Congress-Centric Governance
One respect in which the United States differs quite sharply from most other democracies is in the extent to which the legislature shapes the details of policies. There’s a lot of variation from place to place, obviously, but in most democracies policies are really written by the executive branch in a collaboration between key cabinet members and civil servants. The legislature’s job is more-or-less to accept or reject these proposals. In America it doesn’t work like that. Even though it’s typical for staff talent to flow from the Hill to the White House and even though the professional staff resources of the executive branch far exceed those of the congress, the details of legislation are written by congress and then it’s left up to the White House to accept or reject the bills.
You can understand why a generation of Framers worried about the prospect that the President would make himself into a dictator thought this was a good way to arrange things, but it’s difficult to make the case that it improves the quality of public policy in the 21st century.
For example, here’s Congress helping the unemployed:
The bill, passed overwhelmingly by the House and headed to President Obama for his signature Friday, extends unemployment insurance benefits that were due to expire and renews an $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers, while also expanding it to cover many other home purchases.
In other words, to get a pretty good measure (extended unemployment benefits) passed, congress saw fit to both extend and expand the not-very-smart home buyers tax credit. Notably, the lack of merit to the home buyers tax credit is not particularly controversial in the policy domain. It’s just one of those things that a certain number of Republican members are obsessed with, notwithstanding the lack of support from conservative economists, and that Democratic members are happy to go along with, again notwithstanding the lack of support from progressive economists.
And as Kevin Drum points out things got even nuttier:
Why? Because even though Republicans were allowed to tack on a tax cut to the bill as the price of getting it passed, they decided to filibuster anyway unless they were also allowed to include an anti-ACORN amendment. Seriously. A bit of ACORN blustering to satisfy the Palin-Beck crowd is the reason they held up a bill designed to help people who are out of work in the deepest recession since World War II.
Meanwhile Tyler Cowen reports back from a meeting at the Treasury Department:
I worry less than did some of the other bloggers about the Treasury awareness of major economic problems going forward. As governmental institutions go, Treasury has a real incentive to a) worry about the fiscal future, and b) worry about worst-case scenarios, including for financial institutions. Their daily interaction with the bond market gives them a longer time horizon and a more economics-friendly perspective than most of their bureaucratic counterparts. The problem is Congress. For instance if someone at Treasury had a Yves Smith view of the banking system, they could not much act on it.
Given the system we have, one not only can but must call out individual senators and members of congress for acts of policy malfeasance. But in a structural sense, the congress is simply not well set-up to produce technically sound ways of achieving policy objectives. This is generally recognized by members of congress themselves in the abstract, who tend to suggest the appointment of outside commissions of various sorts as a way to deal with problems, but the recognition is rarely put into practice in a day-to-day sense. In principle, however, rather than an endless stream of talk about creating new ad hoc commissions you could seek some structural shift in congress’ role in policy design.
25 Responses to “Congress-Centric Governance”
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November 6th, 2009 at 11:41 am
“But in a structural sense, the congress is simply not well set-up to produce technically sound ways of achieving policy objectives.”
Which was, you know, sort of what the Founding Fathers intended.
I also think liberals who are currently buying into the “Congress Sucks” meme need to think long and hard about what would likely happen if the federal government was better able to achieve policy objectives. I’ve got a hunch they wouldn’t be happy with a lot of the objectives achieved under such a scenario.
Mike
November 6th, 2009 at 11:45 am
In before two of Matt’s most prolific regular commenters “explain” why it’s all Obama’s fault anyway. You know who you are.
Anyway: yeah. Legislation is primarily the responsibility of the legislative branch, part 1,729.
November 6th, 2009 at 11:49 am
Even though it’s typical for staff talent to flow from the Hill to the White House and even though the professional staff resources of the executive branch far exceed those of the congress
See the good work of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Ashcroft, Paulson…
…
November 6th, 2009 at 11:51 am
This is just another attempt to divert blame from where it belongs – on Obama.
Larry Summers didn’t need congressional agreement to lower the leverage requirements on investment banks when he was in the Clinton administration. Congress didn’t force Obama to adopt his weak policies.
