{"id":587,"date":"2010-03-09T06:56:41","date_gmt":"2010-03-09T13:56:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/?p=587"},"modified":"2010-03-09T08:53:08","modified_gmt":"2010-03-09T15:53:08","slug":"amateur-hour-in-our-ungovernable-government-hughhewitt-com-03-08-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/2010\/03\/09\/amateur-hour-in-our-ungovernable-government-hughhewitt-com-03-08-10\/","title":{"rendered":"Amateur Hour in our “Ungovernable” Government | HughHewitt.com | 03.08.10"},"content":{"rendered":"

A great deal of talk has come out of Washington these last few weeks about the nation being \u201cungovernable.\u201d\u00a0 What that means, of course, is that the White House can\u2019t find sixty votes for health care overhaul in a senate that their party controls by sixty votes.\u00a0 So they are pushing the legislation through using budget reconciliation, lest, of course, the nation prove \u201cungovernable.\u201d<\/p>\n

As everyone knows by now, the Congress\u2019 arcane reconciliation process was intended to cover strictly fiscal legislation — taxes, spending — not the creation of entirely new programs of massive sweep.\u00a0 But never mind.\u00a0 Unless we find a way to bend Congress to the President\u2019s will, the nation is \u201cungovernable.\u201d<\/p>\n

A number of critics \u2013 not all of them conservatives, The Economist<\/em> magazine for example (lead editorial, February 20th<\/sup>-26th<\/sup> edition) \u2013 have pointed out that a breakdown of the legislative process is not the real reason the health care is stalled.\u00a0 Lots of presidents have put through major and controversial laws with congresses much less favorable to the White House than this one.<\/p>\n

President Reagan won lower tax rates, reduced discretionary spending, and a military build up that won the Cold War. President George H.W. Bush secured approval to turn back the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and dealt with major budget challenges.\u00a0 After the GOP took back to Congress in 1994, President Clinton and the GOP Congressional leadership developed a tumultuous but highly productive dynamic that delivered welfare reform, capital gains tax reductions, and a string of budget surpluses. President George W. Bush passed his domestic agenda and a number of free trade agreements, cut taxes twice, funded the Iraqi War, and got his financial rescue passage adopted virtually as designed.<\/p>\n

None of these presidents whined about the nation being \u201cungovernable.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 All understood the needs of negotiation and skills of compromise that are at the heart of our legislative process.<\/p>\n

In their current blog posting (http:\/\/uchicagolaw.typepad.com\/beckerposner\/<\/a>), economist and Nobel prize winner Gary Becker and Federal appeals judge Richard Posner discuss the filibuster and its role in American governance.\u00a0 As Becker notes, \u201cthe supermajority requirement of invoking closure to cut off Senate debate is useful protection not only to minorities, but also to overly hasty passage of controversial legislation. People on all positions will sometimes be frustrated by the need to have such a supermajority, but in the long run most of the time they will be happy that such rules are in effect.\u201d\u00a0 Of the health care overhaul itself Posner writers, \u201cBecause the program is unpopular among the general public, its enactment by a simple majority in both Houses would raise a valid question about the representative character of Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n

I would go a step further.\u00a0 Part of the success of the American legislative process has been its durability.\u00a0 Yes, it is designed to produce deliberation, even on issues as superheated as health overhaul.\u00a0 Yes, it is designed to protect minority opinions against ephemeral majorities.\u00a0 But it is also designed to keep the nation united.\u00a0 Virtually every American president has understood this imperative and tempered his programs accordingly.\u00a0 Until now.<\/p>\n

Upon taking office, not one member of the circle that runs the current White House was experienced in the executive role in the legislative process.\u00a0 The President was a backbench state senator for most of his government career, not one of those who put together the annual packages that keep each state going.\u00a0 His principal aides were more in the line of professional campaigners and political enforcers than legislative negotiators.\u00a0 In the subtle process of give and take, of consensus and coalition building, these men and women are amateurs.<\/p>\n

Even if it results in the health overhaul package passing, the resort to reconciliation reflects weakness and ineptness in the West Wing.\u00a0 This is one reason for the expensive and grotesque deals that have been struck along the way.\u00a0 As someone who has played at the very most senior levels of the legislative process said in my presence recently, \u201cYou never go for just sixty senate votes.\u201d\u00a0 Never.\u00a0 Whatever the party breakdown.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 The 59th<\/sup> and sixtieth vote becomes so expensive.\u00a0 An 80-vote bill, he said, is much cheaper than a sixty-vote bill, because no one can hold you up.\u00a0 No one can demand a \u201cLouisiana Purchase\u201d or a \u201cCornhusker Kickback.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the amateurs at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue only understand campaigning and enforcement, not give and take. It is easy to dismiss the value of experience in politics and government, but, particularly in developing legislation, they count.\u00a0 The nation is governable when those in charge understand governance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A great deal of talk has come out of Washington these last few weeks about the nation being \u201cungovernable.\u201d\u00a0 What that means, of course, is that the White House can\u2019t find sixty votes for health care overhaul in a senate that their party controls by sixty votes.\u00a0 So they are pushing the legislation through using […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[12],"class_list":["post-587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economic-policy-health-care","tag-hugh-hewitt"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":596,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587\/revisions\/596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}