Kevin Drum has a smart post on the way that unrelenting partisanship prevents proper legislating from ocurring:If all you want to do is hand out goodies — tax cuts, prescription drugs, defense contracts — life is easy. Everyone loves goodies. You don't need help from your opposite numbers to get stuff like that through Congress.But what if you want to pass something tougher? Something that takes as well as gives? If you have bipartisan support, you can do it right: you can stand up to special interests and K Street lobbyists and enact real reform. But you can only do this if you have political cover and plenty of votes. If, instead, you have to do it in the face of implacable partisan opposition, then you can't afford to make any more enemies. Every vote is precious, and that means instead of standing up to special interests, you have to buy them off. All of them.I was talking to a conservative the other day who was complaining that the Democrats' policies included a lot of corporate welfare -- the government had to buy off most health industry stakeholders to get health care reform moving, and insurance companies are going to benefit enormously; cap-and-trade, he said, would be a massive giveaway to energy producers, why not have a carbon tax? But of course the only way to get universal coverage without giving away the farm to health industry companies is through single-payer or, barring that, a strong public plan -- both implacably opposed by Republicans, despite the fact that the latter is a market-oriented compromise. Same thing with cap-and-trade: Typically, big government libruls (TM) would simply impose a regulatory fiat saying, "stop emitting." But compromise with Republicans on acid rain led to the more market-oriented cap-and-trade approach, which is now completely opposed by Republicans. A carbon tax, of course, would involve Republicans voting for a tax increase.Maybe it's a problem with Democratic legislative tactics -- instead of offering the compromise (public plan, cap-and-trade) they should start off with the massive big government plan and let the GOP bargain them down, since Republicans won't take yes for an answer when the Dems come out with some sensible public-private partnership. Another problem is one of legitimacy: I'd be interested to learn more of the history here, but it seems that in the past it has been an accepted function of the American political system that the president and party in power propose legislation and then the opposition party dilutes it as best they can (NCLB and the Bush tax cuts seem to be the best examples). But, with the exception of the stimulus, Democrats have not demonstrated the needed ability to actual come together as a coalition and pass legislation opposed by Republicans (I'm talking about you, Senate moderates) and so opposition Republicans don't feel the need to be particularly deferential to the results of the election. Thus, even though Obama ran and won on health care reform policies that are about the same as what he is trying to enact a year later, it's considered by the right to be some kind of crazy overreach. Ironically, the same moderates who mislead voters into thinking they are fiscally responsible do the same with bipartisanship; their unwillingness to support their party lets the GOP do anything but cooperate.
-- Tim Fernholz
