Is Congress Productive?

Polling indicates that most Americans don’t think so…A poll published on August 3, 2014 by NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist College found that 74%, nearly three-fourths of voters, think that Congress has been somewhat or very unproductive this year. Basically—Americans don’t think Congress does anything. So how do we define productivity as it relates to Congress?

At a fundraiser on August 6^th President Obama said, "This has become the least productive Congress in modern history…And that's by objective measures, just basic activity." So how would President Obama determine whether or not Congress was productive? One definition of productivity is “the effectiveness of productive effort, especially in industry, as measured in terms of the rate of output per unit of input”. Essentially, in legislative terms, how many laws has Congress passed? In a divided Congress, where Republicans in the House block legislation from the Democratic Senate and vice versa, it is difficult for the parties to compromise and find a version of a bill both houses can pass. So can we simply look at the sheer number of bills passed per session as an accurate measure?

If we calculate productivity by volume of legislation, then yes, the 113^th session of Congress has been particularly unproductive, even by historical standards. Total volume of legislation tends to decrease when Republicans and Democrats both control a house of Congress, but the current divided Congress is particularly gridlocked.

Graph from The Fix by Chris Cillizza

What does the Constitution say?

In Article 8 of the Constitution, the duties of Congress are outlined. These myriad responsibilities include: the power to collect taxes, pay off debts, provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States, borrow money, regulate commerce with foreign nations, establish immigration guidelines, coin money, punish counterfeiters, establish post offices and roads, promote the progress of science and the useful arts, provide patents, punish crimes committed at sea, declare war, raise and support armies, maintain a navy, make rules for the governing of army and naval forces and “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States”.

That is a pretty comprehensive list of congressional duties. And making laws is just one of them. To be sure, fulfilling many of these duties requires writing legislation, but is Congress required to make new laws?

How do members of Congress use their time?

In fact, most members of Congress spend their time visiting with constituents and raising money for their next election. A PowerPoint presentation given to new congressmen by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) outlines an example daily schedule. First, 4 hours of call time, 1-2 hours of constituent visits, 2 hours of committee meetings, 1 hour of strategic outreach and 1 hour of “recharge time”. This makes for a 10 hour day. New legislation is not necessarily being written during any of this time. Especially for member of the House of Representatives who are up for reelection every two years, the time spent calling may not be an exaggeration. In fact, former Representative Tom Perriello (D-Va.) said that four hours to make fundraising phone calls could be “low-balling the figure so as not to scare the new Members too much.”

Slide from a PowerPoint presentation given by the DCCC to incoming members of Congress.

If members of Congress spend four hours per day raising money for the next election, would voters find that time “productive”? Are fundraising events more productive than establishing immigration guidelines or raising and supporting armies? Doubtful. Although Congress doesn’t necessarily need to pass more laws every year to seem productive, Congress does need to act on issues that matter to voters. The idea of immigration reform, for example, has been tossed around for years, but nothing has been done. But in order for voters to view Congress as productive, decisive action needs to be taken on important issues. Unfortunately, expecting a Democratic Senate and a Republican House to compromise on important issues may just be asking too much.

Beirut to Benghazi: A Timeline of Embassy Attacks

We mourn, but then we must move forward.

The loss of American lives is always a tragedy. When these losses occur overseas, especially in areas of conflict, we get angry and demand answers. Never has this been more true than with the September 2012 attacks on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya that left four Americans dead. Since then, Republicans have been on an obsessive hunt for any information that might place blame for the tragedy on the White House. The response has been overwhelming and just a tad excessive. Both former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and current Secretary John Kerry have been called to testify to Congress. The House of Representatives has conducted more than 13 hearings, written more than 25,000 pages of documents and held more than 50 briefings about the events in Benghazi.

On August 6, 2014, the House Intelligence Committee released yet another report on Benghazi. According to Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, the senior Democrat on the intelligence panel, "Our investigation found the intelligence community warned about an increased threat environment, but did not have specific tactical warning of an attack before it happened." Essentially, the events were not a result of malicious intentions—only a tragic misread of the available information. This conclusion matches every previous Congressional report and hearing.

Despite these findings, a House Select Committee created in May 2014 will continue to call hearings to examine evidence from the attacks. Apparently, Republicans think there is more to find. It has been almost two years since the Benghazi tragedy, and yet, Congress continues to spend time and taxpayer money rehashing the same information over and over.

