Politics Become a Long Game Show

Is Hilary Clinton running for president?

And is New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie headed in the same direction?

Do Affordable Care Act issues give Republicans a strong position in the 2014 elections?

Is the three-way race for Maine governor heating up a year in advance?

All these questions point to the United States having probably the longest political campaigns of any established democracy in the world.

President Obama has more than three years remaining is his term, but the political media is already honed in on how Hilary is doing with African-American voters and Chris’ tight-wire act over a potentially hostile GOP right wing.

Next year, there will be congressional races in which almost all incumbents will be re-elected, thanks to the way their districts are gerrymandered.  But the media wants us to focus on both possible disaster and opportunity for either party to control the Congress taking office in 2015.

To be sure, almost every vote or statement by a politician is done with an eye to the next election.  In a country where democracy is expressed through elected representatives of the people, it’s not surprising that candidates continually play to the voters.

The trouble is that political posturing during long campaigns can take the place of governing.  If everybody takes positions based on what they think will please most voters, their conflicting views can amount to posturing that leads to government paralysis.

Even in polarized Washington, members of Congress can occasionally agree on some national issues.  But, unless there is a rare, clear message from the voters, almost nothing happens in the long run-up to the election.

For example, for the first time in many years, a renewed national farm policy cannot pass.   

The Democrats want to continue including both price supports for farmers and food stamps for the less fortunate.  The GOP wants to cut food stamps, but likes price supports.

So the traditional compromise on farm policy has become impossible, thanks to a bigger battle over the proper role of government.

Both sides agree on the need to resolve immigration policy.  And they agree that the Democrats have greater appeal to the growing bloc of Latino voters who care about this policy.

While GOP members of the U.S. House of Representatives have fewer Latinos in their districts than do Democrats, they have an eye on the presidential election in 2016.  While they seem to oppose a comprehensive policy, they may concede a few changes to the law.

In both cases, it’s likely that the country would be better served by the adoption of full-scale agriculture and immigration policies, based on compromise between the two parties.  In the long prelude to elections, that’s unlikely.

In Canada and in Europe, campaigns have been a matter of weeks not years.  Of course, there’s political posturing there, but governments can function closer to normal nearer to elections.

Before we try to figure out how to copy them, we had better recognize that foreign politicians are on the way to copying us.  American political consultants now enjoy a world market, and they guide their clients to start early in trying to manipulate public opinion.

Is there nothing that can be done about the transformation of the American political system into a permanent political campaign?

The best option would be for office holders to demonstrate leadership rather than trying to cater to what their polls tell them about public opinion.

Leading in this way may decrease the chances of being re-elected.  Too often, holding onto office becomes an end in itself.  Real term limits could free politicians to focus more on policy and less politics.

It’s not all the fault of politicians.  Television “news” programs are also responsible for the continuous campaigns.

Serious coverage of public issues used to be financed by the profits from popular game and reality shows.  But networks have cut back on coverage and expect the news operation to be profitable, so the ongoing political saga has become the new game show.

Television pundits have spent more time handicapping the effect of the Obamacare sign-up snafu on next year’s elections than they ever did in explaining the program.

The television outlets think more people will follow public affairs in the off-season if it looks like a sport or a game.  And they offer full employment for pundits, whose opinions now pass for facts.

 
Without help in understanding the issues, we are left with politicians and television catering to our prejudices, but not our concerns. We face the prospect of ever longer campaigns with little real content.

Filibuster Abuse Will Lead to its End

The U.S. Senate decision last week to allow presidential appointees to be approved by a simple majority was a waypoint on the path of history.

The Constitution specifies only a few cases when Congress must have more than a simple majority to take action. Appointees need only a simple majority. So the vote should have been routine.

But Congress adopts its own rules.  When the Senate went to work in 1789, its rules allowed unlimited debate.  There was full discussion, but it seldom prevented votes.

By 1917, endless debate blocked voting on World War I issues.  Senate Democrats decided there had to be a way to bring “cloture” and ruled that debate could be cut off by a two-thirds majority.

Under the new rule, endless debate – filibustering – was confined to one or two bills a year.   

The former Confederate states had lost the Civil War, but their senators managed to block civil rights for African-Americans by using the filibuster.

By 1975, opposition to civil rights was crumbling, and Senate Democrats moved to make it easier to end debate, allowing debate to be ended by a vote of three-fifths of its members.

Both Republicans and Democrats used the filibuster to block the confirmation of presidential appointees.

One-time deals on appointees have been struck by the two parties, but they could not agree to change the Senate rules.

In recent years, the rate of filibusters has sharply increased.  For one thing, it was no longer necessary for the minority, having blocked cloture, to continue the debate.  Its filibuster threat was accepted in place of actually doing it.

