All Life Is Problem Solving

If Progressives and Democrats are going to be successful in the future, they have to solve important problems of middle and working class people, such as stagnant real income, declining wealth, terrible and high risk (i.e. easily disappearing) health insurance, high quality education for all, including opportunities for everyone to get a college education, a rapacious financial sector that is impoverishing them, toy and food industries that are delivering increasingly dangerous products, an energy industry that is increasingly incapable of delivering low cost and clean energy, global warming and a deteriorating environment, an economy that needs to re-invented to create new leading industries, and other problems I won’t name here. These problems have been accumulating for a long time, and for at least a couple of reasons. The first is that one of the two American political parties doesn’t believe that Government should solve domestic problems, other than problems of basic security. The second is that the other party has been content to place band-aids on major problems, while cleaning up some of the mess created by the anti-government party. While doing such things however, it has implicitly adopted the posture that most problems have to be left for the future, because of the burden involved in cleaning up messes, and making the few additional advances it decides are feasible to get through a Congress with a severe anti-action bias, and implement with an under-resourced public service.

In every election the Democratic Party promises certain things, but rarely delivers because it is caught in “the pattern.” Here is the pattern. The Republicans take over the Executive Branch and sometimes the legislative branch too, and also create a judicial branch that is rightward moving most of the time. Republican political and governmental strategies focus on ending business regulation, weakening or undermining the agencies charged with regulating businesses, starving social programs and the Arts as much as they can, providing subsidies and tax cuts to favored businesses, and tax cuts to individuals, thus creating a revenue-starved Government, increasing defense spending as a way of paying off favored contributors, and providing “evidence” that it is strengthening the nation’s defenses, and, of course, raising awareness about the various social issues it wants to use to excite its base and get the support of people whose economic interests would not lead them naturally to vote Republican.

Democrats respond to Republican efforts with caution, engage in colorful debates, but, in the end, so as not to seem overly partisan, end up giving Republicans much of what they want, even in years when the Democrats have a Congressional majority. Republican policies appear successful for a time, largely because they encourage low interest rates, low taxes, and high deficits, eventually resulting in economic bubbles in securities trading, housing, and expensive consumer goods. A lot of people get rich during these bubbles, but not those on Main Street. They get to work until the bubbles break, and the economy adjusts by destroying businesses and jobs, while creating falling tax revenues for the Government that exacerbates budget deficits and increases the National Debt.

This brings Democrats back into control of both Congress and the Presidency to help Main Street. But, the deficits left them by the Republicans, and the other messes in Government created by their policies, create a lot of work for Democrats to do simply to repair damage done by the Republicans and restore the status quo, and also create pressure from Republicans “out of power” and conservative Democrats to bring the deficits the Republicans produced under control, by cutting Government activities rather than by raising marginal income tax rates on higher income people. When the Democrats try to legislate their agenda of structural changes that will really help their constituencies on an on-going basis, they find that since much of it is positive, involving creating new government activities, they face the twin problems of overcoming both the political pressure to rein in deficits, and the conservative bias of the legislative process in delivering on their program.

In particular, while the Republicans can do much of what they want to in the way of weakening government programs without even going to the Congress, the Democrats must get new bills through to change the direction of the country, and solve problems that have accumulated over the years. Due to gradual developments in the rules of the Senate governing “holds” and filibusters, these days it is nearly always very difficult to get legislation passed because it requires 60 votes in the Senate rather than a simple majority. Even when the Democrats have a substantial majority of votes in the Senate, it is still very difficult to overcome a threat of filibuster, because the presence of conservative Democrats, coupled with nearly uniform opposition from an increasingly right-wing Republican Party, and the rules of the Senate, which make “holds” and filibusters very easy to implement, guarantee that progressive legislation can’t overcome a filibuster absent the support of conservative Democrats and at least a few Republicans. This, of course, gives those few conservatives disproportionate power to wring compromises out of Democrats, which they exercise in part through appeals to fiscal responsibility which suddenly develop a higher priority in their scheme of values than the other problems whose solutions the Democratic Party promised. And those compromises provide for highly imperfect solutions that leave the original problems still alive and well, to be addressed at another time, often many years later, when the Democrats, after they have been thrown out of power one more time for failing to secure the loyalty of their constituents by keeping their promises, get one more chance because the Republican Party has made one more mess.

