While the Impeachment Thunder Roars, Congress Quietly Legislates
So today is Impeachment Day, when we will have a long an ultimately pointless debate in the House that will likely end with Donald Trump becoming the third President in history to be impeached and, most likely, the third to be subsequently acquitted by the Senate.
But while that stuff is going on and dominating the news, something else is happening:
Congress approved USMCA, the replacement for NAFTA. There have been a few last-minute details to work out, but it looks like this is a done deal.
Congress also agreed to a $1.4 trillion budget deal that repeals some of the Obamacare taxes, raises spending and adds $500 billion to the 10-year deficit.
Mitt Romney and Michael Bennett proposed an expanded child tax credit that’s likely to get bipartisan support and has a good chance of passing.
In other words, at precisely the most contentious moment in American political history, Congress is actually doing significant stuff. Not necessarily good stuff, mind you. But stuff.
As was pointed out this morning, both sides are using impeachment to rally their bases and raise campaign funds. That makes me wonder if the play here is even more cynical than I’d realized: use impeachment to appease the base and keep the press busy. Then quietly pass bipartisan legislation while everyone is distracted by the West Wing-World Wrestling mashup dominating the discussion. Call it TWWWWF.
Why would Congress want their legislation to be quiet?Report
Because under normal circumstances, both sides would start screaming about how bad it is. Right now, they’re distracted so time to slip some shot past the goalie.Report
I don’t understand. My Congressman helps pass a budget that reduces Obamacare taxes, and yet he doesn’t want me to know about it? Passes a trade deal that benefits labor unions, but wants to keep it on the down low?
I’m just not seeing the logic.Report
This is the paradox of modern politics: each side has a very entrenched base of voters with no goodwill towards the other side. Because of structural certainties such as single-member districts, gerrymandering, and urbanization – elections are a foregone conclusion in most districts in terms of which side will win. This means that almost every member of Congress and almost every senator plays much more to the base than they do to swing voters, and they are smart to do so. However this also means that if they want to get anything accomplished such as the passage of a budget or the passage of a trade deal it requires cooperation with at least some members of the other party. Very few base voters appreciate it when their member of Congress looks like they are lovey-dovey with the other side. So the Paradox is that they talk up their fighting spirit during election time but they secretly play nice as an actual legislator. If this paradox were not in place then we would always have government shut downs, legislative stalemate, and we would never see a budget. Report
Maybe I’m just being hypersensitive to the “Both Sides” term, but I don’t think Democrats have a symmetrical aversion to working with Republicans.
For example, there were a couple of left-twitter comments making the rounds asking why we would give Trump a trade deal victory during an impeachment fight but the consensus (in my reading) of the left-o-sphere was that giving labor unions a benefit was a preferable outcome, even if Trump chooses to bray about it and take credit.
In the larger sense, in this historical moment, Democrats really have a broad menu of tangible policy goals they want to see accomplished and are willing to partner and compromise with Republicans to achieve.
Whereas the Republicans have a really small list- tax cuts maybe, abortion restrictions and possibly expanding gun rights.
But that’s about it, and the last two are being given to them by the courts so they really have almost no legislative goals to speak of.Report
Considering that there are websites that keep track of how often people have voted with Trump, even on good stuff, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to throw *some* blame at the Dems.Report
You’re right that Democrats have many valid reasons to be skeptical to cooperate on many things with a rather vile modern GOP. My point is we cannot govern without doing so, hence the paradox. This is why it’s smart politics to play up your fighting bona fides during election season and to do some at least mild cooperation while the legislature is in session. The trade deal might be framed by Trump as a victory but Democrats should frame it as a retreat from his original protectionist position and a win for restoration of normalcy. Report