Posted on 12/31/2005 3:25:39 PM PST by RWR8189
Why did President Bush not do very well in Congress this year? Was it because he was politically inept? Was it because he offended members of his own party? Was it because they were afraid that sticking with him would kill any chance of reelection?
All of these are possibly correct. But I think that there is a more efficient answer -- and that is that the President, in dealing with Congress, simply bit off more than he could chew. He thought that there were consensus positions for reforming certain issues, but there were none. He misread the number of people willing to agree to any kind of tax cut extension, Social Security reform, immigration reform, or Patriot Act extension.
His fundamental mistake, I think, was that he failed to appreciate the nature of Congress. Congress is not the sort of body that passes lots of big pieces of reform legislation by small margins. Its structure is such that you usually have to find a very large consensus within the institution itself -- and this is very often hard to come by. At certain points in time and with certain types of issues, it is downright impossible.
This is the point that Stanford's Keith Krehbiel makes in his book Pivotal Politics. This is one of the few books I have read that tries to explain congressional activity in the broader context of the presidency. Krehbiel argues that the structure of Congress is very important. It creates roadblocks to getting what you want out of the institution. Think of all the different structural "pivots" in Congress:
1. Any bill must find a majority in both houses.
2. Any bill must, if it is opposed by the President, find a majority of 2/3rds.
3. Any bill must find a majority of 3/5ths in the Senate.
These structures explain, according to Krehbiel, why gridlock is the status quo in Congress and why, when it is broken, it is usually broken by large majorities. Think of it this way. Suppose you have a status quo policy that a bare majority of Congress wants to change to an alternative policy. Is this enough? No way. There are still two more "pivots". If a 2/5th minority of the Senate prefers the status quo to the majority's proposal, it will filibuster. If the President prefers the status quo to the majority's proposal, he will veto; his veto will be successful unless 2/3rds of Congress prefers the alternative to the status quo.
But, one might respond, what about political parties? Is it not easier to get big changes when the President and Congress are of the same party? According to this theory, not necessarily. This theory presumes that members of Congress and the President vote according to their own interests. If they prefer one position over another, they vote for their most preferred position. The party does not have the power to induce them to vote against their interests. From what we know about congressional parties, this is a very reasonable assumption. They are weak compared to European parties. Our legislative parties usually work by controlling what goes on the agenda, not by controlling members of Congress. Party leaders know that they can really do nothing to stop "mavericks".
As a practical matter, then, we will only see Congress and the President act to reform a situation when a very large majority prefers the policy proposal to the status quo.
This also explains why Bush had trouble this year. He tried to reform certain policies where there does not seem to be a large enough consensus on any given reform proposal. In other words, it was not just a matter of Bush refusing to give the other side what they want. It was a matter of impossibility: it was impossible to find any alternative to the status quo -- on Social Security, taxes, immigration, etc -- that Bush, any majority of the House, and any 3/5ths of the Senate would find acceptable. For instance, what would have happened if Bush had compromised with his Democratic opponents so much on immigration that they would have agreed with his proposal? His Republican supporters would have turned into his opponents!
Ultimately, it is impossible to reform certain issues at certain times in American history. Sometimes the size of the majority willing to go along with any given reform is too small.
So, maybe Bush's legislative mistake this year was not that he is stubborn and refuses to modify his positions. Maybe it was not that he did not sweet talk Congress enough. Maybe the mistake came last January when his White House decided what they were going to push for. They chose too many wrong things -- things that Congress could not possibly have agreed upon. In other words, Bush failed in Congress for the same reason he failed with the public -- he presumed that his election meant something more than it did. He misread his mandate. His election did not mean, for the public, that certain issues were settled. It did not mean, for the Congress, that a consensus position of sufficient size had emerged within the body. It only meant that he could keep his job for another four years.
"What went wrong"
1. RINO's showed their true colours.
2. The stupid incompetant elected officials in LA that wouldn't take the responsibility and act when Katrina hit.
3. The lying MSM traitors.
4. The brickwall President Bush has to climb everyday and be on the defense all the time instead of being able to surge forward with things that really matter because the idiots on the left don't know how to act like adults and are in a state of 'Stuck on Stupid' because of the 2000 and 2004 election results and would rather see the country fail at everything :
http://media1.streamtoyou.com/rnc/0519RNCNo-1.wmv
Because the "electable" alternative party would have placed us in a downward spiral instead of a slow upward swing.
Run silent and Run Deep and beware of the shallow waters Hank.
Yes, he is. Cost is right again.
He's now writing for Redstate.You can read him there.
Same old Rearend Reardon. Yata...Yata...Yata...Whine...Whine...Sniffle...Sniffle...Sob.
Stupid? I don't know. Maybe two Big EVIL Government parties instead. You're giving them too much credit IMO.
Baloney. It was not a con job. Many of the Republicans in Congress individually want those things but are unable to politically make it happen as a group. A person is smart but people are dumb and like sheep. The Republicans are politically inept cowards which is quite different than con artists.
