Here's a thought. For a supposedly deadlocked political system that's only a step away from democratic collapse, we've managed to pass a fair amount of substantial legislation over the past decade:
- 2009 stimulus
- Obamacare
- Financial reform
- New START treaty
- Iran treaty (though later repealed)
- Permanent tax increase on the rich (fiscal cliff)
- 2017 tax cut
- Fast and big pandemic rescue (x3)
- Infrastructure bill, probably
None of these are executive actions. They are all significant measures that have passed through Congress and been signed by the president. Not so bad, really.
So the most that a full time Congress can do is pass a bill once a year on average? Thankfully, our country only faces one problem per year that needs legislative fixing then.
Sigh. Part-time town councils manage to pass more legislation in a year.
Infrastructure bill (probably) is a bit of a stretch here. As is the 2009 stimulus which was 12 years ago.
I disagree- obviously you need to come up with a definition of the appropriate rate at which congress should have been enacting major legislation.
That's hard, and a cursory google search suggests that most major democracies are both drafting and passing bills at a steadily declining rate since the 50's or so. Whether that is a reflection of the generally high competence of international democracies at this point in history or increasing political dysfunction and polarization across the globe is left as an exercise for the reader.
Meanwhile, wages remain stagnant and inequality increases. Voting rights have been set back and democratic elections in some states may be a thing of the past. Obamacare benefited a fairly small fraction of the country and did not reduce the absurd overall cost of healthcare. The poverty level remains high. The two stimulus bills were significant, but will not change the overall direction of the economy, which is still towards plutocracy. On the whole, there has been very limited progress toward liberal objectives and any progress that has been made could be cancelled in the next Republican period of power. Congress has failed to enact the things that polls show people really want. This is not to blame Democratic members of Congress, but there is just no record of achievement to brag about (unless you think they work for the 1%)
“ACA benefited a fairly small fraction of the country” — true, but isn’t it a good thing that a majority already had coverage. (nevertheless, I would like to see every adult and child in our borders covered; documented or not). The worst thing in the history of ACA was that, like most complex legislation, there were technical errors in its text that a responsible Congress would have promptly fixed with a corrective piece of legislation. But the Democrats had lost their supermajority, and Republicans could not find it within themselves to do the decent thing and help to fix the problem areas.
C'mon man. In the absence of American Democracy, do you think an autocratic regime would find it less or more capable of doing big things?
Maybe you're trying to show that Congress isn't as dysfunctional as has been suggested, but certainly this has no relationship to the crumbling of American Democracy.
"In the absence of American Democracy, do you think an autocratic regime would find it less or more capable of doing big things?"
More capable of doing, but less capable of executing.
11 years, 4-5 bills that weren't terrible.
USA! USA! USA!
You make me miss the "Like" button more and more.
I think you need to asterisk the 2009 bill and the coronavirus bills as essentially country-is-on-fire emergencies.
Actually, I do not think country-on-fire-emergencies should be discounted. Other democracies, such as India, have not had as much success passing essential and life-saving legislation during the pandemic. And the results have been catastrophic. We should be very grateful for every bit of emergency legislation that we actually got!
India is a poor country and their federal government does little by way of "big" lesgislation anyway.
Of course, I come here all the time because I think most of what Kevin says is interesting and insightful. So it is unfortunate that I only feel motivated to comment when I really disagree with something. So it goes...and here it goes: Obviously, the Congress can occasionally pass things, but exactly what and under what conditions illustrate how deeply dysfunctional "Congress" (but really, the Republican Party) has become. (1) Relatively uncontroversial foreign policy matters. That covers START and the Iran deal REVIEW bill (not the Iran deal itself!) (2) Crises that could hurt the political fortunes of Republicans as well as Democrats. That covers the first two pandemic rescue bills (Democrats ARE willing to be bipartisan for the good of the country), and the initial (2008, TARP) response to the crisis that initiated the Great Recession, although not on Kevin's list. (3) things that can be put in a reconciliation bill (only works with a trifecta!), covering the 3rd COVID relief bill, the 2017 tax cut, and the final passage of the ACA. (4) Situations where one party has a trifecta AND 60 votes in the Senate, covering the main ACA bill and the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill. And one has to remember much of this legislation passed in response to two massive crises--all but 3 items on Kevin's list (START, Iran review bill, 2017 tax cut). I hardly know what Kevin was thinking putting the "tax increase on the rich" in the list, as those tax cuts were sunsetted. Republicans were completely under the gun there to avoid the entire tax cut disappearing. Democrats accommodated them, of course. Republicans would NEVER return the favor. For the most part, tax and spending changes can only be made (by Democrats, at least) when they hold the White House and both chambers of Congress. Non-speneding legislation can only be passed if a party meets that requirement AND has a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate. And that IS very damn dysfunctional. But sure, it can always be worse.