But it wasn’t always this way. Unfortunately, attacks on US embassies are not a new phenomenon. The Global Terrorism Database, a service of the University of Maryland, College Park, has compiled information on over 125,000 terrorist attacks across the world. Their data shows that there have been more than 30 deadly attacks on US embassies and consulates since 1970. The timeline below shows attacks that resulted in at least two casualties. Note that the events in Benghazi technically occurred over two days in September 2012.

Timeline includes attacks on US embassies and consulates since 1970 with at least two casualties.

So how have similar situations been handled by Congress? On April 18, 1983, with President Ronald Reagan in office, a suicide bomber drove a truck into the US Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. The resulting blast killed 63 people, 17 of whom were Americans, including top CIA personnel. This incident is still the most deadly terrorist attack on American diplomatic ground. On October 23, 1983, another bomber drove a truck of explosives into a US Marine compound in Beirut, killing over 240 servicemen. Despite the fact that Congress was controlled by Democrats, the White House was not blamed for the attack. The Democratic Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neill, ordered a hearing and investigation—just one.

The investigation concluded, finding that “very serious errors in judgment were made”, and the document suggested urgent security measures for President Reagan to implement overseas. Just months after the report was written, in March of 1984, another US embassy was bombed in Beirut. The CIA’s station chief, Bill Buckley, was kidnapped, tortured and murdered. In the wake of this third tragedy in Beirut in eighteen months, Congress didn’t hold any hearings. All of the culpability went to the perpetrators, not our government.

There are a lot of lessons here. First, safety measures can always be improved. In both the Beirut and Benghazi bombings, the intelligence community had intercepted information that could have prevented the attack. Unfortunately, in a dangerous world, those particular threats were not given priority. But time cannot go backwards, and we cannot save the four brave Americans we lost in Libya. We should always adapt and advance our security measures, but we must go on.

In the aftermath of the Beirut attacks, Congress was outraged—at the terrorists—at the people who brutally ended the lives of so many. A thorough investigation followed, and the resulting report identified specific weaknesses in our defense. Our security tactics evolved as a result and Americans were safer. And the episode was over. No subpoenas. No endless hearings and briefings. No political cudgel to hold over the opposition party throughout midterm elections. Instead, there was a resolution.

My advice to Congress is this: We mourn, we investigate, we improve; but then we move forward. We must—otherwise our enemies succeed by keeping us stuck in the past.

Life is a {Structurally Deficient} Highway: Replenishing the Highway Trust Fund

Photo by Randy Heinitz. License here.

On July 15, 2014, Congress passed an emergency funding measure for the Highway Trust Fund (HTF), ensuring that current summer construction projects can continue past the August deadline. This short-term solution will sustain the HTF for now, but Congress and the White House will need to work together to pass more secure legislation. The condition of our nation’s highways is declining rapidly, and the timely upkeep of our roads is extremely important for our safety and economic security.

Why should we care about the HTF? The HTF was created in 1956 as a way to federally finance the growing system of interstate highways. While state and local governments are responsible for roads within their municipal boundaries, interstate highways pass through several state borders. The HTF was designed to provide funding for these multi-state roadways. The HTF is mostly funded by gasoline taxes, but the gasoline tax has not been raised since the 1990s. As vehicles become more efficient, gasoline tax revenues will continue to decrease precipitously.

A report by the American Society of Civil Engineers states: “The Congressional Budget Office sees the crisis worsening when considering newly proposed fuel economy standards that will lower fuel tax revenues by an additional 21% by 2040. Such a decrease would result in a $57 billion drop in the Highway Trust Fund between 2012 and 2022.” If funding for the HTF continues to be sustained by the gasoline tax, the tax needs to be raised to reflect improving fuel efficiency.

Why is Congress involved with highway maintenance? In Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, it says: “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States”. Congress has the power to tax, in part to create and maintain the country’s infrastructure including roads, bridges, dams, public transportation, energy, levees, drinking water, railroads, ports and waste management. These public goods are necessary for our communities to thrive and grow.

