One of the mainstream media’s favorite
tropes is to bemoan the lack of bipartisanship in Washington. Turn on the cable chat or Sunday talk shows
that frame political discussion in our country and you will hear some variation
on the theme that “Washington is broken.” The culprits vary depending on the
speaker, but the overriding message is the same – why can’t our leaders
negotiate and … wait for it … COMPROMISE?
As with many fallacies espoused by elite
journalists, there is a thin patina of truth overlying a much more partisan
answer that they do not want to acknowledge – Republican Presidents have had a
far easier go of it in negotiating with Democrats in Congress than the other
way around. Indeed, this simple fact was acknowledged, albeit elliptically, by
David Brooks in his modest endorsement of Mitt Romney for President. Brooks
essentially said that Congressional Republicans were unlikely to bargain with
President Obama and therefore, to cut the deals necessary for our nation’s
future, electing Romney was the better solution because Democrats are more
amenable to compromise. Talk about rewarding bad behavior!
While the mainstream media bends over
backwards to amplify vague, if inconsequential statements being made by a few
Republicans regarding their willingness to increase tax “revenue” (these plans
look suspiciously like ones supported by their just-defeated Presidential
standard bearer), those same reporters rarely mention the wide gap between
words and deeds when each party is at the bargaining table. Without even
harkening back to the days of Ronald Reagan, who received wide support from
Democrats on tax increases and immigration reform, or George H.W. Bush, who cut
a deal in 1990 to raise taxes on the wealthy, one need only put our two most recent
Presidents up for comparison to see the difference in the other party’s
opposition.
Much can be said about the ruinous
effects of George W. Bush’s time in office, but a lack of bipartisanship on the
part of Democrats is not one of them. Bush’s legislative achievements were
impressive, though deleterious, to the nation, and in those victories many
Democrats “crossed the aisle” to support him. Consider No Child Left Behind, a
sweeping reform of education policy. Not only did The White House broker a deal
with two of Congress’s most liberal members (Congressman George Miller and
Senator Ted Kennedy), the bill garnered more Democratic votes in the House
(198) than Republican (182). In the Senate, the ”ayes” were nearly even (44
Republicans/43 Democrats). As another example, sweeping reform of the
bankruptcy code, something many liberals bemoaned as making it harder for
individuals to utilize that system to get a clean start, was supported by 73
House Democrats and 18 Democratic Senators.
Where Democrats were more recalcitrant, as
in the two massive tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003, each bill still received
nominal Democratic support (13 House Democrats and 12 Senate Democrats voted
for the 2001 bill, 4 House Democrats and 3 Senate Democrats voted for the 2003
bill); but even there, Democrats’ opposition was immaterial; the House was
under GOP control and in the Senate, reconciliation was utilized to avoid use
of the filibuster (though based on the final vote, the 2001 tax cut would not
have been blocked because less than 40 Democrats would have attempted to block
it).
Interestingly, although few Democrats
supported the tax cuts that helped lead us into financial ruin, they were the
ones providing the critical votes to address the cratering of the U.S. economy
in 2008. Nancy Pelosi is a favored piñata of the right wing, but she carried
more political water for George W. Bush than any person since Gunga Din at the
River Kwai. Pelosi’s caucus provided a no-need-for-Republican-votes majority on
TARP (241 votes) and housing relief (227 votes), and a near majority for Bush’s
2008 $156 billion stimulus bill (215 votes). In each of these votes,
Republicans were essentially after thoughts – for example, only 19 House
Republicans voted for TARP, while Senate Democrats voted in favor of all three
in greater numbers than Republicans[1].
Lastly, in foreign policy, 82 House and 29
Senate Democrats crossed the aisle to support the Iraq War Authorization even
though the evidence presented was wobbly and nothing like the “Grand Coalition”
or clear U.N. authorization that had been amassed by President George H.W. Bush
existed. On controversial matters like the 2008 reauthorization of the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act, 105 House Democrats and 22 Senate Democrats
(including Barack Obama) voted in favor of the law even though it contained a
provision granting retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that,
based on reporting, appeared to have turned over copious amounts of information
(in all likelihood illegally) to the Bush Administration. For all intents and
purposes, passage of this bill shut down critical lawsuits that had been filed
by private citizens and states in order to ascertain the full scope and nature
of the potentially illegal wiretapping, eavesdropping and transfer of phone
records of millions of Americans to the National Security Agency.
Now, let’s flash forward to the Presidency
of Barack Obama. The three biggest pieces of legislation passed by the Congress
during his time in office are the Affordable Care Act, the American Recovery
and Reinvestment Act and Dodd/Frank. Each of these bills ran into lockstep
Republican opposition. Taken together, nine
“aye” votes were cast by Republicans for these three bills. Not nine votes for
each bill, nine votes TOTAL. The ACA received a lone Republican vote in the
House[2] and no votes in
the Senate. No House Republicans voted for ARRA and just two Senate
Republicans, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, voted in the affirmative. As for
Dodd/Frank, three Republicans in each chamber supported a bill passed to
address at least some of the causes of the Great Recession. That the President
received so little Republican support should have been no surprise after a
whopping 3 House and 4 Senate Republicans voted in favor of what would become
the first law enacted after Obama’s inaugural – the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay
Act.
While it is true that the President has
garnered Republican support for other key pieces of legislation, the two that
leap most readily to mind were negotiated at the point of a fiscal gun –
specifically, the 2010 extension of the “Bush tax cuts” and the 2011 bill that
raised the nation’s debt ceiling[3]. In both instances, the result of
compromise was the thinnest of accomplishments – allowing the federal government
to continue operating, avoiding default on our debt and continuing tax policy
that overwhelmingly benefitted the wealthiest Americans. In other areas as
significant as a bill aimed at employing more than 1 million Americans and as
nominal as the appointment of the U.S. Public Printer, Republicans simply
refused to act[4]. Indeed, since the Democrats regained the Senate
majority in January 2007, Republican use of the filibuster has been
unprecedented, used not only to slow down passage of legislation Republicans
disfavor, but to postpone uncontroversial nominations for months on end,
throwing sand in the gears of effective governing and delaying the appointment
of highly qualified individuals who ended up being confirmed with near
unanimous support.
Principled opposition is a time honored
tradition in our form of government but blind obstruction is a different matter.
On major pieces of legislation that determined the trajectory of our country, from
war policy to economic bail outs, Democrats supported President Bush. The
reaction of Republicans to President Obama has been the exact opposite. They
attempted to stop the implementation of a health care bill whose conceptual
framework was created at a right-wing think tank and a stimulus act that
included a massive tax cut geared mostly to middle-class Americans. Meanwhile, they
utilized legislative tactics aimed at inhibiting the basic functioning of government. To say “both sides do it” is like saying the
flu and terminal cancer are the same because they both make you sick – factually
true but entirely beside the point.
[1] On TARP, Senate Democrats provided 39 votes,
Republicans, 35. On housing relief, 48 Democrats voted in favor, only 34
Republicans supported it. For the 2008 Stimulus, 47 Democrats voted for the bill,
compared to 32 Republicans.
[2] Representative Joseph Cao was that lone
Republican, but his presence in Congress was a quirk of history. He won his
seat in 2008 opposing William Jefferson, who was under federal investigation
for corruption, eking out a 3 point win. Cao was defeated for re-election in
2010.
[3] It is
worth noting that the debt ceiling was raised 7 times under George W. Bush,
including twice in 2008.
[4] Most of the American Jobs Act never saw the
light of day and Obama ended up recess appointing William Boarman as the Public
Printer.
