Life Lessons, Political Economy 101, and Recent Happenings

I’ve tried to adopt a sort of doctrine since I started seriously following politics and policy and econ. and all that good stuff. That being that if the people who read the words I write don’t know things, it’s my fault. Since that’s an incredibly lofty and ridiculous burden to put on oneself and somehow expect anything other than disappointment, I should do the next best thing!  The next best thing, of course, is to send the masses outward, unto all else worthy and capable of sating the collective thirst of ‘What’, ‘Why’, and ‘How’!

This is all very corny and terrible, yes? Absolutely, but it is nonetheless solid. It should, however, be expanded further so as to include close friends and general acquaintances. If we know things that others don’t, but should, we have failed them and ourselves. Solid. And it should be adopted. By you, the reader, even. Even if we’re constantly failing, which is somewhat inevitable, it still creates a mindset that puts a premium on incisive, factual information and the rigorous pursuit thereof. Perhaps more importantly, it emphasizes improvement of communicative faculties.

Ahem. So you find yourself in a situation wherein you’re talking to someone inadequately informed on current American political and economic circumstances. Step one: aux armes, citoyens! Standard disclaimer: Words, not fists. Step two through infinity: try not to yell.

All that said, I’ve been meaning to curate a few links over the past couple weeks that sum up the state of play right now in Washington but have been putting it off due to being busy since school is back in session. Here we are though, now.

1. The president released a legislative proposal that includes much needed expansionary fiscal stimulus. Not only would such a measure help goose the economy at a time when there are global fears of a double-dip recession, but it would also accomplish a lot of plain old good things such as fund improvements to our transportation and education infrastructure. Here’s why Congress is not going to pass that proposal, which is called The American Jobs Act.

House Republicans may pass bits and pieces of President Barack Obama’s jobs plan, but behind the scenes, some Republicans are becoming worried about giving Obama any victories — even on issues the GOP has supported in the past.

And despite public declarations about finding common ground with Obama, some Republicans are privately grumbling that their leaders are being too accommodating with the president.

“Obama is on the ropes; why do we appear ready to hand him a win?” said one senior House Republican aide who requested anonymity to discuss the matter freely.

If things continue to suck, the president loses. If the president appears unable to garner any sort of legislative compromise, even if it is of no fault of his own due to CONSTITUTIONAL DESIGN, the president loses. QED. No one really thinks Republicans don’t know this, that they haven’t been operating under this strategy for the past three years, right?

Matt Yglesias continues:

Public policy is not a zero-sum competition between “Republican ideas” and “Democratic ideas,” but electoral competition is a zero-sum battle for office. In a paradigm where the passage of major legislation counts as a “win” for President Obama then anyone who wants to see President Obama go down to defeat, then no major legislation can pass on a bipartisan basis. This is exactly the problem the White House had in trying to overcome GOP filibusters during the 111th Congress and the main problem they face in trying to reach bipartisan accords with the Republican-led House of Representatives in the 112th Congress. This is the fundamental reality of American politics today, but far too few people put it at the center of their accounts of what’s happening.

Indeed. As a small anecdote on the matter, in an American politics class that I’m currently taking, my professor laid forth a question regarding the aggravating false-truism of the bully pulpit: “Has President Obama been doing a good job of bridging the differences between the two sides?” My ears were met with some resounding No’s, and like a giant, naive idiot, I was shocked. That’s the game being played, though. The median voter gets probably 75% of their political news from Dancing with the Stars. Don’t forget that 100% only equals five minutes a day, too.

2. A recently retired Republican congressional staffer penned up an essay that is simultaneously the most scathing and frightening thing ever, and cathartic, in the sense that this absolutely needs talked about more, regarding America’s unique brand of institutional dysfunction. My general inclination is to say that it’s increasingly being discussed, but this could be because I’m operating in a closed circuit.

Let’s ponder:

The only thing that can keep the Senate functioning is collegiality and good faith. During periods of political consensus, for instance, the World War II and early post-war eras, the Senate was a “high functioning” institution: filibusters were rare and the body was legislatively productive. Now, one can no more picture the current Senate producing the original Medicare Act than the old Supreme Soviet having legislated the Bill of Rights.

