Obama's Fault Or Not?

Matt Taibbi's polemic article about the selection of economic advisors and the general economic policy that has come about has spawned a large debate in the blogosphere. The core of the attacks against Taibi are not the factual charges which seem to be largely a distraction. Instead the substantive critique is that the executive branch advisors arent the problem and that removing them and replacing them with the most progressive ones you could find wouldnt change a thing. This critique is based on the legislature central view of policy. Essentially these critics of Taibi are saying that until lieberman, nelson, bayh are gone there simply cant be better, more progressive policy.

Chief among the substantive critics is Ezra Klein.

Simple as it may be, it manages to be false both conceptually and specifically. The financial system made Michael Froman rich, and Rubin, too, but neither is working on financial regulation. You can argue that Larry Summers skimmed a few million off the top, but he's spent a lot of time in academia and government for someone so concerned with money. But Orszag? Furman? Geithner? Christina Romer? They may represent intellectual capture, but that's not the same thing as what Taibbi is implying.

Worse than being unfair, though, it actively misses the point. What unites not only Obama's economic team, but his whole White House, is not its emphasis on rich people. It's the emphasis on people accustomed to dealing with Congress. You've got a former Treasury secretary, CBO director, DCCC chairman, chief of staff to the Senate majority leader, chief of staff to the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, chief of staff to the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and on it goes. It's rather difficult to say what these people do and don't believe, as their whole world is finding 218 in the House and 60 in the Senate, and every word, action and policy brief is squarely aimed at that goal.

That leaves two questions worth asking about them: First, are they more or less liberal than the 218th most liberal congressman and the 60th most liberal senator? Second, are they good at their jobs? That is to say, are they good at bringing 218 congressmen and 60 senators into line behind reasonably good policy?

Ezra's critique is picked up by Yglesias. Klein's point is clear. Policy and law is made by congress. Until Congress is more progressive more progressive legislation will not pass. The blame heaped upon Obama is misplaced according to Klein.

To some extent though Klein and Taibbi are talking past each other. Taibbi is blasting Obama because the people he chooses represent the type of policy that will not only be portrayed as feasible but also as desirable. These people tell Obama not only what the most likely alternative is but also what the best and worst alternatives are. Any negotiation begins with these in mind. Formulating a strategy for negotiation with congress involves formulating an opening position based on the most desirable outcome and the most likely. By picking the people he does the President is helping to decide where he starts and where he wants to go. That doesnt involve congress at all.

Most people criticizing Obama take the route Taibi does. He starts from the wrong position with the wrong end goal in mind. That would be Obama's fault. But what about Klein's assertion that policy will only be as good as Lieberman et al will allow?

This is true. As long as the massive procedural hurdles of the senate remain in place those people matter. a lot. The criticism of obama has been that he doesnt play the game with these people properly. their arent any sticks. Ezra would say that the sticks dont exist except maybe for lieberman who has a nice chairmanship that might get accidentally dead. shame if that were to happen. Obama has tended to try very hard to work with and massage congress people. he seems to be very nice to them, just as he is nice to the bankers. he urges them to make credit freer. thats nice. Obama could certainly be harsher and more demanding in his rhetoric or proposals. that risks a greater loss but also greater gain.

Ultimately Obama is only in control of how he chooses to try and coerce/convince nelson, bayh, and crew to go along with his policies. SO far he hasnt really called them out or really attacked their intransigence. He probably doesnt believe that this will work. The point is that he does not try. Its not that he hasnt succeeded, failing would suck but the biggest problem is that we havent tried according to most people unhappy with the president. Ezra is right that congress is ultimately in control of what gets passed but Taibbi is also correct that Obama's strategy doesnt seem to be the most effective.

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Institutional Power and Congressional Sheep

As a general rule members of Congress wish to be reelected. That is not too shocking of a proposition because being a member of Congress is a prestigious job with good benefits. As a result of this interest congress people, senators especially, like to do things that will keep them in office. One of the things that helps keep someone in Congress is taking credit while avoiding responsibility. By taking this approach Congress has managed to alter the balance of power vis-a-vis the Presidency. A case in point is the filibuster.

Reading Ezra Klein's post on Congress' voice should make it clear that the system of government in our country could use some reform.