Public goods are unique in economics because their value cannot be calculated by the cost of implementation. Instead, public goods have value because of what would happen if they were not in place. For example, a system for cleaning drinking water is valuable because of the diseases we avoid by investing in good water filtration. If the elements of our infrastructure are not maintained appropriately, society suffers. The Constitution states that Congress has a duty to protect the “general Welfare of the United States” and that includes the maintenance of interstate roads. Poor interstate roads can negatively affect commerce among states. If goods cannot be shipped safely or quickly between states, the national economy will deflate.

Some conservative groups argue that states should be left with control over highway repairs, as they were before the HTF was created. If funding of road repairs was left to the individual states, however, poorer states may not be able to fix their roads, making it difficult or even impossible to bring goods into those states. Because state economies are so different, the federal government needs to even out the disparities and ensure that each state has the same opportunity to participate in the national economy.

Are our roads really that bad? Short answer: yes! The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) produces an annual report card for America’s infrastructure. In ASCE’s 2013 report, America’s roads are given a D grade, meaning our roads are at risk. Specifically, a D grade means “the infrastructure is in poor to fair condition and mostly below standard, with many elements approaching the end of their service life.” The report goes on to state that 32% of American roadways are structurally deficient, which costs U.S. motorists “$67 billion a year, or $324 per motorist, in additional repairs and operating costs”.  Data about the safety of our bridges isn’t much better: one in nine American bridges were considered structurally deficient in 2012. In five states, at least 20% of bridges are in poor condition; while in the nation’s capitol, a whopping 77% of bridges are considered either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.

While the latest bill will sustain the HTF short-term, our highways still need help. Ideas for a long-term solution for funding highway maintenance, like raising the gasoline tax, are necessary—not just for our safety on the road, but for our national economy too. Congress, let’s make sure we can still get our kicks on Route 66 by securing a bright future for the Highway Trust Fund!

Explore ASCE’s latest Infrastructure Report Card here.

A Welfare Experiment: Paul Ryan’s Opportunity Grant

Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI)

Representative Paul Ryan released a new discussion draft through the House Budget Committee called “Expanding Opportunity in America”. This expansive paper focuses on plans to combat poverty by tackling several areas: welfare programs, tax code, public education, criminal justice and regulatory reform. Some of the ideas are more original than others, but the most interesting by far is Ryan’s “Opportunity Grant”. The Opportunity Grant strives to reform the welfare system by letting the states experiment on welfare programs—and, hopefully, simplify them.

The welfare system in America is pretty complicated. There are no fewer than 11 different safety net programs and despite good intentions, the cumbersome rules and forms sometimes make the system confusing and even ineffective. If a family is in need of government assistance, they must research and determine their eligibility for any of the following programs:

1. Negative income tax (EITC and child tax credit)
2. Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program
3. Housing Assistance (Help finding affordable housing and paying rent)
4. Supplemental Security Income for the disabled, blind or elderly
5. Pell Grants (Money for students to help with room and board)
6. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
7. Job Training (Employment support)
8. WIC (Nutrition for pregnant women, nursing moms, and children under 5)
9. Child care and after school programs
10. Low Income Home Energy Assistance (Help to heat or cool a home)
11. Lifeline (Phone subsidy, including cell phones)

Navigating all of these programs takes considerable effort and many people who are struggling just don’t have the time. Paul Ryan’s Opportunity Grant proposal would simply this system by allowing states to consolidate all federal welfare funds through one state office. This way benefits can be coordinated on the federal, state, and community level. After meeting with a welfare provider of their choice, low-income families would receive a single payment based on their specific needs.

The Opportunity Grant provides flexibility first and foremost. Poverty takes on so many different forms, from temporary assistance to long-term disability, that solutions must be adaptable. States can experiment with a system that can cater to specific situations. Case management, for example, can make social services so much more effective because the solution is based on the individual’s needs. This type of system would avoid the “one-size-fits-all approach” by customizing each aspect of the process. In the discussion draft, Ryan outlines a situation where this responsiveness would be important:

“For example, it makes little sense to provide a household with a consistent stream of SNAP benefits when what the household may need most is reliable transportation to and from work. Giving providers this kind of flexibility will allow them to intervene early on with targeted benefits in cases where short-term assistance can prevent someone from falling into deeper poverty.”

At first, Opportunity Grant would only be open to a test group of states. In order to protect the needs of low-income families and individuals, participating states will be required to follow several criteria: (1) Each state has to spend the federal money on people in need; (2) Welfare recipients must follow work requirements; (3) States should have to use at least two different providers so that the state social welfare office would not be overworked; and (4) There must be a third party observer (other than the state or federal government) to monitor progress. Within these parameters, states would be free to experiment and create a new organization.

