Pres. Barack Obama should learn from his tumultuous struggle to drag his “stimulus” measure through Congress. Rather than let House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid craft major bills, Obama should offer specific proposals and have his allies push them toward adoption.
So far, he has employed the legislative strategy that sank George W. Bush. From farm subsidies to highway funds to Sarbanes-Oxley financial regulation to last fall’s $700 billion bank-bailout fiasco, Bush passively let Congress write major bills instead of actively drafting them at the White House and asking sympathetic lawmakers to shepherd them to passage.
Like a king who signed whatever document shared the silver platter with his roast hasenpfeffer, Bush approved everything the GOP Congress sent him for six years. His Social Security reform flopped partially because he never advanced his own plan, and gelatinous GOP congressional leaders were too busy quivering to do so. Bush vetoed nothing until 2007. Congress pushed legislation his way, rarely the reverse.
Obama should avoid this mistake. As Ronald Reagan usually did, Obama should design his own proposals, select congressional allies to introduce them, and then harness his 65 percent percent popularity and abundant persuasive talents to propel them as nearly intact as possible through a Congress saddled with a 20 percent approval rating.
“We believe that had [Obama] had free rein and a free hand in crafting this legislation, it would look a lot different,” Rep. Jeff Flake (R., Ariz.) told the Washington Times January 27. “But because it’s gone through the congressional Democrats, it’s basically a grab bag for every program they’ve wanted to see funded for years.”
Capitol Hill is the North Pole as this $1.3 trillion bill becomes a visit from St. Nick. Consider some of the details, as described in news accounts and summarized by the House Republican Study Committee:
‐$88 million for a new polar icebreaker for the Coast Guard.
‐$400 million for NASA to research so-called global warming.
‐$400 million for the Social Security Administration’s National Computer Center. “An estimated 400 jobs will be created during the construction process,” boasted House appropriators. Cost per job: $1 million.
‐The State Department’s $524 million Capital Investment Fund would create 388 positions. “That comes to $1.35 million per job,” said Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell.
‐$600 million to train doctors and nurses as “a key component of attaining universal health care,” House appropriators said.
‐$650 million for digital-TV conversion coupons. At $40 each, why not tell Americans to suck it up and fund this themselves? Sacrificing $1 per day accumulates the needed money within six weeks.
‐$800 million for biomass projects.
‐$2 billion for a near-zero-emissions electrical plant in Matoon, Ill.
‐$2.4 billion for carbon-sequestration technology.
‐$15.6 billion in Pell Grants to aid college students.
‐According to January 28’s Wall Street Journal, “dairy and beef cattle producers butted heads over talk that the government might buy up dairy cattle for slaughter to drive up depressed milk prices.”
And there is much more.
Rep. Jim Cooper on February 2 let Liberadio peek inside Pelosi’s toy workshop: “The Obama folks . . . know it’s a messy bill, and they wanted a clean bill,” the Tennessee Democrat said. “I got into trouble with our leadership because they don’t care what’s in the bill, they just want it to pass, and they want it to be unanimous.” Cooper added: “If [only] members actually had to read the bills and figure out whether they are any good or not. We’re just told how to vote. We’re treated like mushrooms most of the time.”
Cooper, ten other Democrats, and all House Republicans voted “No.” The bill still passed, 244 to 188.
“Would Obama have been better off in avoiding Reid and Pelosi in attempting to sell this package to the public? Absolutely,” says Pete Sepp, the National Taxpayers Union’s vice president for policy and communications. “There’s a litany of projects–some Obama supports, and others he might not–that have nothing to do with stimulus in the package, such as funding for a new Department of Homeland Security headquarters, and another $1 billion for the 2010 Census. Had Obama stuck to his guns, he might have had a cleaner bill, which, while flawed, would not have exposed the stimulus plan to the ridicule it’s getting now (even from some Democratic senators).”
Sepp also believes keeping the congressional leaders on short leashes would have helped Obama on the tax front.
“Without Reid and Pelosi looking over his shoulder, Obama could have made more constructive tax proposals on his own,” Seep adds. “He was already headed toward some kind of compromise on keeping the capital-gains tax rate low, for example. Pelosi and Reid are rabidly against that. Now, Congress is boxing him in.”
About the best that free-marketeers can expect here is modest, stimulating business-tax relief, perhaps tax credits for new hiring, and outlays to repair damaged infrastructure. Why not give the states block grants they can spend only to fix at-risk thoroughfares? Repairs should prevent disasters like the Aug. 1, 2007, Minneapolis bridge collapse that killed 13 people and injured some 140.
President Obama has the gravitas and goodwill to provide the adult supervision that this bill and future legislation require. While the results rarely will thrill free-marketeers, we lost the last election and must play a weak hand. Our best bet is to encourage Obama to buckle up Pelosi and Reid and adopt as many of our ideas as bipartisanship permits. With Obama driving and Nancy and Harry riding along, a smoother journey should lead us to a better destination.