Far from being a rarity, virtually every bill, every nominee for Senate confirmation and every routine procedural motion is now subject to a Republican filibuster. Under the circumstances, it is no wonder that Washington is gridlocked: legislating has now become war minus the shooting, something one could have observed 80 years ago in the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic. As Hannah Arendt observed, a disciplined minority of totalitarians can use the instruments of democratic government to undermine democracy itself.

This collegiality and good faith is usually described by various political pundits as rules and norms. It’s these rules and norms that have totally broken down over the past few years. “Over the past few years” is slightly misleading, I’ll admit; an exact date can’t be picked out as the day when everything went to hell in Congress. It also can’t and won’t be said that Democrats weren’t guilty of this too when they were in the minority, because they were. Despite that, however, the extent to which Republicans have abused standard operating procedures is without precedent. The American political system is incompatible with modern political realities. No one foresees these realities changing, it’s just not in the evolutionary cards. “Civility” and bipartisan harmony, or what the call for such behavior Paul Krugman aptly calls the centrist cop-out, isn’t ever going to happen; by way of this shattering of institutional rules and norms, it can’t happen. That leaves only the option of the institutions themselves being changed.

The entire piece is utterly compelling and should be read in full. As a heads-up, I’ll have much more to say on the topic shortly. Also, past writing here and here, for the adventurous. 

James Fallows, over at The Atlantic, has been giving the piece its due, talking about these implications at length. Here’s an email one of his readers sent him that he rightly thought was worthy of further comment. Quoting it in its entirety:

Like Mike Lofgren, I am a retired Congressional staffer who worked for a House Member from 1985 until January of this year. Unlike Lofgren, I did not retire voluntarily; my boss, a moderate Democrat, lost his race for re-election last November. I found myself agreeing with virtually everything in Mike’s article and immediately forwarded it to a bunch of my friends, some of whom remain working on the Hill. 

Privately, many of us who have worked in Congress since before the Clinton Administration have been complaining about the loss of the respect for the institution by the Members who were elected to serve their constituents through the institution. I don’t think people realize how fragile democracy really is. The 2012 campaign is currently looking to be the final nail in the coffin unless people start to understand what is going on. 

One thing that especially resonated with me about Mike’s piece is the importance of “low information” voters. The mainstream media absolutely fails to understand how little attention average Americans really pay to what goes on in all forms of government. During our 2008 race, our pollster taught me (hard to believe it took me 24 years to learn this) that the average voter spends only 5 minutes thinking about for whom to vote for Congress. All the millions of dollars of TV ads, all the thousands of robo-calls and door-knocks, and it all comes down to having a message that will stick in the voters’ minds during the 5 minutes before they walk into the voting booth. 

The media likes to call this group “independents,” which implies that they think so long and deeply about issues that they refuse to be constrained by the philosophy of either party. There may be a couple of people out there who fit that definition, but those are not the persuadable voters campaigns are trying to capture. Every campaign is trying to develop its candidate into an easy-to-remember slogan that makes him or her more appealing than the other guy. Actually, because negative campaigning is so effective, they are more often trying to portray the opponent as more objectionable (“I guess I’ll vote for the crook because at least he won’t slash my Medicare”).

I’m writing because now that I have been out of the Beltway Bubble, I have gained a little more perspective on how real people see the work of Washington, and I am scared that they are close to revolt. The debt ceiling debate in particular had me screaming at the TV on more than one occasion because both sides botched it so badly. I would like to hope that news outlets like yours could play a positive role in helping to educate people. But I’m feeling pretty pessimistic at the moment.

3. This video was making the rounds yesterday and is simply hilarious. The only lesson to be learned is that sociopathic clown-people like this actually exist and don’t ever forget that.

4. (BONUS) For Ohioans, meet your new congressional districts.

And…that should do it, for now. Have a swell Tuesday.