No rest for the wary. Fearful of facing constituents with nothing but months of intra-party wrangling to offer, Senate Republicans decided not to adjourn for the usual full month of August and are staying in steamy Washington for an extra two weeks. Having been shouted down by angry constituents during the Fourth of July recess as they tried to explain why the legislative cupboard is bare, they have decided to try to achieve something before leaving the relative safety of their Senate offices.
After seven years of promising to repeal and replace Obamacare, and passing bills they knew President Obama would veto, they have managed to leave that statute unrepealed and unreplaced. After promising to reform the hideously distorted tax code, a Republican Congress and a Republican president have left it unreformed. After promising tax cuts for the middle class, Republicans in control of both houses of Congress and the White House have left those rates uncut. After promising an infrastructure programme to heat up tepid economic growth, congressional Republicans haven’t worked out even the outline of such a programme.
“Republicans could pass legislation if they were united. Which they aren’t
No wonder they prefer cowering in their offices to explaining these serial failures to voters. In 1948 Harry Truman fooled the pollsters and won re-election by attacking the “do-nothing” Republican Congress. Democrats are dusting off that old charge as they take advantage of the summer recess to visit constituents while their opponents are stuck in Washington.
The Republicans have two excuses. The first is that Democrats have played the role of obstructionist — the same role Republicans played when Obama was in the Oval Office, but with a difference. Republicans disliked both Obama’s progressive policies and his haughty, off-putting demeanour. But Democrats despise President Trump and can’t wait until 2020 to unseat him; they want to be rid of him sooner. Two members of the House of Representatives have introduced an impeachment resolution while Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, the Democrats’ 2016 vice-presidential candidate, shouts “treason” because Donald Trump Jr stupidly met a Russian lawyer with alleged links to the Kremlin in pursuit of “dirt” on Hillary Clinton.
The virulence of the anti-Trump campaign means that it is toxic for any Democrats in the House or Senate to co-operate with Republicans in passing legislation, even though Democrats know that:
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● Unless changes are made to Obamacare, millions will find it difficult and costly to obtain health insurance
● Unless the tax code is reformed, companies will find overseas venues attractive
● Unless an infrastructure programme gets going, roads, bridges and airports will retain their Third-World quality.
Still, Republicans could pass legislation and get it onto the president’s desk for signature if they were united. Which they aren’t. And if they were good at communicating with the American people. Which they aren’t. In the case of healthcare, Democrats accuse them of cutting Medicaid, a programme originally aimed at the poor but since expanded to cover the non-poor. Between 2000 and 2017 the number of people covered more than doubled, rising from 35m to 75m, although the incidence of neither poverty nor illness rose at close to that rate. Almost half of all births in America are paid for by Medicaid, which devours about 10% of the federal budget. And rising.
George Orwell had it right when he said language can corrupt thought. The “cuts” Republicans are accused of wanting to institute are nothing of the sort. They are reductions in the rate of increase in that programme’s runaway cost. It is as if a family had gathered round the kitchen table to decide how to bring its spending into line with its means — and agreed to solve the problem by increasing its spending, but by less than the year before.
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The second excuse the Republicans have for their failure to put any significant legislation on the books is a reasonable one — the areas they have targeted are extraordinarily difficult ones. Healthcare, of course, affects the lives of millions and Obama won a durable victory when he persuaded voters that people with pre-existing medical conditions are entitled to insurance at reasonable rates. Subsidies to make that possible can come from only one of two places. Either healthy young people must be forced to pay over the odds for their coverage, or taxes must rise to make up the shortfall between the real cost of insuring sick people and what insurers will be allowed to charge. Neither alternative is attractive to a majority of legislators.
Tax cuts are more attractive, but revenue to fill the gap — these rate reductions are never entirely self-funding from increased growth — must be found somewhere. If repeal and replacement of Obamacare is not to provide the anticipated $1 trillion in savings over 10 years, some voters’ benefits must be reduced. Volunteers for such pain are not lining up.
Both parties agree on one thing — spending more on infrastructure: all politicians want a bridge or airport named after them. Or at least a repaired street. But Democrats want to pay for this by running larger deficits and Republicans by user fees paid to private-sector builders. Result: no infrastructure programme, at least not this year.
It has been 50 years since Promises, Promises lit up the Broadway stage. Its message remains relevant. “I’m all through with promises, promises now . . . Promises can just destroy a life.”
Or a political career.
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Irwin Stelzer is a business adviser