It certainly has seemed that way starting with 2011 where even the most simplest tasks get stalled, filibustered and then lost in the GOP House. May wonder if the U.S. government isn't too sluggish and gridlocked by design. Larry Summers argues it's otherwise.
He makes the point that in 2009 and 2010 a lot was accomplished legislatively, that the level of productivity was somewhat unprecedented. Yes, but with no Republican participation at all
"It’s probably appropriate that when there is a very clear electoral signal about which way the country should move that we move further and faster. Anyone who works in Washington and the political process is frustrated, and I share that frustration. But I think the problems are the problems more than the process is the problem. Between gridlock being the fundamental diagnosis of what’s wrong and the difficulty of problems like controlling the growth in health-care costs, finding solutions to global climate change, and dealing with the nexus of changing technology, inequality and jobs, I’d take the problems."
He makes the point that in 2009 and 2010 a lot was accomplished legislatively, that the level of productivity was somewhat unprecedented. Yes, but with no Republican participation at all
"It’s probably appropriate that when there is a very clear electoral signal about which way the country should move that we move further and faster. Anyone who works in Washington and the political process is frustrated, and I share that frustration. But I think the problems are the problems more than the process is the problem. Between gridlock being the fundamental diagnosis of what’s wrong and the difficulty of problems like controlling the growth in health-care costs, finding solutions to global climate change, and dealing with the nexus of changing technology, inequality and jobs, I’d take the problems."
"There are two views one can take. One is that it used to be that we had lots of progress normally even with divided government. The other is that America has always been a country with too sluggish a government. I think it’s hard to look at the broad run of history in the United States in comparison with other countries and say we’ve always had too sluggish a government."
I think that's a key: in the past we would have progress even with divided government. The story over the last 20 years is the level of partisanship, and this partisanship has been coming from the Republican side as the Democrats have not changed all that much.
"Below we use DW-NOMINATE scores to compare the ideological makeup of the House Republican Caucus under Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) during the 1995/1996 government shutdown and the current one headed by Speaker John Boehner (R-OH).Thad Hall has also compared the two groups at the Mischiefs of Faction blog."
"In this post we highlight the movement of the 80% ideological range of House Republicans from 1995 to 2013. Even over an 18-year period, there has been so much movement of both the 10th and 90th conservative percentile House Republicans away from the center that the current 10th percentile Republican would have been near the median Republican in the 104th Congress during the last protracted shutdown."
"Despite criticism from Tea Party Republicans, Speaker Boehner himself—though near the center of the current House Republican Caucus—would have been further right of the 90th percentile Republican in 1995."
To see the chart click the link.
Summers seems to be arguing that the gridlock more reflects a truly divided country than a systemic problem with the government. I think there's some truth that part of what seems so dysfunctional is how partisan the Republicans have become. For many years parties weren't so partisan, often alliances would be formed between certain blocs in each party. Although the link above shows that Gingrich's GOP was much less conservative, he nevertheless augured the polarization of the GOP.
It is also a point well taken to compare how other similar western liberal democracies work. It actually depends where you look. There are countries that it seems to me work quite well-Sweden, Denmark, Canada; others don't work so well. The question is whether this is due the design of the government, the nation's constitution, etc.
Ezra Klein asks him about the changes we've had over the years-reforming the filibuster from being unbreakable to requiring 2/3 to override it to now 3/5 as well as going from Senators being selected by state parties to being voted popularly by the citizens of the state:
"But these broad-sweep-of-history arguments elide the fact that we’ve routinely altered the working of the U.S. government in order to deal with the very real problems that were motivating the critics. We took the filibuster from being unbreakable to stoppable with a two-thirds vote and then with a three-fifths vote. We took senators from being appointed by state legislatures to being directly elected. House Speaker Sam Rayburn says the hardest fight he ever had was expanding the House Rules Committee so they couldn’t pocket veto civil rights legislation. I worry people take a false sense of comfort from our past because they forget the wars that were fought to make the government work better."
