What it has done is made getting things done even tougher. It leads to gridlock. I totally agree with this piece that argues that ending earmarks has led to less democracy not more-unless you define democracy as implacable gridlock.
"The current morass in our politics is not the result of a system too beholden to big money and backroom deals but, in fact, not beholden enough to them, according to a new book by Jonathan Rauch."
"We live in a world of second and often third choices, and in order to govern one must make decisions and engage in practices that look bad up close and are hard to defend in public but which, nonetheless, seem to be the best alternative at the time," Rauch, a scholar at the Brookings Institution, writes in "Political Realism: How hacks, machines, big money and back-room deals can strengthen American democracy." "Always the realist asks: 'Compared with what?' Principles alone mean little until examined in the harsh light of real-world alternatives."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/08/18/this-is-what-will-make-it-harder-for-congress-to-pass-a-budget-this-fall/
This is a very good point. This is probably one reason I don't wholly love political activists-even when I agree with them. Like I agree with most of the substance of Black Lives Matter but don't love their tactics.
Please note I'm not saying their wrong in their tactics-this is an old debate about-can you reform the system from inside or out, as Malcolm X's dichotomy had it is it the 'bullet of the ballot box?' No one here is talking about bullets I should add, I use it here more as a metaphor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oVW3HfzXkg
I'd argue that both probably have a role. But I tend to chafe at the form of protest where everyone chants the same slogans and says the same thing. It's not my mode of expression let's just say.
I find it irritating when activists eschew realism and just make huge demands with no context. Activists are often single issue-they care about their issue. They refuse to admit that politicians have to focus on more than one issue at a time.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/08/lawrence-lessigs-single-issue-campaign.html
Ok, so that was sort of a digression though not wholly so. Again, I always look for the bird's eye view of things where others see just a bunch of unrelated and disconnected stuff I look for the bigger picture, the bigger pattern.
I've reccommdened Garry Wills' Confessions of a Conservative before but it can't be done enough.
http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Conservative-Garry-Wills/dp/0385089775/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1439932110&sr=8-1&keywords=garry+wills+confessions+of+a+conservative
As he explains it, there are politicians and there are activists and both have their part to play. But my sense is that too much of the activists' morality-activists tend to see things as black and white-infected Congress when the Tea Party came in. I felt at the time that getting rid of ear marks was a big mistake and events have confirmed this.
"Time and again in the recent history of our politics -- particularly in Congress -- there has been action taken to smite alleged blights on our democracy. Campaign finance reform was passed in the early part of the last decade under the auspices that money in politics was, by its very existence, corrupting. Republicans, fresh off winning the House majority in the 2010 election, banned earmarks to show their commitment to breaking with the old -- and allegedly corrupt -- way of doing things. Democratic senators like Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson were lambasted by Democrats and Republicans alike for allegedly cutting side deals in the the Affordable Care Act to benefit their states. Hell, we came up with names to label these atrocities against democracy -- Louisiana Purchase! Cornhusker Kickback! -- and Republicans seized on them in the context of campaigns to show just how bad these Democratic incumbents were."
I remember the furor over Nelson and Landrieu and a lot of it was on the Firebagger Left as well as the Tea Party Right. Many claimed that Obamacare stood condemned because of the log rolling.
The trouble is now there is no way to push your caucus to get anything done other than the charm such that it is of John Boehner.
"The problem was -- and is -- that earmarks were central to things actually getting done in Congress. Like him or hate him, Tom DeLay, during his time as whip and then majority leader, used earmarks as both a carrot and stick to effectively run the House. Did he -- and other members of Republican leadership -- take things too far? Yes. But throwing the baby out with the bathwater has made Speaker John Boehner effectively toothless within his own conference. Boehner's only tool to convince his side is pure charm; there is no stick anymore. And if you've watched the Republican-led House over the past four years, you know how well that approach has worked out."
So earmarks should come back. This doesn't mean that we want as many ear marks as possible but neither do we want none. Just like two aspirins are good doesn't mean we need 30.
Just like the Democrats have slowly gotten that even as a goal a balanced budget is wrong but rather a small fairly stable deficit is preferable, the goal should be a system where ear marks are present but not overly abused. The equilibrium point is a mean between two extremes.
