I have just finished reading the book with the above title by Robert Reich. He has some interesting ways of presenting the problems we face in this recession we are having. He is not optimistic about the future, although he tries to end on an upbeat note, more on the basis of hope and faith than of anything real. He has some good, interesting economic proposals. When he ventures into political issues, however, he disappoints. He is for "getting the money out of politics", the same shibboleth that has motivated the last century of campaign reform with little success. I have no hope that such efforts will ever produce any real change. Beyond that he relies on the hope that the rich will realize the error of their ways.
What Reich and others miss are the defects within which the political system works--the focus of my book and the essence of what my book has to offer as an addition to the tired discussion of economic problems.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Subordinating the Senate
The primary suggestion I make in the conclusion of my book for changing our government to make it more democratic and functional is to subordinate the Senate to the House of Representatives, that is, to change the current status of two supposedly co-equal chambers of the legislature, to one where the Senate is clearly subordinate to the House, unable to materially impede the process of legislation.
We have all grown up believing in the doctrine that the two houses of Congress are and should be equal in status. There are two problems with this: first the effective result is that the Senate is able to dominate the House, since the Senate operates under rules that allow minority obstruction, and is able to force the House to compromise with the Senate in order to get a bill passed. The opposite is not true: the House is not able to force the Senate to accept the House version of a bill. Thus the Senate dominates the House.
The second problem is that there is nowhere in the Constitution that dictates that the House and Senate are co-equal branches of Congress. I am not an expert on early political history, but as I understand it, in the beginning the Senate did not consider itself the equal of the House, and as it turned out, was on its way to becoming like the House of Lords in Britain today. It was only in the early 1800s (1805-1825) that the Senate transformed itself into the co-equal chamber of Congress that it is today. It did so without any Constitutional Amendments or even legislation. It simply asserted that it was equal to the House, and the House accepted its assertions.
If this is true, then it is also possible, without any need for Constitutional change or legislation, for the House to assert that the Senate will no longer be considered equal to the House. It is just that simple. The Senate of course will not accept that assertion, and there would be extensive debate, but in the end the issue is not one of the Constitution: it is one of relative power. If the House truly wanted to assert its power, the Senate would have no choice: the House controls the purse. The question then becomes, does the House want the power? Do the people want the House to be in charge? My position is that they do.
We have all grown up believing in the doctrine that the two houses of Congress are and should be equal in status. There are two problems with this: first the effective result is that the Senate is able to dominate the House, since the Senate operates under rules that allow minority obstruction, and is able to force the House to compromise with the Senate in order to get a bill passed. The opposite is not true: the House is not able to force the Senate to accept the House version of a bill. Thus the Senate dominates the House.
The second problem is that there is nowhere in the Constitution that dictates that the House and Senate are co-equal branches of Congress. I am not an expert on early political history, but as I understand it, in the beginning the Senate did not consider itself the equal of the House, and as it turned out, was on its way to becoming like the House of Lords in Britain today. It was only in the early 1800s (1805-1825) that the Senate transformed itself into the co-equal chamber of Congress that it is today. It did so without any Constitutional Amendments or even legislation. It simply asserted that it was equal to the House, and the House accepted its assertions.
If this is true, then it is also possible, without any need for Constitutional change or legislation, for the House to assert that the Senate will no longer be considered equal to the House. It is just that simple. The Senate of course will not accept that assertion, and there would be extensive debate, but in the end the issue is not one of the Constitution: it is one of relative power. If the House truly wanted to assert its power, the Senate would have no choice: the House controls the purse. The question then becomes, does the House want the power? Do the people want the House to be in charge? My position is that they do.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
minority obstruction
The general population in this country does not seem to be aware of the extent to which the Senate minority is obstructing the political process. People blame the Democrats because they have the majority in Congress and the President, but it is the shenanigans in the Senate that even the President cannot withstand under the present rules. The recent withdrawal of the appropriations bill is a good example of the chaos the Senate causes. Harry Reid could not even get a basic appropriations bill through the Senate in spite of having a clear majority, because of the Republican minority. Congress has failed in its basic job of keeping the government running. The cause is clear: it is not partisanship, or the lack of bipartisanship; it is that we allow minority obstruction in the Senate. The only real solution is to subordinate the Senate to the House.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
washington rules
I recently read the recent book by Bacevich, Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War, in which he rails against the dominance of the military in determining policy in the US. His contention is that the Washington establishment has settled on a small number of rules for relating to the rest of the world that have survived over the last fifty years, through several different administrations. These rules, he believes, have little relation to the real world, and have instead been an effort to bend reality to the prejudices of a small number of people.