So that’s it. The depressing pattern we have seen since 1977 and the inauguration of the economic centrist Democrat, Jimmy Carter. We are now in grave danger of repeating this pattern again. Even before an inadequate economic stimulus package, produced by a bad compromise in the Senate, made in order to get 60 votes, has had any material effect on an economy that is producing record foreclosures and unemployment levels that are likely to soon exceed those of any recession since The Great Depression, the Democratic Administration, in order to defend itself against charges that it is fiscally irresponsible, is already talking about strengthening “paygo” rules by enshrining them into law. Paygo is already a travesty produced by Democrats who lacked the strength of their convictions about the constructive role that Government can play in the economy. If we have “paygo” written into law, what do we do if we need another stimulus in October or November when it is likely to become clear that the first stimulus package isn’t ending the recession? What do we do when we need to pass any high impact Government investment in the economy that is not revenue neutral? In the case of the second stimulus, it will be even more “off the table” than it is now, and the Obama Administration will have a stagnant economy to contend with through the 2010 congressional elections, when the voters will once again wonder whether it matters which of the two morally bankrupt parties they vote for, and whether anyone can bring about “change that we can believe in.”

”Paygo” and the economic stimulus are not the only areas in which this Administration and the Democrats have been retreating due to the twin problems of Senate procedures and propaganda about the suddenly over-riding priority of the deficit problem over our other many problems. The Administration has been retreating on “cap and trade,” on EFCA, on how it frames the health care reform debates. It has already retreated on the idea of raising marginal income tax rates to pay for health care, because even though the deficit is being elevated to a status of primary importance, evidently it is not important enough to warrant increasing taxes on high income individuals, or to accelerate the rate of our withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan. Still to come are the Obama Administration’s coming efforts to solve grave problems in American education, environmental policy, climate change, and energy policy. All of these will cost money. The Obama Administration will put forward proposals to finance them so that they conform to “paygo,” the conservatives will filibuster these proposals, and then what will the Administration do? Will it back off because “paygo” must rule? Will it cut back on its proposals until it finds a formula that’s acceptable to Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson and all the rest, but that will likely just be window dressing? Or will it conclude that it must solve these national problems and worry about the financial consequences later? I doubt it will choose to fight to solve the problems; and think it’s likely to opt for window dressing accompanied by vigorous, but ultimately, fruitless attempts to persuade voters that it has improved their lot. The result will be to reinforce “the pattern,” and to accelerate the decline of the United States of America.

How can the Administration, the Democrats, and the progressives break “the pattern,” and deliver on their commitments? I’m afraid they have to go back to the old ways. First, they really have to work for, and have faith in, more Democracy. In today’s context, what that means is an unremitting effort to reform the United States Senate. Individual Senators are too powerful when it comes to stopping changes favored by a majority. It is enough protection of minority rights that Senators have six year terms. It is enough protection that they can have long periods of debate to make their views known on particular issues. But to be able to place “holds” on executive appointments, and to have the filibuster is to have the power to thwart the will of anything but the most overwhelming majority in favor of change. I’ve written about the filibuster before and proposed its abolition. I’ve also pointed out that getting rid of it may be the key to success for this Administration. I think the way things are developing in real time reinforces my previous argument. Democrats and progressives, the filibuster is our enemy, it is undemocratic, and it is the enemy of an adaptive political system that can solve the problems it encounters. We need to get rid of it now.

