"The truth, always the truth--at all costs"
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| 8483 01/31/2010 U.S. political system unable to take big bites out of big problems? Ronald Brownstein |
| http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/politicalconnections.php [National Journal] Pain On The Installment Plan The political system no longer seems able to take big bites out of big problems. Saturday, Jan. 30, 2010 by Ronald Brownstein From every angle, President Obama's first year has catalogued the costs of attempting to impose ambitious change. As a result, Americans may be compelled in 2010 to consider the costs of maintaining the status quo. Obama notched some major legislative victories in 2009, from his vast stimulus plan to expanded children's health insurance to long-delayed tobacco regulation. On several fronts, he built alliances with business interests that have usually opposed Democrats. But the president delivered his first State of the Union address on Wednesday amid a growing sense in Washington that he has already hit his legislative high point. An unchastened financial services industry has fought him to a Senate standstill on regulatory reform. Monolithic Republican opposition has his health care plan on life support. This week, the Senate rejected a plan to set up a commission, which he belatedly endorsed, to tackle the mounting federal debt. Obama was unbowed on Wednesday, at times even defiant. But the scale of the speech's ambitions seemed to acknowledge his diminished circumstances. Although he urged Congress to complete his unfinished business from 2009, his new initiatives were more tempered: bite-sized (though creative) proposals to economically bolster the middle class, a modest jobs plan, and a freeze on nondefense discretionary federal spending. That may be the most rational way for Obama to try to recover political strength at a time when his approval rating has tumbled, Democratic anxieties about the midterm elections are cresting, and perpetual Republican filibuster threats require 60 Senate votes to accomplish virtually anything. But Obama also pointedly challenged both parties in Congress to make progress by rising above familiar divisions. If they refuse, it will be more evidence that Washington's arteries are hardening. This problem transcends individual issues or particular presidents. Unrelenting partisan polarization, constant filibuster threats, public distrust of government, shallow media coverage -- pick the cause. However blame is assigned, the effect is undeniable: Washington has grown increasingly incapable of producing solutions commensurate with our challenges. The short-term pain of change is resigning us to accepting a status quo that imposes even more pain on the installment plan. The real loser is America's capacity for renewal. That risk is most apparent on health care. Through the long, sometimes grimy, congressional debate, public support for the legislation crumbled, largely because Americans concluded that the bill would alter the system too much. But failing to act will also bring unpleasant change. Medicare's official actuary recently forecast that under current policies the number of uninsured Americans will soar from about 46 million now to 57 million by 2019, even as total health care spending by government, business, and individuals increases by 77 percent. "People have to start remembering that the status quo on health care is really ugly looking," says Paul Ginsburg, president of the nonpartisan Center for Studying Health System Change. The same advice applies on energy and climate change. The Senate appears deadlocked on legislation limiting greenhouse-gas emissions and promoting renewable energy, two steps that could also help reduce dependence on foreign oil. But federal analysts estimate that under current policies the United States will still rely on imports for nearly half of its oil in 25 years and will continue to belch ever-increasing amounts of greenhouse gases, compounding the risk of disruptive climate change. Without strong intervention, the deficit and debt trajectory could prove disruptive even sooner. Washington's debt load peaked just after World War II, when the accumulated red ink equaled 110 percent of our annual economic product. Today, the federal debt totals just over half that percentage. But one credible recent analysis projected that without a change in course, we could exceed the previous high before 2030 -- and nearly triple it by 2050. Both substantively and politically, all of these challenges require integrated responses. It is easier to impose cost controls on doctors and hospitals, for instance, when an expansion of coverage simultaneously provides them with more paying customers. The only way to pass spending reductions and tax increases sufficient to dent the debt is to yoke them together. Each party must accept some of the other's priorities to advance its own. Obama might seem the major loser if Washington remains stalemated on these issues or must settle for piecemeal gestures. But if the political system can no longer formulate enough consensus to take big bites out of big problems, the real loser is America's capacity for renewal. On the nation's toughest challenges, inaction could be the most decisive, and destructive, action of all. |