More to the point, it's important for Congress to begin thinking that way again. For the filibuster to end, Congress is going to have to rediscover its institutional voice. Democrats hate the filibuster when they're in power, and Republicans loathe it when they're in power, but it won't end until Congress decides it an enemy of Congress, rather than of whichever party happens to be in the majority at that moment.

People occasionally let slip that the filibuster is one of the checks and balances written into the Constitution. It isn't, of course. And its centrality to the process is a symptom of the failure of the checks and balances envisioned in our founding document. Congress was supposed to be stronger than the executive branch, and in competition with it. As such, it was considered very important, and very obvious, that Congress would work diligently to maximize its own power and authority. Congress would never permit some loophole to render it an ineffective branch, dependent entirely on rare supermajorities and presidential momentum to pass legislation.

But in recent years, American politics has become entirely about the president. Congressional elections are referendums on the president. Republicans lost in 2006 because Bush was unpopular, not because Harry Reid was beloved. Democrats understand that their fortunes are lashed to Obama's success, and Republicans have been clear that their return to power runs through his failure. Congress defines itself in relation to the president. That makes the filibuster very important to whichever party isn't in charge of the White House. It means the minority party has a continual stake in Congress not really working, because that means the president can't really succeed.

Klein has a good point and is mostly correct. Where i think he misses the mark is that the President has been the center of American politics for much more than the recent past. FDR, Teddy Roosevelt, Lincoln were all strong executives who acted in the center of American Political life.

What is clear is that President's demand power. Both Democratic and Republican presidents seek to expand the power of the executive office. They cede power only after bloody political struggle. The reason for this is that Presidents can hardly avoid responsibility in the way that Congress manages to do. It is easy to identify who holds the presidency. Blame is easy to apportion to him when voters feel he deserves it. Under these circumstances what person would not want to gather the most control over his destiny as possible? Not to mention that the type of person who seeks the Presidency is one interested in power. There are no Cincinnatuses in modern American politics.

In contrast Congress appears to be more than happy to cede power to those willing to take the responsibility. Avoid making decisions, avoid pissing people off too much, get reelected. Nate Silver makes exactly this point in his post advising Blanche Lincoln. Silver's message is that the best advice is to stay out of the spotlight. Avoid being the one responsible and improve your chances of reelection. Massive gridlock helps individual legislators avoid taking the blame. The approve/disapprove numbers of your representative are better than congress as a whole. It is not there fault its everybody else. The filibuster provides an excuse for Democrats to blame Republican's and continue the policy of not rocking the boat.

As Klein points out the modern Congress is not in opposition to the President. The party system in our country means that there are incentives for the Congress to make the President look good. Those in the same party as the President are rewarded for going with the President. As an institution, Congress has decided that it is generally better to be the sheep than the shepherd. If enough members of Congress wanted it bad enough they could break any filibuster. The problem is that that would be...hard. Also, time consuming.

There's two pieces. One is the time of the chamber. They have other things to do. The modern Senate has more staff, deals with more interest groups. There's more legislation. More appropriations. The modern senator spends 1 percent of his or her time on the Senate floor. They have to take pictures with constituents. They have to fundraise and meet with constituency groups and lobbyists and deal with staff. To actually have a live filibuster would mean they have to give up all the other business.

And as individuals, they have other things to do. Air travel has opened up. In 2009, if you are the senator from Montana, it's perfectly reasonable for you to go home on the weekend and campaign for reelection. That wasn't possible in 1940. You came to Washington to do your work and you stayed until it was done. Now air travel has made it possible for you to fly away for the weekend. That makes your time more valuable.

They have better things to do. If they wanted it bad enough 50 democrats could break any filibuster. It would be an epic war of attrition and a media feeding frenzy for the ages.

The best example of this is the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It was the longest debate in the Senate's history. But the majority wasn't trying to wait out the Southerners. Instead, they just let them talk, and would send their guys down, and argue against them when they would, for instance, deny that lynchings happen in the South. This helped public opinion turn.

The benefit to the majority can be that public attention focuses. They know the bill is there and they know the Republicans are blocking it. That becomes the basis for news coverage. When will the bill be done? What's going on today? In that sense, you can win. The point is not that you exhaust the Republicans, but that you embarrass them. X number of people died today. I hope that whatever you had to say was more important.

And time can work on your side. In 1913, the second item on Woodrow Wilson's agenda was what we now know of as the Federal Reserve Act. The bill came up December 1st., and the Democrats said we'll stay here till the bill passes. If that means we don't get a Christmas break, we don't get a Christmas break. That focused people's attention.