His book is an interesting read, but as with so many of these books, his conclusion is only that the people need to be more involved in government and making sure that their concerns are properly reflected in determining international policies. He does not deal with how this is going to happen.
He comes across as being almost an isolationist, saying that our influence in the world should be a function of our example as a democracy, rather than of our military power. I have rather more sympathy for the necessity of the expression of military power in our interactions with the world, and the obligations of being a world power, at least until we are no longer in that position.
From my admittedly biased position, the problems he is concerned about are the result of the structure of the government we have, which he does not address at all. In particular, the conduct of international relations, and by extension, foreign military affairs, has always, since George Washington, been disconnected from the political process. When Washington negotiated the Jay Treaty with Britain without consulting with Congress, he set the pattern for the future. Since then Congress has never been meaningfully involved in determining foreign policy, and that is the reason, in Basevich's terms, foreign and military policy has been able to proceed as it has without input from the people. Until the House of Representatives is more involved in foreign policy, the people will continue to have little input.
His book is an interesting read, but as with so many of these books, his conclusion is only that the people need to be more involved in government and making sure that their concerns are properly reflected in determining international policies. He does not deal with how this is going to happen.
He comes across as being almost an isolationist, saying that our influence in the world should be a function of our example as a democracy, rather than of our military power. I have rather more sympathy for the necessity of the expression of military power in our interactions with the world, and the obligations of being a world power, at least until we are no longer in that position.
From my admittedly biased position, the problems he is concerned about are the result of the structure of the government we have, which he does not address at all. In particular, the conduct of international relations, and by extension, foreign military affairs, has always, since George Washington, been disconnected from the political process. When Washington negotiated the Jay Treaty with Britain without consulting with Congress, he set the pattern for the future. Since then Congress has never been meaningfully involved in determining foreign policy, and that is the reason, in Basevich's terms, foreign and military policy has been able to proceed as it has without input from the people. Until the House of Representatives is more involved in foreign policy, the people will continue to have little input.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
The Republican tax cut plan
It is interesting to watch the progress of Obama's attempt to compromise with the Republicans by giving them the continuation of tax cuts for the rich. His argument is that without such a concession the tax cuts for the middle class would not survive. This may in fact be the case. What it reveals is that Obama is not willing to give up on the continuation of middle class tax cuts, so the Republicans have the upper hand. For them it is either all or nothing, and Obama is not willing to risk nothing.
Obama is operating as if the Bush tax cuts would not survive at all if they were not acted on before the end of the year. From the point of view of the present structure of our government, it is helpful to consider the different power relationships now and in the next Congress. Obama feels he needs to act now to prevent the disruption and uncertainty of pushing the issue into the next year. It is certainly more responsible to resolve an issue before it is able to disrupt the tax collecting process.
On the other hand, there are political advantages to forcing the new Congress, where the Republicans have much more power, to deal with this issue. Now the Democrats are nominally in control, and it is their responsibility to solve the problem. Next year it will be the Republicans who will be responsible for resolving the issue. For the Democrats, it is perhaps better to force the Republicans to deal with it. They are the ones who are most adamant, especially the Tea Party faction, about reducing the deficit. They will have to find a way to justify increasing the deficit when they advocate lowering taxes. Of course they will hypocritically find a way to do so, but then the Democrats, who have the majority in the Senate, can resist the Republicans, just as the Republicans have resisted the Democrats for the last two years. The Democrats will be on the side of conservative virtue.
Of course the economy might suffer as the politics gets worked out, but my suspicion is that the economy will not suffer as much as economists think, and the feeling that something real is being done about the deficit may compensate for the downside of higher taxes. The Republicans will also get the blame, if unemployment remains high, of making the unemployed suffer.
I realize that this is a complicated issue, and there are many other considerations, but these are my thoughts.
Obama is operating as if the Bush tax cuts would not survive at all if they were not acted on before the end of the year. From the point of view of the present structure of our government, it is helpful to consider the different power relationships now and in the next Congress. Obama feels he needs to act now to prevent the disruption and uncertainty of pushing the issue into the next year. It is certainly more responsible to resolve an issue before it is able to disrupt the tax collecting process.