Summers' answer:
"That’s a fair issue to raise. I guess I’d say a couple of things. Look at legislation produced between 1952 and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. You have the interstate highway system. That was a big thing. You have the Civil Rights Act of 1957, which was weak, but got an important process started. And you have a space program, But not much. And that’s over a pretty long time period with a fairly popular president. And so if you use the standard of legislation produced you get a different conclusion."
"I’m sure it’s a good thing we reduced filibuster from 66 to 60. But what would be examples of legislation passed because of it? And are we sure that the reduction in the vote threshold wasn’t a contributor to the normalization of the filibuster? So it’s not even clear that the effect of that process change was the one its advocates intended. And today, the aspect of congressional performance that is most opposed, which is their work on the budget, is actually insulated from the filibuster because it can go through budget reconciliation."
Summers makes the claim-that many I'm sure will contest-that we might be better off in not going to a single payer health care system in the 70s.
"There are cost problems in American health care and favorable quality issues in American health care. I don’t think it’s clear at all that the nation would’ve been better served by passing the kinds of universal health care bills that were fashionable in the 1970s. I think there is at least a real possibility they would not have contributed to the control of costs — after all Medicare has not been hugely successful at that — and I think there are real differences in the cultures of physicians in the United States."
On that I believe he's wrong-whether or not Medicare has been successful at controlling costs, it's faired better than the private sector has.
"Of course my sympathies lie on the progressive side. In periods of conservative rule, a variety of things might have passed if we’d not had stronger safeguards. There was a substantial negative income tax in the late '60s and '70s. That would’ve been the opposite direction of welfare reform. The government would’ve sent you money, no questions asked. And that was supported by everyone from Milton Friedman to James Tobin. So I don’t mean to say that there was nothing that’s happened too slowly. But I think the challenge is to make the case that the defects and the problems that frustrate people lie mostly in the process. of the many of the phenomena that are of concern, perhaps the the most concerning is the declining faith in institutions, in governments, and that’s fairly ubiquitous around the developed world. And that should incline one away from America-specific explanations."
Still what's behind this declining faith in institutions? I'd say in the U.S. it's gridlock. I guess you can argue that the gridlock represents where the country is. A lot of changes are happening, culturally and socially as well. While most of the country is ok with this there is a minority who are very offput by this and that the Tea Party represents them.
Yet this was also true of the country in the decade before the Civil War and before civil rights in the 60s. Eventually the minority has to be taken kicking and screaming with the rest of the country.
Getting rid of two things: filibustering in the Senate and gerrymandering in the House would accomplish this.
P.S. I wonder how many conservatives would agree to a negative income tax today? I know Scott Sumner does but how many in the Republican party?
'On that I believe he's wrong-whether or not Medicare has been successful at controlling costs, it's faired better than the private sector has. '
ReplyDeleteHilarious.
what's hilarious is how thin and pointless your comments are. They never rise beyond throwing spit balls in junior high. As usual you have absolutely no proof of anything or even any kind of argument.
ReplyDeleteDisappointing. Don't know why you bother
Oh, you have proof that Medicare and Medicaid--which the CBO estimates to lose up to $100 billion annually to fraud alone--has fared better than private insurance companies in containing costs?
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you prove it didn't? I mean all you do is just throw the spitballs. Have some basis other than just trying to turn it around. You're casting the aspersion back it up. I can back up what I'm saying but it's your job as your the one throwing tomatoes. Earn your keep or stop wasting our time. Prove your not a troll
ReplyDeleteAs far as private insurance they point is the kind of costs you want to control.Yes, their point is to control costs as far as paying out benefits. However, in the premiums they sure don't control costs there they run up the transaction costs.
ReplyDeleteAgain, feel free to provide links. Don't try to put it back on me. We play this tired game every time. I provide plenty of links and can do regarding this as well. However, I want you to contribute. The reason I didn't bother above is it's so obvious that only some Right wing ideologue like you would even try to argue the point by now.