Column: Quit blaming Congress for all of our ills

By Ross K. Baker
Updated 4h 20m ago

I am appropriating the title of Texas Gov. Rick Perry's book to say that I, too, am "Fed Up."

By J. Scott Applewhite, AP

What I'm fed up with is Congress being the whipping boy for all our frustrations with the sorry state of the economy and the toxic mood of our politics.

Pollsters seem to take a malicious delight in trying to outdo one another in who can report the lowest approval ratings for Congress. But there is no mystery as to why the House and Senate are uniquely the focus of all this hostility: It is a victim of its own openness while others, whose actions impact Congress, are less exposed to scrutiny.

While the Supreme Court decides its cases away from public view and White House decision-making also takes place inside a bubble of secrecy, Congress operates in the sunshine and confirms Bismarck's advice that it is better not to see laws and sausages being made. To its disadvantage, Congress' sausage-making is very much on public display, but other butcher shops, equally untidy, are out of the sight of the customers.

An unhelpful executive

At least some of the congressional dysfunction has its origins in the White House. The Obama administration from its earliest days has kept Congress out of the loop, making it appear clueless.

In March 2009, the nation was navigating the banking crisis. Insolvent banks were rewarding their executives with hefty bonuses, while the insurance giant AIG was teetering on the brink of collapse. Members of Congress who saw the moment as an opportunity to restructure the banking industry were, in the words of Ron Suskind in his recent book, Confidence Men, "generally excluded from White House Councils and debates."

More recently, the president announced before a joint session of Congress his "American Jobs Act" with virtually no consultation with Senate Democratic leaders. The bill contained a provision to limit itemized deductions for individuals making more than $200,000 annually, a feature which almost instantly lost it the support of a number of Democrats who would have been essential in overcoming a certain GOP filibuster. Democrats instead got behind a proposal for a surtax on millionaires.

Instead of crafting a legislative strategy, Obama apparently decided to go it alone and will the legislation — by repeating "Pass this bill!" before modest crowds — into law. The result: partisan hand-to-hand combat over the legislation between Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The White House could have averted the fight if it had been more willing to share its plans with its allies in Congress. But Congress got the blame for this public spat, confirming presumptions of its dysfunction.

And then there is the endless preaching from the pundits and the serious among us that lawmakers must resist interest groups and forgo their cash, as the Pollyannaish Harold Meyerson argued recently in The Washington Post. Without getting into a chicken/egg discussion here, Congress has been under siege by a growing number of ideological interest groups that use litmus tests to enforce their agendas. As much as anything else, this strong-arming has contributed to congressional strife and legislative paralysis. Among the vocal and conspicuous of these is Americans for Tax Reform with its "Taxpayer Protection Pledge," which says, when boiled down to its essence: I won't raise taxes for any reason, ever, even if held at gunpoint.

Of the Republicans on the 12-member bipartisan commission created in August to cut $1.2 trillion from the federal debt, all have signed the pledge. Accordingly, it is difficult to imagine how any of them could agree to even the most modest changes in tax law without violating the pledge and jeopardizing their re-election chances.

Members of Congress did not impose this blood oath on themselves, and it is just one of a number of handcuffs that ideological interest groups, conservative and liberal, seek to impose on Congress. Democrats who support the USA Patriot Act, the Afghanistan War or trade agreements can expect primary election challenges from the left.

Check the mirror

We have ourselves to blame for Congress' lamentable performance. Public criticism of Congress for inefficiency overlooks the fact that it was not designed to be efficient, or the Founding Fathers would have stuck with the one-house legislature of the Articles of Confederation. They considered Congress the most dangerous branch of government, needing to be restrained by requiring the assent of two houses as well as the president. Separation of powers is not a fast-track principle.

Voters added to the likelihood of stalemate in 2010 by giving Republicans control of the House while retaining a Democratic majority in the Senate. So at a time when Democrats and Republicans can't even agree on who is buried in Grant's Tomb, dividing control of the national legislature is a pretty good prescription for inaction and discord.

Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, the second-ranking Democrat in the House, recently observed that "if elections have consequences — which I think they do — some of those consequences are getting what you vote for. In this case, many people voted for people who thought compromise was not something they ought to participate in."

So before we heat the tar and pluck the feathers to apply to Congress, we need to consider the others who contribute to the apparent dysfunction.

Accessible to all, especially the news media, Congress' sins and shortcoming are on constant public display. The deliberations of others whose results Congress must ultimately deal with are not so transparent.

The robbery committed under a street light is going to have many more eyewitnesses than a mugging in a dark alley.

Ross K. Baker is a political science professor at Rutgers University and a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

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