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Jewish World Review
August 3, 2011
3 Menachem-Av, 5771
Government on autopilot
By
Dana Milbank
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
We are in one of those awkward interludes in politics when leaders stop pummeling each other long enough to congratulate themselves on what fine statesmen they are.
“I want to thank my friend the majority leader for his work in getting this agreement over the finish line,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said of Harry Reid on the Senate floor Tuesday. “We may disagree a lot, but it’s never, ever personal, and . . . we’ll get together when the greater good is at stake.” The Republican’s gushing extended to the man whose defeat he has made his top priority. “I also want to thank the president,” McConnell went on. “It’s a testament to the goodwill of those on both sides that we were able to reach this agreement.” Reid stood to return the praise. “I appreciate the kind words that my counterpart, Mr. McConnell, has stated on the floor,” he said. “I appreciate my friend the Republican leader putting his arms around this idea I came up with.” Not to interrupt this mutual back-patting session, but what have these gentlemen done to earn the kudos? Certainly, the debt-ceiling deal they struck was better than allowing the United States to become a deadbeat. But the thrust of their agreement is the opposite of leadership: They put the ship of state on autopilot. Entitlement programs, tax-code reform and other big decisions will go to yet another quasi-independent panel, this one a “super-committee” of lawmakers. In the likely event they can’t agree, government spending would be dictated by automatic “triggers” and across-the-board cuts, known as “sequestration mechanisms,” that take decisions out of lawmakers’ hands. The balanced-budget amendment contemplated in the compromise could mean that lawmakers would permanently surrender power to formulas. The compromise, in other words, only confirms that the government is ungovernable. Lawmakers in both parties defied their more ideological peers to endorse this plan by an overwhelming 74-26 in the Senate and 269-161 in the House, where Gabby Giffords’s surprise return added bipartisan warmth and fuzziness. Leaders took this as validation of their chaotic course. “I know there are all kinds of pundits and commentators who talk about how the system is broken,” Reid said, celebrating his “remarkable” achievement. “But we did send a message to the world and to the American people that our great democracy is working.” In this, McConnell concurred. “The push and pull Americans saw in Washington these past few weeks was not gridlock,” he maintained. “It was the will of the people working itself out and a political system that was never meant to be pretty.” McConnell, who has denounced the Democrats loudly and daily, incongruously quoted Churchill’s line that “courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent, went further back than Churchill, claiming allegiance with James Madison and Alexander Hamilton. He read from a column claiming that “the Framers would be pleased at the ‘spectacle.’ ” But the Federalist Papers make no mention of the sort of hostage situation that unfolded in recent weeks. The Founders were silent on the rights of a small group of lawmakers, claiming they received marching orders from God, to bring the nation to the edge of default. The Constitution doesn’t specifically mention negotiating walkouts, Satan sandwiches and deeming budgets into law without votes. It’s equally possible Madison and Hamilton would have thought today’s lawmakers weak for postponing their argument over tax increases by hiding behind a committee, or that the framers would be puzzled by lawmakers’ goal of $2.1 trillion in deficit reduction over a decade – when Republican and Democratic lawmakers on the Bowles-Simpson commission had agreed to nearly twice that much. Certainly, the Founders would have been amused by their successors’ habit of denouncing legislation before supporting it. “Everything is not okay, and it won’t be okay until we have the courage and leadership to institute tax reform,” said Sen. Mark Udall (D-N.M.) before casting a “yea” vote. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) denounced part of the compromise as “reckless” and “close to violating our oath of office” — before voting in favor. That was nearly as courageous as presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s denunciation of the compromise — after passage was assured. Despite all this, Reid still pronounced himself “hopeful that the spirit of compromise that has taken root in Washington over the last several days will endure.” Senators then prepared for a five-week congressional recess, leaving unresolved a dispute that has shut down the Federal Aviation Administration and put 75,000 people out of work. It is a fitting coda: The federal government is on autopilot, and the FAA is grounded.
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Previously:
• 08/02/11 Dems mourn debt deal like death
• 07/27/11 Life imitates sport
• 07/26/11 Obama and Boehner take on Washington
• 07/21/11 Why Americans are angry at Congress
• 07/20/11 The new party of Reagan
• 07/18/11 Rob Portman, the boring Midwesterner who could bring sanity to the debt debate
• 07/13/11 John Boehner's bind
• 07/04/11 Stephen Colbert, Karl Rove and the mockery of campaign finance
• 07/01/11 President Puts Up His Dukes, As He Ought To
• 06/28/11 Rod Blagojevich verdict: All shook up
• 06/27/11 Progressives voice their anger at Obama
• 06/24/11 ‘Mission accomplished,’ Obama style
• 06/22/11 Jon Huntsman's first step toward oblivion
• 06/21/11 Scott Walker finds making bumper stickers is easier than creating jobs
• 06/20/11 A day of awkwardness with Mitt Romney
• 06/06/11 Hubris and humility: Sarah Palin and Robert Gates on tour
• 06/02/11 The Weiner roast
• 06/01/11 Congress clocks in to clock out
• 05/30/11 Hermanator II: No More Mr. Gadfly
• 05/24/11 How Obama has empowered Netanyahu
• 05/24/11 Pawlenty bends his truth-telling
• 05/20/11 Default deniers say it's all a hoax
• 05/18/11: Gingrich gives voice to moderation
• 05/17/11: Donald Trump and the House of Horrors
• 05/16/11: The medical mystery of Mitt Romney
• 05/12/11: The body impolitic: Schock photos should tempt lawmakers to cover up
• 05/10/11: Muskets in hand, tea party blasts House Republicans
• 05/09/11: The GOP debate: America -- and the party -- needs the grown-ups
• 05/05/11: Mitch Daniels, an alternative to scary
• 05/03/11: Obama's victory lap
• 05/02/11: How the journalist prom got out of control
• 04/28/11: Obama's birther day: Why did he lower himself by appearing in the briefing room?
• 04/27/11: Obama, lost in thought
• 04/24/11: Andrew Breitbart and the rifts on the right
• 04/22/11: Ten Commandments for 2012
• 04/21/11: Obama likes Facebook. Facebook likes Obama.
• 04/18/11: Without Nancy Pelosi, Obama is adrift
• 04/15/11: If progressives ran the world
• 04/14/11: Faith in political apostasy
• 04/13/11: One man's revolution is another's political expediency
• 04/11/11: Shutdown theatrics
• 04/06/11: Paul Ryan's irresponsible budget
• 04/05/11: Robots in Congress? Yes, we replicant!
• 04/04/11: Robert Gibbs, Facebook and the White House corporate placement service
• 04/01/11: Haley Barbour, the fat cats' candidate
• 03/31/11: Republican freshmen in House shut down compromise, and possibly the government
• 03/30/11: Coburn and Durbin, the dynamic duo of the debt crisis
• 03/28/11: The Obama doctrine: A gray area the size of Libya
• 03/24/11: Dems as Weiners
• 03/23/11: Obama's quick trip from tyrant to weakling
• 03/17/11: Who's afraid of Elizabeth Warren?
• 03/15/11: The underwear flap over Bradley Manning
• 03/10/11: In Senate's debt debate, talk isn't cheap
• 03/09/11: With Obama's new Gitmo policy, Administration officials had some 'splainin to do
• 03/02/11: Issa press aide scandal is like bad reality TV
• 02/25/11: Jay Carney: Mouthpiece for an inscrutable White House
• 02/14/11: The Donald trumps the pols at CPAC
• 02/09/11: Arianna Huffington's ideological transformation
© 2011, Washington Post Writers Group
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