The main goal of the Opportunity Grant is to gather research from each of the participating states and use that information to find an approach to welfare that can be used nationwide. This type of experimentation is not new. In 2006, the state of Massachusetts passed a health reform law with the goal of universal health care coverage. The law was unique because of its idea of health care exchanges, set up to facilitate the purchase of insurance policies throughout the state. In this case, state experimentation in Massachusetts influenced how the federal government approached health care reform. When Congress passed the Affordable Care Act, the 2010 health care reform bill borrowed this idea of health care exchanges.

Experimentation within the states is necessary for progress. Justice Louis D. Brandeis famously called states “laboratories for democracy”, meaning that the states are often better equipped to find solutions for policy challenges. Because the federal government is so large and cumbersome, it is much easier for states to do the bulk of political discovery. If five states participate in the Opportunity Grant program, there will be five different proposals for welfare reform and five sets of data showing the effectiveness of each system. This wealth of information can inform members of Congress. Instead of using untested theories to reform welfare, legislators can make informed decisions.

You can read Paul Ryan’s whole proposal here.

After you do, make sure to contact the House Budget Committee and let them know what you think: ExpandingOpportunity@mail.house.gov

Impeachment: What does a president have to do?

On Tuesday, July 8, 2014, Sarah Palin wrote an op-ed where she called for President Obama’s impeachment. Palin stated that the “unsecured border crisis” is the last straw “that makes the battered wife say ‘no mas’”. She is not the only conservative who has called for Obama’s impeachment. This political threat is a fairly common one. Democrats repeatedly called for President George W. Bush to be impeached when “weapons of mass destruction” were not found in Iraq.

But what does a president actually have to do to be impeached? In Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution, the standards of impeachment are outlined simply:

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

The Constitution only outlines two specific crimes for which impeachment would be appropriate: treason and bribery. Other than those two, the door is left fairly wide open. The phrase “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” is a holdover from British laws of impeachment, where leaders could be impeached for criminal or noncriminal activity that proved the president was abandoning his duty. Essentially, impeachment is reserved for the most serious cases of neglect. In fact, Congress has only seriously discussed impeachment four times.

I.               President Andrew Johnson was actually impeached by Congress because many representatives were dissatisfied with how he was handling the country after Lincoln’s assassination. Radical conservatives in the House accused him of violating the Tenure of Office Act by dismissing the Secretary of War, Edwin Staunton. Johnson was tried by the Senate, but he was finally acquitted by one vote.

II.             After President Harrison’s death, John Tyler gained the presidency and insisted on full executive powers. He vetoed several laws establishing a national bank on the grounds of state’s rights. As a result, Whigs in the House introduced a resolution of impeachment, but the resolution failed.

III.           President Richard Nixon was first elected in 1968. He won his reelection campaign in 1972, but soon afterwards, allegations surfaced that officials from his reelection campaign had participated in a break-in at the Democratic National Offices in the Watergate Hotel. This episode became known as the Watergate scandal. Congress began debating his impeachment, but Nixon resigned before he could be formally impeached.

IV.           After his reelection in 1996, Bill Clinton became the second president to be impeached by the House of Representatives as a result of an inappropriate relationship with a female intern. He was tried in the Senate and found not guilty. He apologized to the nation for his actions and was able to finish his second term.

Throughout our country’s history, the House of Representatives has only successfully filed for impeachment twice. In both of those instances, the Senate trial has found both of those presidents not guilty. This congressional power has not been used often and with good reason. In order for a president (or another executive officer) to be impeached, the measure would require majority support in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. When impeachment is used as a political threat, there usually isn’t enough consensus among politicians to go through with a successful impeachment trial.

Regarding Sarah Palin’s recent call for President Obama’s impeachment, most congressional conservatives are not on board. Senator John McCain—who is essentially responsible for Palin’s status as a politico after tapping her as his running mate in 2008—said that while he “respects” Palin’s views, her comments could actually hurt Republicans’ chances for winning Senate seats this fall. John Boehner also spoke out against impeachment, even after he filed a lawsuit against Obama. Besides lacking support among Republicans in Congress, Palin’s aggressive tactic would most likely fail because Democrats currently hold the majority in the Senate. Even if Republicans in the House managed to issue a resolution of impeachment, the Senate would certainly acquit President Obama.