The Republican Senate minority has resorted to using the filibuster threat hundreds of times to block legislation and to prevent President Obama from naming people to executive office or to the courts.

Endless debate had become a tool not to promote full and thoughtful discussion but with the open intent to introduce minority rule.

The Democrats threatened to use their majority to change the rule to allow decisions by a simple majority, but that change was thought to be so drastic that it was labeled “the nuclear option.”

In other words, majority rule in a democracy was considered to be as dangerous as a nuclear weapon.

Why?  Because either party might find itself in the minority at any given moment, so it would want today’s minority to have the kind of filibuster protection that it might want later.

By last week, Republican senators had made it clear they would not approve any appointees to the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., although it is authorized by law to have 11 judges, and there are only eight now on the bench.

The GOP had no serious objections to the three Obama appointees.  But it feared that the ideological balance on the court could shift away from conservative domination by justices appointed by Republican presidents.  It wanted the court reduced to the current eight judges.

The GOP was unwilling to wait until there was a Republican president and Senate to change the number of judges, assuming it would do so if it had control.

While the Constitution provides that the president appoints federal judges subject to the “advice and consent” of the Senate, it does not suggest that a Senate minority should legislate by blocking presidential appointments.

With the frequent use of the filibuster, the rule could prevent a presidential election from meaning much in the face of a determined Senate minority.

So the majority Democrats drew the line.  They used their majority to rule that executive and judicial appointments below the Supreme Court should be subject only to a majority vote.

Maine’s two senators split their votes. Independent Angus King, who has softened his opposition to the filibuster, voted with the Democrats, saying “I am sorry it had to come to this.”

Moderate Republican Susan Collins showed she was more Republican than moderate.  As a moderate, she supported the blocked confirmation of an Obama appointee to the D.C. court. But she joined with all other Republicans to oppose the change to majority rule that would have made that appointment possible.

Collins called the vote “a terrible mistake.”  Presumably, she worried that future majorities could run wild, unchecked by the filibuster.

Perhaps a Senate run by a simple majority rather than by filibuster might do more to limit extreme legislation.  The majority would know that after the next election, the other party could gain the votes to reverse its actions.

 
Inevitably, the Senate will someday allow majority rule to apply to all appointments and all bills.  That’s the historical message of last week’s vote.

Obamacare Mess Influences Political Outlook

It would not be surprising if President Barack Obama now regrets that he went along with labeling the Affordable Care Act as “Obamacare.”

If it worked well, his name would always be attached to it. But what if it turned out to be a mess?

On the plus side, the ACA is a serious attempt to provide health insurance to tens of millions of Americans and to close some of the loopholes that allowed insurers to cherry-pick the market by, for example, refusing to insure those with pre-existing conditions.

But the negative side is overwhelming the good.

What’s wrong with the ACA, aside from the obvious failure of the online system for signing up for coverage?

Because of the way it was adopted, it is a complex and cumbersome method of extending coverage.  It squeaked through Congress without a single Republican vote even though then Maine GOP Sen. Olympia Snowe might have been willing to support it with some changes.

To pass it, the Democrats had to forego necessary changes to the bill for fear that further debate would allow the Republicans to kill it.  The lack of good leadership in either congressional party produced an unfinished law.

And Obama, as usual, seemed not to be a factor at all.

In Congress, there was not enough support for a single-payer system. Instead, the ACA is based on the theory that competition among insurers could produce results similar to government-only insurance elsewhere in the world.

The public-private plan is not working well. In some states, including Maine, there are few competitors, meaning there is little choice and no real cost reductions.

That means that one of the key promises behind the ACA, that it would lower ever-increasing health care costs, is not being realized.  In fact, some insurers boosted their rates before the law went into effect.

And one choice –“If you like your current policy, you can keep it” – is not possible if it doesn’t meet ACA standards.  This was Obama’s key promise to ease transition to the new system, but the promise was not kept.

The principal reason for health insurance reform was to expand coverage to almost all of the uninsured.  But that could only happen if the states went along with the expansion of Medicaid, and over half have refused.

Obama and the Democrats, faced with relentless Republican criticism, failed to explain and promote the ACA.  One of the main reasons the 2010 elections produced such success for the Tea Party movement was the success of its unanswered attacks on the new program.

The failure of the computerized system for signing up for insurance suggests that Obama and Kathleen Sibelius, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, thought the hard work was mostly done when the ACA was adopted.

Not only did they fail to inform the public, but they allowed the system to be developed without sufficient supervision and competent management.  Sibelius says she accepts responsibility.  What does that mean, if she’s not fired?