If Obama had come out with guns blazing for major stimulus and bank reform, he could have roiled the opposition. Instead he took the DLC approach. Now maybe he will pay the price – he deserves to.
November 6th, 2009 at 11:53 am
I worry less than did some of the other bloggers about the Treasury awareness of major economic problems going forward. As governmental institutions go, Treasury has a real incentive to a) worry about the fiscal future, and b) worry about worst-case scenarios, including for financial institutions. Their daily interaction with the bond market gives them a longer time horizon and a more economics-friendly perspective than most of their bureaucratic counterparts.
I call nonsense. Isn’t Cowen a Glibertarian economist? Interactions with the bond market don’t mean squat when the UE is over 10%. Besides, we are at this point with a weak dollar and gold at $1,100. They’ve really done a bang up job!!
November 6th, 2009 at 11:54 am
That first part should have been in italics.
November 6th, 2009 at 11:54 am
I reinterate: the President has a great many residual powers, many of which are leftover artifacts from an earlier age… like the Civil War. If he is bound and determined though, he can do shit, even though he will be highly constrained in many respects by existing law. Bush did a lot of bad things that were actually prohibited by existing law, and got away with it, no sweat. There is a great deal of support in existing law to do things with banks. In some ways, if you have the majority in Congress you can just drag them along, since they will be inclined to cover your ass.
You have got to want to do it though.
max
['And you have to be willing to fight with the Federal Reserve as well.']
November 6th, 2009 at 11:56 am
So does that mean Matt you want to introduce Prime Minister in Congress? But we don’t do this ‘minister’ thingy (so full of those Kings and Queens) here in United States of America.
On bit serious note, I believe French have something near what Matt is describing – like American system, the President gets the maximum mandate with commander in chief role and then still they have a Prime Minister office to actually move the ‘agenda’ via legislation and execute on that.
But at the end of the day, it is all about how our Democrat Congress members have screwed us. Frustration on Liberal / Progressive side is one of the family members (Pelosi, Rangel) are conducting the ‘rape of policy’ and you cannot stop it.
Bush Congress adopted easy way of some tax cuts to fuel the bubble and then ignore that bubble for a while. It worked couple of years and after that we are in big ditch. We get Bernanke and he saves us from the brink. So we know ‘intervention’ is not bad. So we turn to Obama Congress and then they are back to their ‘tax and spend’ corrupt ways.
Dems need to understand that it is their historical duty in a way, not to have this ‘policy way of doing things or interventionist approach’ totally discredited by their over reach and recklessness. That recklessness is under way now. Republican Congress does not have such a problem because the premise is quite restrictive there: tax cuts, war resolutions and intervention for Teri Schivao.
Will Pelosi change and help to turn the ship away, since it is still not late?
Hopes are fading…
November 6th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
it’s difficult to make the case that it improves the quality of public policy given our system of legalized bribery.
Let’s address the corruption before assessing whether we need deep structural changes in the Constitution.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
This problem is trivial compared to that of the Senate.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Without questioning the claims of relative effectiveness, these seems to come down to saying that American Democracy doesn’t work because it’s too…democratic.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
I think this post tends to ignore the greatest legacy of the New Deal–Congress delegates a tremendous amount of rule making and policy crafting to the Executive branch agencies. Sure, the politics of making legislation is messy and there are compromises and deals, but so much of the detail is filled in by the President, who has tremendous ability to shape how the laws are actually carried out. It seems like only five years ago people were decrying the power of the Executive branch and the impotency of the Legislative branch.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
It’s not a democracy, it’s a republic.
(in theory; a plutocracy in practice)
November 6th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
it’s left up to the White House to accept or reject the bills.
Goodness, that’s it? I got all riled up for the 2008 elections for nothing?
would make himself into a dictator
This hasn’t stopped foreign policy from basically being run out of the executive.
In other countries, parties have full power once they’re elected — and the accountability that comes with that. So, as opposed to MBunge (@1), any one of these countries are far more liberal than the US in terms of social policy. I’d be ecstatic “with a lot of the objectives achieved under such a scenario.”