In a nutshell, impeachment will never be successful if the arguments against a president fall along strict party lines. If the reasons for impeachment are political, and not the result of criminal neglect as established in the Constitution, it will never happen. Instead of talking impeachment, let’s start researching Senate candidates for the upcoming election—and make a serious political impact. 

Does Rep. Eric Cantor’s loss mean that compromise is dead?

Cooperation is bad for reelection.

On June 10, Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House Majority Leader (the second-highest ranking Republican in the House of Representatives) lost the Republican primary in his district. He lost to David Brat, an Economics professor, who ran an impressive campaign. I had never heard of him, so I decided to look at his website. In one section, titled “ Reforming Washington”, it lists the usual reasons for ousting an incumbent representative—they’ve lost touch with their constituents, they’ve become part of the problem, etc. etc.

Image from David Brat's campaign website.

But then he goes for the jugular—“Cantor’s ‘leadership’ has been characterized by capitulation to the Obama agenda”. The top of the page features a picture of President Obama and Rep. Cantor talking, surrounded by people, presumably after a State of the Union or other Capitol event. At what point did talking to the President of the United States, let alone allowing yourself to be photographed doing so, become equal to a betrayal of the worst kind? Seriously? Heaven forbid coworkers should exchange a few words after a long day. Don’t we want our congressmen and women talking to each other? Being friendly? Getting things done? I certainly do.

In the Cantor/Brat campaign “amnesty” for illegal immigrants became the dirty word. David Brat claimed that Cantor was the biggest Republican supporter of amnesty. This assertion was a reaction to an interview Cantor gave where he said: “I have told the president, there are some things we can work on together…We can work on the border security bill together, we can work on something like the kids. So far, the president has just insisted that it’s all or nothing — my way or the highway. That’s not going to happen.”

Fundamentally, Cantor rejected most of President Obama’s plans for immigration reform. In terms of policy, Cantor stayed within the conservative camp. Instead of attacking Cantor’s policies, Brat was actually villainizing Cantor’s willingness to even consider cooperating with Democrats on immigration. That was Cantor’s “weakness”. Unfortunately, Brat isn’t alone in using this campaign tactic. Republican challengers across the country, for example, have accused incumbents of being “RINO”s or “Republicans in Name Only”, implying that these politicians have abandoned conservative ideals and started working with Democrats.

What is with this compromise-shaming tactic during election campaigns? It needs to stop. Our whole system of government is built on compromise. The Constitution itself reinforces the need for coalitions and cooperation. Our founding fathers were terrified of factions controlling the government. In the Federalist Essay No. 10, James Madison defines a faction thus: “By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.” In short, a faction is a group with strong opinions that are adverse to (or opposite) the views and rights of the rest of the population. James Madison argued that factions contribute to distrust in public institutions and are a danger to personal liberty.

Madison goes on to argue that there are only two ways to control factions: either remove their causes or control their effects. Removing the causes of factions would be impossible because we can neither deny freedom of thought or opinion nor force citizens to share the same ideas. We are left with only one solution—controlling the effects of factions in government through checks and balances.

The whole reason checks and balances exist between branches of the federal government, and even within the branches themselves, is to prevent one faction from controlling the whole process of legislation. If any big piece of legislation passes, it has to be a result of cooperation between political parties. The Constitution requires Congress to have a majority to pass legislation. Often, even if a party has a majority in House of Representatives, it probably won’t have a majority in the Senate. Each law passed by both houses of Congress then needs to be signed by the President. If one party monopolizes both houses of Congress, a different party may occupy the White House. If an unconstitutional law happens to get through both the legislative and executive branches, the Supreme Court can strike it down. Our Constitution is quite effective at forcing collaboration—and cooperation is necessary in order for the government to work well.

There is a glaring double standard here. As voters, we get mad when a party single-handedly rams legislation through the system without the other party’s support—but then we get mad when our members of Congress compromise with the other party to get things done, as if compromise were a betrayal of principles. Where is the balance? We need our legislators to be friendly with each other. We need them to work together and get things done. Please stop shaming members of Congress every time they dare talk to the person sitting next to them—even if they are from the other political party.