Failure modes of the United States, part 1c

  Many legislatures around the world have veto points.  If a particular party needs to be included in every plausible governing coalition, then that party wields an effective veto over policy.  Those situations, however, are rare.  They are also contingent on voter preferences.  One key election, and the veto player’s influence is gone. 

The U.S. Congress possesses multiple veto points.  One is the committee chairperson, who possesses almost absolute veto control.  Another is the Senate filibuster.  Neither of these are particularly new, but it is plausible to argue that two developments have made them far more problematic.

First, U.S. parties are far more parliamentary than they used to be.  It is now very difficult to peel away opposition legislators than it used to be, particularly among the Republicans.  Second, the Senate filibuster has become routine, creating a de facto 60-vote supermajority.  Thus, the emergence of two new veto points:  the Senate minority party and swing senators.  I wouldn’t bet on swing senators lasting all that long.  Moderate Republicans are down to two women from Maine.  Moderate Democrats are more common, but I suspect that the Democratic leadership will eventually figure out ways to discipline its members that are at least as strong as the Republicans’. 

I suspect, but do not know, that the above development is the half-threat to the American system of government that Carlos thought he might be seeing.

There are multiple ways in which this could cause the Argentinization of the United States.  The current employer-based health care system, for example, is collapsing.  A failure to reform won’t cause any sort of immediate disaster.  But it might (perhaps) cause inequality to increase while saddling those businesses that try to maintain coverage with unsustainable costs.  Over the decades, that could become a slow-motion catastrophe.  Conversely, American public finance is unsustainable over the long-term.  But the definition of “crisis” keeps ratcheting up.  You can punt for a long tine, as debt piles up and public services ratchet down, but unless a miracle occurs you eventually run down the public sector and with it, long-term economic growth.  In that story, we have seen the future, and it is California.  Finally, financial reform already seems to have been quite watered down.  You can’t blame Congress for that, and it might not even be a problem … but there are reasons to believe that we’re setting the stage for another October 2008.  Not to mention Simon Johnson’s suspicion that the U.S. government has been captured by a financial elite.  More veto points, the harder it will be to free the Republic from that capture. 

And then there is global warming.  There is no world government, which means that there is a coordination problem among the big players.  A U.S. incapable of making big decisions probably means that nobody makes the big decisions.  I don’t know, maybe the European Union would decide to impose carbon tariffs, or some farsighted Brazilian leader could bring together a coalition of everybody-but-America, but that seems unlikely. 

To be honest, I’m not convinced that the combination of the filibuster and parliamentary parties necessarily spells paralysis.  Nor does federal paralysis necessarily spell Argentinization:  this country has a lot of things going for it that Argentina never did.  But the legislative provisions of the U.S. constitution are not functioning well right now.  The growing ability of a minority to block Congressional action seems to me to bring a much greater chance of political failure than the presidential veto or judicial review. 

Comments

[Scott Blair]

Hrmm. This is actually what I've been thinking when reading your so-called failure modes. Time and time again, legislation gets stuck in the Senate. But how serious of problems are they, really? How much of it is temporary?

Sure, Bush didn't get immigration reform or social security privatization. But he did manage to get other policy goals through Congress. So how much of the failure on health care reform, financial reform, and global warming under the current administration is is a systemic flaw, and how much of it is just a weak president?

Put another way, say we get President Huckabee in 2012. Will he have the same problems with deadlock in Congress?

[Scott Blair]

As a brief followup, I should note that a lot of judicial and administrative innovation in the last few decades has been a response to Congress's failure to tackle any of the problems. How major of an issue that is is unclear; do we really need a government mandated asbestos settlement? But it's worth thinking about.

[Andrew R.]

One veto point that I haven't seen addressed here is I think a greater threat than any mentioned so far: a combination of NIMBYISM and bureaucratic inertia that makes things getting done happen in a time frame of decades rather than years. So, for example, California's high speed rail is going to take eons to complete because of environmental assessments, local interest groups battling tooth and nail to keep track from going through *their* locality, etc. Various urban governments here in Central Texas have approved a commuter rail corridor to run from north of Austin down to San Antonio. It's all well and good, but several years on, none of the governments have managed to appropriate any money for this project. Meanwhile, the commuter train that Austin finally has built, that from Cedar Park to downtown, is a year and a half behind schedule for opening, and doesn't appear like it will open any time in the near future.

We need lots of nuclear reactors and we need them yesterday, but it's simply impossible to build them in America because of NIMBYism and government sluggishness.

Indeed, if the voice of God were to announce tomorrow to humanity that the Hubbert Peak is here now and must be addressed, it would still take over twenty years to get viable non-automotive transit even started because of all the environmental assessments, surveying, need to find property and appropriate funds, etc.

I'm not sure what this veto point could be called (I favor "Bureaucratic Constipation"), but it's the most severe veto point that threatens the U.S.

[Noel Maurer]

I agree that Nimbyism seems like a big problem. What I'm not so sure of is whether it is actually a problem.

Frex, the U.S. has managed to triple its natural gas pipeline capacity.

Or many urban areas continue to build freeways out to the horizon. Texas, Arizona, the growth is impressive. Meanwhile, many of the slow projects (like, say, the Green and Blue line extensions in Boston) are slow for funding reasons, not environmental reviews. That's also the problem with the CHST, much more so than route issues, most of which have been ironed out.

Finally, as for nuclear, bureaucracy is not behind the delays. Rather, it's finance. The projects rarely make sense, even at current prices.

None of this is to argue that Nimbyism isn't a problem. But it is to say that I'd need more proof before I'd conclude that it is a systemic problem in the United States.

[Scott Blair]

Are Texas and Arizona appropriate examples, though? They do have plenty of land. I think Boston, or NYC's aging subway system, are better examples.

OTOH, consider the rapid proliferation in wind energy the past few years.

(Is actually going to do a note topic on green LULUs).

I will note that I think the government's rapid passage of the stimulus bill, TARP, the 9/11 victim's fund, etc. do suggest in a serious emergency that Congress can act.

[Leo Petr]

US fortunately does not have the Liberum veto (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberum_veto) that brough down the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Imagine every member of Congress having the power to veto legislation.