Second, another of “the old ways” we have to go back to is not giving the game away before it is played. Or, put alternatively, let’s propose legislation that we think is the best solution to a problem and then fight for it as hard we can. If, in the end, we have to compromise to get half a loaf, then by all means let’s do it. But let’s not start with half a loaf, and then compromise that away and end up with a quarter of a loaf, as we’ve been doing. Quarter loaves often don’t make a dent in any of our serious problems. Another way to put this, is that we should not be too cute, or too clever in constructing legislation. Democrats have embraced policy wonkishness. The Clintons’ health care plan was so wonkish no one could understand it. Obama’s public option plan is also a bit “wonkish.” It appears to have been formulated because some people thought that it would defend the Democrats against “socialism” charges, while probably leading to a single payer plan in the longer run. Oh, how clever that is! We’re not proposing “socialized medicine.” Oh, no, not us. We’re just proposing a public option to give the private sector plans some competition. Aren’t they in favor of competition? Don’t they want to have the market determine whether the future is private or public health care? What’s wrong with them that they don’t believe in the “free market?”

I think all this is baloney, and it’s also dangerous baloney being put forward by people who don’t have the guts to really try to educate the American people, and fight this battle straight up. Why not propose a single payer system, make clear that while the Government will pay for it and regulate it, private sector Doctors will be providing care, compare current American health care results with a host of other countries that have such a system. Show that the private health care system has failed here, and also never has been a free market, and then repeat, repeat, repeat, and repeat, until people get it. And if we lose on it, then do it again next year, when things in private health care are even worse, and the year after that, and the year after that, if necessary. Eventually we’ll get it through. We would have gotten it through long ago if the wonks hadn’t taken over with overly complex but less effective variations on the theme, trying to leave the private sector with some control over its unconscionable profits.

Third, I think we have to stop emphasizing the value and desirability of bipartisanship in domestic politics. The United States has had, and sometimes has benefited from, bipartisanship in foreign policy, though not for some years. But there has never been a tradition of bipartisanship in domestic politics, and the idea that this is some kind of ideal we ought to aim for is a ridiculous notion that is currently doing nothing but providing the few remaining “centrist” Republicans, and the more numerous conservative Democrats with the whip hand in domestic policy. That’s not what I voted for in the last election and I don’t think it’s what most people voted for who supported a Democratic ticket that was composed of two “liberals.” In saying this, I am not saying that we should not cultivate friendly relationships with Republicans who happen to agree with Democrats on specific issues, or that we should not insist upon civil relations within the Congress and the political system. These are good things to do. But the kind of bipartisanship being touted now is anti-democratic and not in the interests of the people, or the Democratic Party. In our party system, parties must stand for different agendas, and when parties are elected with the expectation that they will pass their agendas, they must do so if we are to have accountability. Bipartisanship is a notion that is saying to us that moderation of conflict in the Congress is more important than passing our agenda and solving the problems of our country. That is not true. It is however, when combined with the filibuster, awfully effective in giving some mediocre Senators a disproportionate influence on the future of the United States.

Finally, of course, the issues of bipartisanship and increased democracy as embodied in the abolition of the filibuster are quite closely linked. If the Democrats move to get rid of the filibuster forever, the partisans of bipartisanship will not find it so attractive to bleat about the moral imperative of getting along with the other party anymore. Paradoxically, however, we will probably find that more Republican votes suddenly begin to appear for Democratic legislation. After all, if single payer health care were very likely to be passed by a majority entirely composed of Democrats, and their constituents favored such a measure passing in preference to a Republican-backed entirely private insurance-based reform measure, could Arlen Specter, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Ben Nelson, Kent Conrad, Max Baucus, Mary Landrieu, and the rest of the “bipartisan” gang really vote against it, and still expect to be re-elected? Why, in that scenario, Barack Obama might even receive the 65-70 votes in the Senate (Medicare passed with 70 votes) that he could use to claim that we’ve achieved “bipartisanship.”