Cillizza I think is also right that President Obama was mistaken in banning all lobbyists from the White House.
"The current morass in our politics is not the result of a system too beholden to big money and backroom deals but, in fact, not beholden enough to them, according to a new book by Jonathan Rauch."
"We live in a world of second and often third choices, and in order to govern one must make decisions and engage in practices that look bad up close and are hard to defend in public but which, nonetheless, seem to be the best alternative at the time," Rauch, a scholar at the Brookings Institution, writes in "Political Realism: How hacks, machines, big money and back-room deals can strengthen American democracy." "Always the realist asks: 'Compared with what?' Principles alone mean little until examined in the harsh light of real-world alternatives."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/08/18/this-is-what-will-make-it-harder-for-congress-to-pass-a-budget-this-fall/
This is a very good point. This is probably one reason I don't wholly love political activists-even when I agree with them. Like I agree with most of the substance of Black Lives Matter but don't love their tactics.
Please note I'm not saying their wrong in their tactics-this is an old debate about-can you reform the system from inside or out, as Malcolm X's dichotomy had it is it the 'bullet of the ballot box?' No one here is talking about bullets I should add, I use it here more as a metaphor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oVW3HfzXkg
I'd argue that both probably have a role. But I tend to chafe at the form of protest where everyone chants the same slogans and says the same thing. It's not my mode of expression let's just say.
I find it irritating when activists eschew realism and just make huge demands with no context. Activists are often single issue-they care about their issue. They refuse to admit that politicians have to focus on more than one issue at a time.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/08/lawrence-lessigs-single-issue-campaign.html
Ok, so that was sort of a digression though not wholly so. Again, I always look for the bird's eye view of things where others see just a bunch of unrelated and disconnected stuff I look for the bigger picture, the bigger pattern.
I've reccommdened Garry Wills' Confessions of a Conservative before but it can't be done enough.
http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Conservative-Garry-Wills/dp/0385089775/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1439932110&sr=8-1&keywords=garry+wills+confessions+of+a+conservative
As he explains it, there are politicians and there are activists and both have their part to play. But my sense is that too much of the activists' morality-activists tend to see things as black and white-infected Congress when the Tea Party came in. I felt at the time that getting rid of ear marks was a big mistake and events have confirmed this.
"Time and again in the recent history of our politics -- particularly in Congress -- there has been action taken to smite alleged blights on our democracy. Campaign finance reform was passed in the early part of the last decade under the auspices that money in politics was, by its very existence, corrupting. Republicans, fresh off winning the House majority in the 2010 election, banned earmarks to show their commitment to breaking with the old -- and allegedly corrupt -- way of doing things. Democratic senators like Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson were lambasted by Democrats and Republicans alike for allegedly cutting side deals in the the Affordable Care Act to benefit their states. Hell, we came up with names to label these atrocities against democracy -- Louisiana Purchase! Cornhusker Kickback! -- and Republicans seized on them in the context of campaigns to show just how bad these Democratic incumbents were."
I remember the furor over Nelson and Landrieu and a lot of it was on the Firebagger Left as well as the Tea Party Right. Many claimed that Obamacare stood condemned because of the log rolling.
The trouble is now there is no way to push your caucus to get anything done other than the charm such that it is of John Boehner.
"The problem was -- and is -- that earmarks were central to things actually getting done in Congress. Like him or hate him, Tom DeLay, during his time as whip and then majority leader, used earmarks as both a carrot and stick to effectively run the House. Did he -- and other members of Republican leadership -- take things too far? Yes. But throwing the baby out with the bathwater has made Speaker John Boehner effectively toothless within his own conference. Boehner's only tool to convince his side is pure charm; there is no stick anymore. And if you've watched the Republican-led House over the past four years, you know how well that approach has worked out."
So earmarks should come back. This doesn't mean that we want as many ear marks as possible but neither do we want none. Just like two aspirins are good doesn't mean we need 30.
Just like the Democrats have slowly gotten that even as a goal a balanced budget is wrong but rather a small fairly stable deficit is preferable, the goal should be a system where ear marks are present but not overly abused. The equilibrium point is a mean between two extremes.
Cillizza I think is also right that President Obama was mistaken in banning all lobbyists from the White House.
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