On the other hand, there are political advantages to forcing the new Congress, where the Republicans have much more power, to deal with this issue. Now the Democrats are nominally in control, and it is their responsibility to solve the problem. Next year it will be the Republicans who will be responsible for resolving the issue. For the Democrats, it is perhaps better to force the Republicans to deal with it. They are the ones who are most adamant, especially the Tea Party faction, about reducing the deficit. They will have to find a way to justify increasing the deficit when they advocate lowering taxes. Of course they will hypocritically find a way to do so, but then the Democrats, who have the majority in the Senate, can resist the Republicans, just as the Republicans have resisted the Democrats for the last two years. The Democrats will be on the side of conservative virtue.
Of course the economy might suffer as the politics gets worked out, but my suspicion is that the economy will not suffer as much as economists think, and the feeling that something real is being done about the deficit may compensate for the downside of higher taxes. The Republicans will also get the blame, if unemployment remains high, of making the unemployed suffer.
I realize that this is a complicated issue, and there are many other considerations, but these are my thoughts.
Friday, December 3, 2010
parliamentary parties
Jack Balkin, in his blog, balkinization.blogspot.com, has posted a discussion of the problems in our government that touches on several of the issues I am concerned with. It is nice to know that I am not alone with these concerns. The direction of his discussion, however, ends up being rather defeatist in that he basically in the end supports the way things are, the status quo.
Balkin argues that our current problems have their source in his idea that the two parties, and especially the Republicans, have become parliamentary parties, parties that control the government through their control of the legislature. Such parties work well in a parliamentary system, he maintains, but they do not work well in a Presidential system, which is what the US has. Trying to be parliamentary in a presidential system is for him pathological. In particular he maintains that an opposition parliamentary party such as what the Republicans are now, is able to "attempt to force the wheels of government to grind to a halt," in order to embarrass and denigrate the majority party for not doing its job.
I agree that our present government is pathological in his terms. For me it has always been pathological. Balkin claims that our government has not been similarly pathological since the period just before the Civil War but this only ignores other expressions of pathology such as the corruption in the Senate in the late 1800s, the floundering when the Depression came, before FDR took over, the Civil Rights Movement in the 60s, the Vietnam War, and on and on.
Balkin's solution to what he sees as pathology is no more than a stopgap measure while he waits for the world to change more toward his liking. He suggests that the Senate change its rules so that it eliminates the filibuster and holds on appointments. "This would allow government to function passably well until such time as the parties became more ideologically diverse."
To me this is wishful thinking, no more. What if the parties never become "ideologically diverse"? Then what? Successful parties, like any other organization, become successful by being more organized, more disciplined, more focused, not by being less organized, less disciplined, less focused. The future of parties in this country, as has already happened in most other countries, is toward more ideological focus, not less.
If this is true, then the solution to the pathology in the US government will have to be more drastic. If parties are becoming more parliamentary, then the government will have to change to accommodate the parliamentary form. It will not be enough to just change the rules of the Senate and hope for the best. For me the change necessary is to completely subordinate the Senate to the House by changing the rules of the House with regard to its interaction with the Senate.
Balkin argues that our current problems have their source in his idea that the two parties, and especially the Republicans, have become parliamentary parties, parties that control the government through their control of the legislature. Such parties work well in a parliamentary system, he maintains, but they do not work well in a Presidential system, which is what the US has. Trying to be parliamentary in a presidential system is for him pathological. In particular he maintains that an opposition parliamentary party such as what the Republicans are now, is able to "attempt to force the wheels of government to grind to a halt," in order to embarrass and denigrate the majority party for not doing its job.
I agree that our present government is pathological in his terms. For me it has always been pathological. Balkin claims that our government has not been similarly pathological since the period just before the Civil War but this only ignores other expressions of pathology such as the corruption in the Senate in the late 1800s, the floundering when the Depression came, before FDR took over, the Civil Rights Movement in the 60s, the Vietnam War, and on and on.
Balkin's solution to what he sees as pathology is no more than a stopgap measure while he waits for the world to change more toward his liking. He suggests that the Senate change its rules so that it eliminates the filibuster and holds on appointments. "This would allow government to function passably well until such time as the parties became more ideologically diverse."
To me this is wishful thinking, no more. What if the parties never become "ideologically diverse"? Then what? Successful parties, like any other organization, become successful by being more organized, more disciplined, more focused, not by being less organized, less disciplined, less focused. The future of parties in this country, as has already happened in most other countries, is toward more ideological focus, not less.
If this is true, then the solution to the pathology in the US government will have to be more drastic. If parties are becoming more parliamentary, then the government will have to change to accommodate the parliamentary form. It will not be enough to just change the rules of the Senate and hope for the best. For me the change necessary is to completely subordinate the Senate to the House by changing the rules of the House with regard to its interaction with the Senate.
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