Yeah, including the fiscal cliff in this list is nuts. The Republicans out-clevered themselves when they passed the Bush tax cuts believing that they would still be in control when the time limit came up.
How does this record compare to other liberal democracies?
You mean, ACTUAL liberal democracies??
LOL, this has to be a joke right? Most of these things are just "keep the lights on" emergency maintainence. The only substantive piece of legislation was the ACA (aka, "Obamacare"), and that too was only itterative change not a fundamental reform of the healthcare system (and it was further weakened by the Supreme Court).
The GOP actually weakened the PPACA with no less than 54 Amendments.... and then didn't give it a single YEA vote.
Is this a joke? This is a pitiful rate of significant legislation passed over the past decade for the amount of problems we faced. Hell, one party spent the whole time trying to repeal Obamacare. A degraded institution isn't always one that just collapses overnight. It can also be one that steadily gets worse over time or gets there in fits and starts.
er, oops,
Irreversible warming tipping point may have been triggered: Arctic mission chief,
https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/irreversible-warming-tipping-point-may-have-been-triggered-arctic-mission-chief
and mega-drought with heat wave going on in US Southwest...but I'm sure they're not related.
Of the significant thresholds to avoid in global warming, I think that we have already passed half of them... and that was before this discouraging report.
All in the teeth of opposition from Republicans. Mitch McConnell is all that stands between us and a nation drunken sailors.
Please compare this to any previous decade in the US going back to 1780, or to any other major democracy. Americans have this doubly-benighted view, both that the mummified present is remotely like any past period in the US, or that America's sclerotic "democracy" is remotely like any of the other major democracies.
Sometimes this blog seems like the record of someone speculating endlessly about microbes who has never even realized that there are entire vast disciplines who have been studying the object of his random speculations for decades. Read some political science, or even some history, for god's sake!
I don’t know… I’m not impressed at all. I think I’d rather they did nothing.
The Iran deal wasn't a treaty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Comprehensive_Plan_of_Action#:~:text=IAEA%20safeguards%20system%22.-,Participants,1%2C%20and%20the%20EU.%22
You're likely missing some stuff which was significant but not partisan. Not everything partisan is significant, and vice versa.
Bad post.
I guess this year and last were consumed with pandemic rescue and (maybe) infrastructure bills, so the looming ransomware crisis, the “police executing unarmed people and/or non-violent criminals without trials” problem, the undermining of elections issue and all other natural or manmade disasters will need to wait until 2022 or later. Because Congress can’t possibly be expected to do much more than they’re already doing now.
Maybe it’s time to just introduce the “Dissolve United States into 50 Independent Countries Act” and ram that through on reconciliation terms (it definitely would have an impact on the federal budget, Ms. Parliamentarian) before we end up immersed in Civil War Part 2 or blue state residents end up second class citizens in their own country.
Political scientists often use David Mayhew's "significant laws" list to talk about this same question. This paper is helpful:
https://maxwellpalmer.com/research/divided_government_and_significant_legislation.pdf
Real lazy list here which includes an item which has not passed and several that passed and were repealed. Basically three things have passed which include two crises (Great Recession and COVID) and one that was near a crisis point (AHCA). These three items basically restored the status quo and I would not call them transformative. Color me unimpressed.
9 things in a decade, 1 of which has been repealed and one of which hasn't actually happened, and you think that pretty good? um.....i'd say you've set your standard way, way, way too low.
You forgot the TCSA Modernization Act. That was a very big deal.
It’s funny that no one thinks of congress funding endless war, mass murder, and total destruction as worth mentioning. It seems pretty significant to all the dead and injured.
Of that list that actually benefited America, only one was supported by the GOP.
And confirming judges and executive appointees is also a function of Congress, and that has been a right-wing induced crime spree....
Is this a good spot to point out that the GOP led Congresses in the last decade has been the most corrupt, least productive, and most extreme since the Caning of Sumner?
.... did I forget Most Obstructive?