Imagine the responsibility and blame that could be fed out here. Senators would have to really step up. They do not want to do that. They have excuses built into the system and no interest in expanding their power against the presidency and the judiciary.

The power of the presidency is going to continue to grow as will the power of the judiciary, the fed and other independent groups who are able to absolve Congress from responsibility for hard or unpopular decisions.

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Bailout Financial but let the Auto's fail?

Look i know that the Auto industry is not the poster child for intelligent business model and that the ceo's who came to the hill to beg were stupid to do so in private jets but the scrutiny given to the Auto industry is actually pretty extraordinary when compared to the financial sector. Especially considering that the auto sector probably provides more jobs when its all counted up.

Part of this is that everyone has been pissed at the auto club for a while because they have undermined CAFE standards and produced bloated SUV's. The other is that the south had those union free auto plants that they want more of. The final part is that the financial people are more than happy to give oversight free bags of money to their friends who they know deserve it lest the entire world crumble.

I actually dont oppose putting some steele strings on this bail out money for autos but i would like to see the same response given to those companies like citi who come begging for money and seem to get it instantly.

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Institutional Failure

The bailout is such a rich source of data for any political scientist or civics lover. I wrote yesterday on the bailout as it related to the job of the individual congresspeople in either a capacity as representatives or as a function of direct democracy. Today i think the focus should be on the institutional side of things and how the bailout is really a failure of the model on which our government sits.

I was going to cover this any way but i saw the ezra klein post on it and he had some very good points.

...my hunch is it was a victory for the system. We have a political structure biased against Big Things (this is less true when it comes to foreign policy). Blocking change is far easier than passing it. Health care fails, and so does cap and trade and Social Security privatization and immigration reform and bailout bills and most major initiatives. Doing big things slowly is almost impossible. Doing them very fast is similarly tricky. A lot of the theoretical reasons are well-explained in Sven Steinmo and Jon Watts paper, "It's The Institutions, Stupid." But it's a lesson worth remembering. In any large scale initiative, the odds are against success.

That's one reason most bills come out so badly: if the Democrats could just pass health care or a bailout bill, they'd simply build the bill they wanted to pass, and it would be clean and ideologically coherent. They'd respond to the financial crisis much as the Swedish did, with a plan for nationalization. On health care, they'd shoot for single payer. Instead, they need the president, and a bill that doesn't trigger a filibuster in the Senate, and to attract all sorts of House members who have little to fear from party discipline as the system is regional and entrepreneurial and fractured rather than parliamentarian. This is why I argued yesterday that what we're seeing is bigger than the bailout. No one quite knows how to harness our political system in opposition to major problems. No one knows how to get real health reform through, or pass a global warming bill that could actually avert catastrophe, or shepherd a capital infusion that will avert possible economic collapse. Those problems are all different, to be sure, with different coalitions and different messaging strategies, but much of what blocks action is structurally similar. When it comes to the American political system, you can almost never believe in change.

It is not a new or novel point. Our system is designed to be conservative. Bush might like the theory of the imperial presidency but really it does not fit into the model design for our government. Our system is supposed to prevent rapid change. When originally drafted the entire purpose of the senate was to prevent the rabble in the house from moving to fast or being carried away with some idea for rapid change. One person can hold up everything in the senate.

The congress is supposed to be able to check the power of the president with the power of the purse, the judiciary checks congress and the president through the review of constitutionality of laws and actions. The president checks the congress through his role as the head of executive agencies and the veto power. The system is designed to have numerous delays and bottlenecks in it.

The plurality system of elections is going to lead to a stable two party system according to the spatial model of elections. It is hard to imagine that the balance of power ever gets to out of equilibrium for too long. The parties should roughly split the electorate with a small middle who vacillate back and forth. Of course that all depends on rational actors.

So when ezra talks about the system being biased against big things he is totally correct. It is generally just not possible for one side to totally ran something through without the help of some of the other side. The problem is that one side sees everything as a political issue. Because of this politicization of every major crisis and the nature of the system one side may hold the issue hostage, bog it down, kill it, if it so chooses. This is especially true on the biggest issues and challenges where the legislators have to take some risk. the process becomes more delicate and more easily upset.