Close, but misses the point. To create a consensus in Congress, the president must first create a movement towards consensus amongst a large segment of the voters. To do that he must prepare and present a careful, well laid out plan to the people and then work dilligently to see that the consensus that he wants amongst voters takes root.
How many years should we give them to get their act together? I've been waiting and waiting and apparently the Republicans are incapable of learning (if you choose to look at it that way.) If we aren't getting a con job, then what is it that you would recommend we do with our learning disabled Republicans?
I tend to believe that we're getting conned. It's getting harder and harder to view them as "politically inept cowards."
There are numerous problems in Congress but none of them point to an intentional "con job" or whatever it is you are suggesting. Lack of communications skills, courage, leadership skills at the top, playing defense instead of offense and an inability to unite against the dems and the media and cut through the clutter, etc etc. Until there are foundational changes and we get an army of Reagan's up there I don't see much changing. The dems are too united and conservatives are too fragmented. If you take out the RINOs real conservatives simply do not have the votes to do anything. I think an important first step is to campaign our Representatives for new leadership in the House and Senate.
Bush didn't make permanent tax cuts his top domestic priority for the new term. If he had pushed hard for it, he'd have been able to rally his entire base, from the social conservatives to the libertarians to even many of the McCain/Schwarzenegger/Romney-type RINOs. We would have been united, we would have prevailed, and that would have started the term on the right foot.
There's still time, actually.
And how exactly do you know this? Because they say so? That's right, politicians never lie or anything.
Frist is retiring and Santorum will more than likely be gone after the election, so the Senate will have new and probably even worse leadership, if that's possible.
I can't see that a change of leadership will be anything but another giant step backward. Keep in mind voters have absolutely nothing to do with who gets what perks in leadership or Specter wouldn't be there causing all the problems that he is.
There is certainly more evidence to suggest they want those things but can't accomplish them then they are lying. The problem is incompetency not some strange notion they are lying to you.
And perhaps this column is junk.
Is the author really trying to sell that a President that came into office with a contested 2000 election and a Congress that flipped control to Dems with Jeffords Jumped had more of a mandate for, example, tax cuts then the first popular majority win Bush gained in 2004 dragging across a Majority of 55 Senators? remember the President DID get tax cuts, his first package, before 9-11 so the author can't try to use that as an excuse.
I don't have kind words to say about this theory.
The public has a consensus, a majority consensus, on many oF these issues. Whether it be Tax cuts, Patriot Act, Judges... Elections have proven this repeatedly. Daschle wasn't tossed from office because Thune was more attractive. Salazar didn't lie saying he wouldn't support filibusters to win election without reason and conveniently change his mind afterwards. Liberals do not mask their stance on taxes eithout cause in elections. Democrats are not backtracking on Reid's statement he killed the Patriot Act by stating "of course they want to continue it" because we don't have a big majority in agreement out in the country.
The PROBLEM is that the Senators in Congress do not feel accountable to the people except when they come every six years seeking re-election and lie about what they've done or will do. You need only listen to the Senators themselves instead of creating theories out of thin air. "Civility of the Senate". Heard that phrase? They consider their chambers to be of more importance than the electorate or Constitution. That is the problem. Their damn pretentious airs and kiss ups to the Liberal establishment in Washington.
Compounding the problem are Republicans without spine that could turn around and use their tricks against them, yet won't. They won't punish with committee assignments. They won't withdraw election funding. They won't even filibuster Liberal objectives to force a conservative compromise. If it's good for Dems/RINO's, why not us then? BTW, I've speaking legislatively NOT Judicially.
Pence with his minority forced cuts in spending rate in the House. When have the Republican Senators taken their minority and jammed something down the RINO's and Dems throats? Never.
Compounding that problem the President spent too much time reaching out to his enemies, and later in the year, going silent on PR, and this weakened him. he's reversed coarse, and he's reaping dividends by learning from that mistake.
The House I'm still furious with over ANWR, but they did start to correct themselves with Pence's spending proposal and the votes forcing the Libs on record over Iraq. As well as Sensenbrennar ripping Congress and only allowing a 5 week extention of the Patriot Act because they couldn't do their damn jobs.
The Senate, however, is still the bloody mess it was before. And unlike the Prez and House, shows no sign of getting it or righting itself. And the blame doesn't lie on the President by and large, nor on the American people has the column tries to pass the buck. It lies mostly on the backs of our own House of Lords.
And you've yet to provide a shred of this evidence. And the burden really is on you to show that successful politicians (defined by their ability to get elected to some of the most powerful elected offices in the country) suffer from "lack of communication skills" instead of plain old-fashioned dishonesty, especially given that it's the natural instinct of a politician to want to increase the power of the political class (i.e., government).
I outlined the problem for you. The evidence is obvious for all to see. The dems and the media have them politically outmaneuvered and they haven't the courage to fight them. It's obvious. If you want to believe in a conspiracy theory - go ahead.
You're referring to the "evidence" that politicians don't lie about their intentions? Oh yes, the evidence is everywhere. Santa Claus exists, too.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.