The damage caused by this vulnerable, patchwork program and its mismanagement goes far beyond the ACA mess.

Republicans have continuously attacked it, because they oppose any increased role for government, even in this hybrid public-private plan. 

A successful roll-out would have refuted their argument about government’s inefficiency.  That’s why the GOP made a last-ditch effort to defund it, just before the October 1 launch for signing up.

Their failure to defund it was coupled with the government shutdown they forced.  Voters opposed defunding and the shutdown.

Obama and Democrats began to look at the possibility of the 2014 elections giving them the ability to regain political control in Washington.  The ACA fiasco may have flipped the situation.

The president seems to have lost his self-confidence, hoping that if the system begins to work properly, people will forget this year’s problems. 

The ACA is beyond outright repeal, because its ban on refusing coverage for pre-existing conditions and extending coverage for young people on their parents’ policies are in effect.

Instead of the ACA’s momentum pushing GOP leaders to negotiate improvements, they maintain their steadfast opposition.  More voters may come to agree with them.

Hardcore conservative Tea Partiers, favoring repeal without proposing a viable alternative, may now stand to gain in next year’s elections, rather than losing ground to more traditional Republicans.  That’s the recipe for more Washington deadlock.

Ideally, both sides should agree to a short delay and a formula for fixing the obvious defects in the ACA.

 
Realistically, that won’t happen, and the ACA debacle may influence American politics for years to come.

Social Security Now a National Pension Plan

“The Good Life for Less.”  That’s the title of an article in the latest issue of the AARP magazine.

Its focus is finding places to live where a couple can get by on their Social Security payments.  Bangor is one of the five featured places from across the country.

Living on Social Security and not much else has become common.  Two-thirds of retirees receive more than half their income from the federal retirement program.  About 35 percent get virtually all their income from it.

Social Security is the biggest single source of retirement income, well ahead of the combination of private sector and government pensions.

In effect, Social Security has gradually become this country’s universal pension program.  In light of the opposition to having single payer health care insurance, it may be surprising that the U.S. has a single payer retirement plan.

It didn’t start out that way.  President Franklin D. Roosevelt led the effort for Social Security, because the Depression had driven more than half the people over 65 into poverty.

In the 1930s, older people were expected to live only a couple of years after they reached 65.  So the plan would provide end-of-life support, when added to savings and pensions, rescuing older people from a poverty they could not otherwise escape.

Just like the Affordable Care Act, Social Security was attacked from by conservatives, who claimed it was big-government socialism.  So they challenged it before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Court ruled that it was within the power of the federal government to create the program, because it was based on the government’s taxing power, which is almost absolute.

That’s exactly the same reasoning that the Court used to rule that the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare – is legal.

Perhaps someday the Affordable Care Act will become embedded in the American way of life and be considered just as essential as Social Security.  But, unlike its predecessor, the ACA is a hybrid public-private program and is far more complex.

At the outset of Social Security, nobody suggested the country was getting itself into a national retirement plan with the government as its source of finance and management.

Social Security has been financed out of the revenues from payroll taxes of current workers and their employers.  Except at the start, they have always exceeded outlays.

But that will not continue as there are more retirees and fewer contributors.  Because so many depend on Social Security, it is inconceivable that the program can be sharply reduced, meaning that at some point, general tax revenues would have to supplement the payroll tax.

Some believe that if Social Security funds were invested in the stock market, gains there would keep payments up without resorting to general funds.  They also would like to reduce the role of the federal government.

The problem with that proposal is that the stock market is not reliable enough to make it possible to count on the steady income flow needed to support fixed retirement payments.

But something needs to be done to make sure Social Security costs are manageable.

The retirement age used for full payments is already increasing, and it may have to go up even more as life expectancy grows.

It seems likely that Washington will change the method of calculating the inflation adjustment, which will mean lower annual increases and lower federal costs.

The payroll tax as a share of income has not been increasing as fast as have the incomes themselves.  The cap on the amount of employment income subject to the Social Security tax would have to be increased.

One way to do that would be simply to remove the cap.  The wealthiest people might never receive payments equal to what they had contributed, but it’s unlikely they would suffer a seriously adverse effect.

Or the payroll tax could be gradually eliminated and the income tax increased accordingly.  Lower income, employed people, who might not otherwise pay taxes, could be required to pay a minimum income tax.

And Congress should not add on new programs to be financed through the Social Security tax without ensuring they pay for themselves.  Today, both disability and Medicare operate at a loss and are eating into their reserves.

What’s clear is that the country has become dependent on Social Security.  That makes it imperative for Washington to deal with it before revenues become inadequate.

 
Social Security shows how single payer health insurance might work. But it also shows that any federal program needs constant effort to keep it financially viable.