So it has become a case where the gop and house republicans can obstruct change and big ideas because the system is designed to be conservative in that nature. Whether they should do it is a totally separate question. Leaving it up to them to be adults and not to blow up the process and instead to do things for the good of the country is asking a lot.

The conservativeness of our system is also embedded in its stability. We run everything on a clock. You get a set number of years in the position and then we have elections and you get that number again. It is predictable and stable and allows for people to do what they want in the period of time between elections. It prevents the italian style failing of every government every two weeks. that would be bad. It also limits our ability to choose new leaders in a crisis or throw out failed ones when it becomes clear they have failed. We have to wait for the clock to run out.

Instead of bush lingering in office and draining confidence in a solution he would be out. He would have been out a long time ago. Instead we are like a ship that sees a big set of rocks ahead but has a rudder to small to turn out of the way. Everything was good in calm seas but when decisive action is needed to avoid catastrophe we have issues.

Until we become a more dynamic system big ideas and radical change is always going to face big opposition. That is why the shock doctrine is so key. There is a window of opportunity in crisis where big ideas can get through but once it closes or the idea fails the going becomes very tough.

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On Representation and Leadership in Congress

Yesterday's failure to pass the bail out legislation should be considered a text book case study in the competing philosophies of Republican government. We saw in stark contrast the difference in the constituency service model and independent leadership model of government. The law makers who had to go home and face the voters voted overwhelmingly against the bill while safe law makers voted for it. Why? To answer that we need to look at what congress people think their job is.

There is a constant tug of war in congress members minds between acting on their own judgment about an issue and in responding to the demands of the constituency. Take the example of the bailout, the safe members who voted or the bill were not exempt from their constituents demands for a no vote. If reports are to be believed they were being hit at a no to yes ration of 30-1. In this case they ignored their constituents for what they believed was the good of the country. They utilized their own judgment about what was best based on their own knowledge of the situation and the consequences of action. What they did was exercise leadership when they must know that they will take a major hit from this. Many people believe that this is why we elect representatives to go and make the hard calls.

On the opposite side we have the nay voters from unsafe districts. These people totally relied on the demands of the voters back home. They simply performed the role of the mouthpiece. This is a fully recognized idea of how a representative should act. We petition leaders so that we may influence the decision. Would we do this if we were not supposed to have input? The question is whether these people have gone to far. Why elect them personally if all we need is a stand-in? We could vote over the internet on every bill and the representative would simply push the button yea or nay.

The question arises whether they were actually following their constituents out of an ideological belief that that is the right thing or out of a political cowardice that they would be voted out of office. If they really believed that this was the right thing to do and voted no to keep their jobs that is a problem in my mind. If you believe your job is to lead and make decisions for the people except when that might hurt you politically i cant respect that.

If you believe that we elect our congress people to lead and make decisions then sometimes they have a duty to do that. If that decision leads them to get voted out, fine. If they have a principle and they believe they were elected to follow those principles they should sacrifice their career for what is best for the country. others have sacrificed more than simply a job. i have a hard time believing that a representative who votes for an issue with the ability to defend why his vote was best for the country will get thrown out of office. Even if they do they should have no regrets.

What is lacking in the discussion of the bail out is that what should be done is what is best for the country, regardless of politics. If that bill that was put up was not the best bill for the country then it had no business being voted on. No one thought the bill that went before the congress was the best possible bill. The people understood this. The best bill needs to go up in a crisis and if republican members want to take a principled stand against it i think that is their right. I think if there was a bill that everyone actually thought would work and was not a cobbled together political band aid the american people would get behind it. it might not be perfect but good should be a worthy adjective. Then you would have no trouble with those people afraid of using their judgment.

I could be wrong though. There is always the idea that we elect members to make trivial regular decisions we cant be bothered with but that the important stuff should be left to the people. That might work. The problem i see with that is that people dont usually understand the important stuff any better than the trivial stuff. We should not just trust them or cede total decision making to legislators. Calls keep them honest and make sure that only on the most truly principled issues will they cross the voters lest they risk their jobs.

It is an unresolved question what is the job of a legislator, listen and follow the people or use your own judgment? Legislators like to have it both ways by building support for an issue but sometimes you have to make the call about what is best for the country without the benefit of popular support.

