America proposed a national agenda for all the republican candidates running for the House of Representatives that year. The result of this contract was a republican majority who, despite running local races, ran on a national agenda, and ultimately changed how Congress worked more than any other factor. To be clear, no bad idea should be ignored and the democrats soon copied the format.

The results of these changes are breaking the American political system -- destroying public confidence in the U.S. government along with paralyzing U.S. economic policy. I would hate to think that our Congress is evolving to be a national parliament, but I am challenged to look at it any differently.

For years our Congress was effective because at any given time a majority of members saw the value of cooperation and negotiation over any specific dogmatic and unyielding stance. The unwritten rules of those bygone days are lost and with it all we have left is a government and an opposition. Maybe we are too big for a republic to be a functional form of government anymore? Without some serious fundamental institutional reform, the next step may be to start chanting “god save the President.”

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