Like this blog has said repeatedly, “senators have agency” — and this applies both when Ben Nelson says “the votes aren’t there,” OR when MY says “the Senate cannot do things.” The fact there are structural hurdles in the Senate should challenge activists and think tanks to apply that much more pressure on politicians to do that right thing, whether its wavering Ben Nelson or Big Pharma-dealing Obama.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Trades are normal in politics everywhere. You want this, i get that in return. Just more obvious in the US system.
There is still a problem. All that law writing requires a huge staff for every congress member which he unfortunatly doesnt get paid. So the practical influence of congress members depends on the debt of their wallets.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
“But in a structural sense, the congress is simply not well set-up to produce technically sound ways of achieving policy objectives.”
We really don’t want to make it any easier for some future Palin adminstration, do we?
November 6th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
All that law writing requires a huge staff for every congress member which he unfortunatly doesnt get paid. So the practical influence of congress members depends on the debt of their wallets.
Congress has a lot of staffers, and they are very qualified. In fact, they are without a doubt the most qualified people to write or understand a bill – because who else does that? And if Congress felt it needed more, it could just increase its own budget.
The problem is that many of the most experienced staffers leave to work, not at the White House, but at lobbying firms.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
This kinda makes the case for the line item veto with override power doesn’t it? Imagine if the president had the power to strike out the Home Buyer Tax Credit language and the ACORN language to bring the bill back to what it was supposed to do – extend unemployment benefits.
If he vetoes just those sections and they get sent back to Congress for an override vote, then we’ll see how many in Congress really believe what they’re sending to the White House. I really think most of them would let the veto stand, go back to their districts/states and claim 1)they tried to do this but were blocked by the majority or 2)look how we stopped the minority from throwing this junk in with our good bill.
Seems like a win-win-win to me.
November 6th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
As for the homebuyers credit, it is good they extended it. I dislike the use of the tax code to bribe people to do things, but this isn’t really a tax credit. All refundable tax credits (meaning the government will give you more money than you paid in taxes) are welfare (ie government subsidies). Whether it is the homebuyers credit or cash for clunkers. Since these are going mostly to middle class people they have to be disguised in the legitimacy of a “tax credit” (or “rebate”) rather than welfare.
The entire constitution is disfunctional and should be rewritten. Most of these “democracies” you talk about are parlamentary “democracies”. Parlamentary systems work far better than presidential systems for the reasons described above.
November 6th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
“We really don’t want to make it any easier for some future Palin adminstration, do we?”
No, but that’s how democracy works. It’s the downside to what would be a generally positive development — making Congress less dysfunctional.
Weakening the power of committee chairs, reforming the seniority rules, ending any and all anonymous holds on legislation, and returning the filibuster to its role as a rarely used delay tactic rather than a routine 60-vote supermajority… these should all really be no-brainers.
Personally, I think we should abolish the Senate, or possibly just emasculate it so it can only approve or block legislation that originates in the House. But that’s never going to happen.
November 7th, 2009 at 9:14 am
The tax credit was changed because it wasn’t helping enough of the non-poor.
Of course, now it only applies to 2% of the purchase price…
…How many median-income families buy $400+K houses?
November 7th, 2009 at 10:02 am
[...] are being cynical about it. I actually think commissions are a pretty good idea since congress is so bad at designing policy. The real question is what would a serious budget commission look [...]
November 8th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Procedural question: If Frisk can threaten the “nuclear option” to break the filibuster, why can’t Reid do the same?
November 9th, 2009 at 1:41 am
Parliament-centric government seems to work OK in unicameral Parliaments.
Bicameral parliaments appear to have very little function except to gum up the works. Unless there is an actual aristocracy or group of special interests which needs to be appeased (Botswana’s House of Chiefs comes to mind as a present-day example). The modern version in the US would be a House of CEOs, not the US Senate.
November 9th, 2009 at 1:44 am
Oh, and yes, the Senate needs to be rendered irrelevant. A Constitutional Amendment declaring that all bills passed by the House become law without Senate consent, and that the House has the power to approve treaties and approve judicial and adminstrative appointments, and that the House shall try impeachments, would do it.