Dec
18
America’s Government Is Dysfunctional – The Ideologues Dominate And Compromise Is Impossible – Gridlock Until The 2012 Elections, And May Be Beyond
By Paolo von Schirach
December 18, 2011
WASHINGTON – The topic of the ABC News Sunday morning talk show today was the size of the US Government: “Is it too big, or not big enough?” Supposedly this is the focus of “The Great National Debate” in America, and the leading theme of the forthcoming 2012 national elections. Conservatives favor less government, while Liberals believe that more is better. I disagree with this assessment. I do not believe that the size of government is the central issue. The real problem in America is a now chronically “dysfunctional government” incapable of passing a budget and any laws, this way making “non governing” the norm, so much so that we have come to accept this mess as the new “normal“, when it is anything but normal.
Big government is real; but not the main issue
True enough, the growing size of government does matter. The Wall Street Journal, for instance, just reported on the spreading of federal government jurisdiction in all sorts of new areas, with the exponential increase of offenses that are now federal crimes investigated and pursued by a growing number of federal agencies. Long gone are the days in which the Federal Bureau of Investigation was the primary and practically only law federal enforcement agency. So, the reach, purpose and size of government is important; and so is its inefficiency. It seems that “the bigger, the worse”. Large agencies, with enormous missions tend to do things slowly and poorly. Whatever they do, they do it at a high cost with very low productivity.
The problem is paralysis
Still, even though it is relatively easy to make a case for a smaller, leaner government, I do not believe this to be the most critical issue today in America. The real issue is perennial paralysis. And this is a totally political rather than a bad policy and poor management issue. To say today that “nothing gets done in Washington” may sound a facile, populist critique. But now it is actually true. Indeed, nothing gets done in Washington, because of a poisoned political environment dominated by ideologues in both parties that make it impossible to reach compromises on essentially anything. And, depending on what happens with the November 2012 vote, we may have more of this for the following four years. How do you like that?
The ideologues dominate the primary process and decide who gets elected
But how is this possible to have third world political paralysis, in this old republic, with all its tried and tested institutions? Quite possible, unfortunately. Indeed, there is nothing in the US Constitution that forces separate branches of government to cooperate with each other. Well, normally they do find a way to cooperate. But what if they don’t? We constantly praise our system of government run by independent centers of power. We have the Congress, the president and the judiciary. The beauty and genius of our systems supposedly rests in divided powers that can check on one another.
The Constitution created separate powers
The primary concern of the Founders was not to have a strong federal government that would get things done. On the contrary, the primary concern was that no single institution could grow so powerful that it could become a menace to liberty. In other words, the Founders intentionally designed a weak government. The president is of course the chief executive. But he cannot do anything without the concurrence of the House and the Senate. And, as we know, it is quite possible that the House or the Senate may be run by the opposition party who may and, as is the case now, will block his agenda. In such cases how do we govern America?
The Founders probably assumed that compromise would be reached
Well, the Founding Fathers did not dictate on this issue. But we can safely argue that they assumed that, in case of differing opinions, when the national interest is at stake, a spirit of compromise would prevail and in the end something would get done to further the interests of the Nation. So, we can probably argue that there is an unwritten article in the US Constitution that mandates pragmatic negotiations among political opponents aimed at advancing the policy agenda in the interest of the people.
And this more or less worked. There are countless examples of divided government throughout US history in which a president had to deal with a Congress or a branch of Congress controlled by the opposing party. This never led to constitutional crises. (Let’s leave out the Civil War which is in a category of its own).
Today, no compromise
But now it is different. Now we are in an unprecedented era in which the political process is dominated by vociferous minorities who control the primary contests in both parties. In other words, the extremists and the ideologues decide who gets to be the candidate. And since elected candidates are always vulnerable to a primary challenge when they run for reelection, if they want to keep their job, they better comply with the agenda set forth by the ideologues.
And this leads us to the present. We have a president, Barack Obama who, whatever his personal predilections, has to bow to the agenda of the left of the Democratic Party. In this long period of economic distress, the agenda includes keeping every possible entitlement and in fact adding more, so that the plight of the poor will be somehow alleviated by the helping hand of government. There is not even a remote chance that this president will seriously discuss entitlements reform. And we know that out of control entitlement spending is at the root of our growing fiscal crisis.
On the other side of the divide, there is an almost religious Republican anti-government, anti-tax sentiment that accepts no middle ground. Most Republicans actually signed a stupid pledge whereby they would never, ever, under any circumstance, vote for a tax increase. Now, that is truly dumb.
The Deficit Commission had a good plan
In this lovely environment, since both sides see compromise as capitulation, dishonor or treason, and since both sides have just enough power to block the other, nothing gets done and this is the end of it. Last year the “Deficit Commission” co-chaired by two distinguished –and compromise inclined– patriots, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, with decent bi-partisan support from it mixed membership of Republican and Democrats, came out with a very good plan to attack the deficit and the debt through a mixture of entitlements reform, tax overhaul with some revenue increase, and some cuts in defense spending. Perhaps not the perfect package, but a damn good start that would have shown America and the global financial markets that Washington is awake and thinking about the long term fiscal viability of this republic.
Simpson-Bowles Plan died
Well, what happened to the Simpson-Bowles Plan? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. President Obama who actually created the Commission, politely thanked the co-chairs and said nothing. While some people in the Congress were in favor of the reforms recommended, without presidential leadership and clear opposition from the ideologues of both parties the whole thing died. An attempt to reach another compromise on spending cuts through another “Super Committee” a couple of months ago was considered dead even before the group met, given the wide ideological differences among the members and the impossibility to sell to either party in Congress a compromise package, as we no longer compromise in America.
Gridlock is the issue
So, there we have it. Sure enough, the size of government, as the ABC News discussion proved, does matter. But right now we have the much larger issue of a completely dysfunctional government that can do nothing because the key branches are held by opposing parties that, breaking with historic tradition, will not compromise. The Constitution is silent on this. The only thing that we can do is wait until November 2012 with the hope that the voters will elect a president and a Congress of the same persuasion. But this is just a hope.
In parliamentary systems the Prime Minister needs a majority
In other democratic countries the executive power constitutionally depends on a parliamentary majority. If the majority collapses, the government has to resign. If another government cannot get a majority, the parliament is dissolved and new elections are held in order to get to a new, workable majority. But this does not happen in America. A president may be incapable of having his policies passed; but he does not have to resign. In other words gridlock is constitutionally alright. Right now we are certain that nothing will get done at least until January 2013, when a new president will be inaugurated. Still, do consider that if it is Obama again and the Republicans will retain the majority in the House, we can expect more of the same.
This paralysis is a disaster
Legislative gridlock is not unconstitutional; but the ensuing paralysis is a veritable disaster for a country in need of serious action. America needs new policies. It needs to tackle major spending reforms in order to avoid a brewing fiscal catastrophe. It needs to modernize and simplify its astoundingly complicated, business unfriendly tax system. It needs real immigration reform to finally solve the problem of millions of illegals. It needs major action on public education. It needs a bold energy policy. But nothing will get done, good or bad as the plans on the table may be, until this domination by the extremes will continue.
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