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Bush Seeks to Affirm Permanent Influence

As his time in office winds down Bush wishes to put his stamp on the government, permanently. Pending that he wants to make it as hard as he can for a possible Obama administration to undue the policies and practices of his administration. He wants to ensure that even has failed conservative policies fail at the ballot box they continue in government through his appointments and changes in the law. One of the more controversial changes Bush has made is his expansion of Presidential power. A key to this expansion was his use of war time powers. It is this war time power that is the subject of his latest attempt to scar our country for generations in his name.

One of the important techniques Bush has used in securing his power and changes in government is making congress complicit in his acts. He is up to his old tricks again as outlined by the NYT piece Bush Seeks to Affirm a Continuing War on Terror . The focus of the piece is Bush's attempt to have congress issue a statement renewing a declaration of war with the Taliban and Al-Queda,

“acknowledge again and explicitly that this nation remains engaged in an armed conflict with Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated organizations, who have already proclaimed themselves at war with us and who are dedicated to the slaughter of Americans.”

The language is included in a proposal for hearing legal appeals from detainees at the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay and is just one in a number of recent attempts to codify Bush policies in law. The goal is to make sure that the next president has the same expanded powers of detention, interrogation and surveillance. It is a power grab at the expense of the legislative branch. If Congress capitulates on this it will mark simply another instance of their complicity in the Bush abuse of power.

Recently the Bush administration rewrote the rules governing spying by U.S. intelligence agencies, both in the United States and abroad. None can forget the recent FISA rewrite. In addition, Bush has been placing judges on US federal benches that comply with his ideology. The same goes for the different US bureaucracies including the epa where Bush has made sure that nothing is done to protect the environment and the FBI where he signed off on torture.

The implications of his actions are many. Already i have briefly discussed the fact that his changes will leave a lasting impact on the US policy and law. The attempt to get a renewed war powers statement is also a way to bring back some sense of fear in the populace.

Mr. Bush “is trying to stir up again the politics of fear by reminding people of something they haven’t really forgotten: that we are engaged in serious armed conflict with Al Qaeda,” said Laurence H. Tribe, a constitutional scholar at Harvard and legal adviser to Mr. Obama. “But the question is, Where is that conflict to be waged, and by what means.”

The war on terror is a war like the war on drugs. It is not a real war. It is essentially a police action and should have been fought as one. When the Rand Corp study on the subject came out at the end of July it only confirmed what others have been saying for years our actions are not working and only strengthening the criminals.

The authors call for a strategy that includes a greater reliance on law enforcement and intelligence agencies in disrupting the group's networks and in arresting its leaders. They say that when military forces are needed, the emphasis should be on local troops, which understand the terrain and culture and tend to have greater legitimacy.

In Muslim countries in particular, there should be a "light U.S. military footprint or none at all," the report contends.

"The U.S. military can play a critical role in building indigenous capacity," it said, "but should generally resist being drawn into combat operations in Muslim societies, since its presence is likely to increase terrorist recruitment."

Instead of heading the calls of experts the Bush administration is seeking to make sure its crimes and practices become the law of the land. They want to ensure that we continue to use the phrase "enemy combatants". They want to hold the future people America to their odious ideas about how to protect this country, throwing people into a prison camp without legal recourse.

The administration wants Congress to set out a narrow framework for those prisoner appeals. But the administration’s six-point proposal goes further. It includes not only the broad proclamation of a continued “armed conflict with Al Qaeda,” but also the desire for Congress to “reaffirm that for the duration of the conflict the United States may detain as enemy combatants those who have engaged in hostilities or purposefully supported Al Qaeda, the Taliban and associated organizations.”

It is truly galling to think that our country has a policy that allows us to hold someone forever under this title of enemy combatant as the jurors in the trial of Osama bin Ladens driver found out. They tried to put in in prison until Bush was out of office as a demonstration that they felt this policy was wrong. They were shocked to discover that he could be held forever,

"After all the effort that we put in to get somebody a fair trial . . . and then to say no matter what we did it didn’t matter — I don’t see that as a positive step," the juror said.

The administration contends that it can hold enemy combatants for as long as the war on terror lasts. If congress goes back and affirms in the way bush wants it will ensure that anyone acquitted or sentenced in Guantanamo will be staying in Guantanamo.

The decision is up to congress. Do they want to be seen as the patsies of the Bush administration again? I have little confidence that they will grow a spine and stand up to the Bush admin. Even as we celebrate the coming of the end for Bush we will be stuck with his flawed policies and ideology entrenched in our laws and government.

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